A Realist Foundation for Essentially Contested Political Concepts

Abstract

BELIEF continues to pervade academic life, at least officially, that reasoned arguments concerning the great political issues can persuade opponents. Unofficially, however, there seems to be a growing sentiment since the Enlightenment that without shared political and social values, specific arguments about democracy, justice, or liberty are bound to end, at best, in a mutual shrugging of shoulders. Each party's specific insights, according to this view, can only be appreciated by those sharing the value-laden conception on which those insights depend. Consider the notion of freedom. Nearly everyone would agree that being bound and gagged in a closet represents a loss of freedom. Paradigmatic examples like these reassure us that discussions of this notion are not empty exercises trading in homophonies. Yet is a worker with relatively few or very unappealing job opportunities truly free? What about the woman who agrees to become a surrogate mother out of economic necessity? Is a citizen politically free who does not vote due to lack of information, apathy, cumbersome registration procedures, or dejection? Apparently, differing answers to these questions reflect not merely different definitions of freedom but different values. We all know how the