Distinctively Political Normativity in Political Realism: Unattractive or Redundant.
Political realists' rejection of the so-called 'ethics first' approach of political moralists (mainstream liberals), has raised concerns about their own source of normativity. Some realists have responded to such concerns by theorizing a distinctively political normativity. According to this view, p...
| Published in: | Ethical Theory & Moral Practice Vol. 25; no. 3; pp. 433 - 448 |
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| Main Authors: | , |
| Format: | Article |
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Springer Nature
Jul2022
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=158815506&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 158815506 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 13862820 OEY jtl: Ethical Theory & Moral Practice issn: 13862820 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Jul2022 vid: 25 iid: 3 pid: 237 pub: Springer Nature artinfo: ui: 158815506 10.1007/s10677-021-10182-8 ppf: 433 ppct: 15 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 329KB tig: atl: Distinctively Political Normativity in Political Realism: Unattractive or Redundant. aug: au: Erman, Eva Möller, Niklas affil: Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden su: Political systems Normativity (Ethics) Political realism Ethicists Liberals sug: subj: Political systems Normativity (Ethics) Political realism Ethicists Liberals keyword: Instrumental normativity Political moralism Political normativity ab: Political realists' rejection of the so-called 'ethics first' approach of political moralists (mainstream liberals), has raised concerns about their own source of normativity. Some realists have responded to such concerns by theorizing a distinctively political normativity. According to this view, politics is seen as an autonomous, independent domain with its own evaluative standards. Therefore, it is in this source, rather than in some moral values 'outside' of this domain, that normative justification should be sought when theorizing justice, democracy, political legitimacy, and the like. For realists the question about a distinctively political normativity is important, because they take the fact that politics is a distinct affair to have severe consequences for both how to approach the subject matter as such and for which principles and values can be justified. Still, realists have had a hard time clarifying what this distinctively political normativity consists of and why, more precisely, it matters. The aim of this paper is to take some further steps in answering these questions. We argue that realists have the choice of committing themselves to one of two coherent notions of distinctively political normativity: one that is independent of moral values, where political normativity is taken to be a kind of instrumental normativity; another where the distinctness still retains a justificatory dependence on moral values. We argue that the former notion is unattractive since the costs of commitment will be too high (first claim), and that the latter notion is sound but redundant since no moralist would ever reject it (second claim). Furthermore, we end the paper by discussing what we see as the most fruitful way of approaching political and moral normativity in political theory. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Ethical Theory & Moral Practice is a copyright of Springer, 2022. All Rights Reserved. item: Ethical Theory & Moral Practice holder: Springer Nature dt: @attributes: year: 2022 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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