Abstract
This paper explores two different versions of ‘the realist turn’ in recent political theory. It begins by setting out two principal realist criticisms of liberal moralism: that it is both descriptively and normatively inadequate. It then pursues the second criticism by arguing that there are two fundamentally different responses among realists to the alleged normative inadequacy of ideal theory. First, prescriptive realists argue that the aim of realism is to make political theory more normatively adequate by making it more realistic. Interpretative realists, on the other hand, argue that realist theorising should detach itself from such an aspiration, and instead aim at theoretical understanding rather than normative prescription. After some further elaboration of what interpretative realism might look like, it is acknowledged that both approaches still need to address the question of political normativity.
Highlights
This paper explores two different versions of ‘the realist turn’ in recent political theory
One of the great pleasures offered by watching the American TV series, The West Wing, is that it presents a picture of political life as reasonably close to how many ordinary people, especially those who are moderately left-leaning, would like it to be
But even normative political theory surely needs to be firmly rooted in an understanding of human experience and political possibility that is genuinely plausible, if it is to have something serious to say about politics, as we know it
Summary
This paper explores two different versions of ‘the realist turn’ in recent political theory. From the point of view of political theorists, there are no doubt a number of interesting features of the public discussion of this question, but I want to note only one: this is the fact that the most famous theory of distributive justice of the last fifty years was styled by its author as ‘justice as fairness’, one will search long and hard to find any reference, even implicitly, to Rawls’s ideas in the endless pages devoted to the coalition policies, not merely in the tabloids and in the ‘quality’ press and more upmarket magazines.
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