Pragmatism, Realism and Moralism

Abstract

Pragmatism is often seen as an unpolitical doctrine. This article argues that it shares important commitments with realist political theory, which stresses the distinctive character of the political and the difficulty of viewing political theory simply as applied ethics, and that many of its key arguments support realism. Having outlined the elective affinities between realism and pragmatism, the article goes on to consider this relationship by looking at two recent elaborations of a pragmatist argument in contemporary political theory, which pull in different directions, depending on the use to which a pragmatist account of doxastic commitments is put. In one version, the argument finds in these commitments a set of pre-political principles, of the sort that realists reject. In the other version, the account given of these commitments more closely tracks the concerns of realists and tries to dispense with the need for knowledge of such principles.