Rationality in Politics and its Limits

Terry Nardin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781317376415
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The word 'rationality' and its cognates, like 'reason', have multiple contexts and connotations. Rational calculation can be contrasted with rational interpretation. There is the rationality of proof and of persuasion, of tradition and of the criticism of tradition. Rationalism (and rationalists) can be reasonable or unreasonable. Reason is sometimes distinguished from revelation, superstition, convention, prejudice, emotion, and chance, but all of these also involve reasoning. In politics, three views of rationality – economic, moral, and historical – have been especially important, often defining approaches to politics and political theory such as utilitarianism and rational choice theory. These approaches privilege positive or natural law, responsibilities, or human rights, and emphasize the importance of culture and tradition, and therefore meaning and context.

This book explores the understanding of rationality in politics and the relations between different approaches to rationality. Among the topics considered are the limits of rationality, the role of imagination and emotion in politics, the meaning of political realism, the nature of political judgment, and the relationship between theory and practice. This book was originally published as a special issue of Global Discourse.

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Political philosophy and the attraction of realism

Paul Kelly

Department of Government, London School of Economics, London, UK

The progressive abstraction and professionalisation of political philosophy over the last few decades has invited a ‘realist’ backlash. This turn to realism has been promoted and defended by various philosophers for a variety of reasons. This article distinguishes the components of the realist challenge to contemporary normative political theory by contrasting the typology of realist theories developed by Michael Doyle with another set out by Raymond Geuss. The resulting categorisation of ‘realisms’ allows for an indirect critique of a univocal realist challenge to normative political philosophy because many of the claims upon which these ‘realisms’ rely are as abstract and theory-laden as the position they challenge.

In what follows, I want to examine the challenge of realism, but I want to do this by exploring the pathology of realism amongst political philosophers. In taking this line I am primarily interested in diagnosing the problem of realism rather than seeking to challenge, correct or cure it. Although I retain a constitutional sympathy for the activity that the realists reject, and puzzlement at the attractions of the realist’s position, my point in this paper is to try and set out what that challenge is. In effect I am concerned with laying out the structure of the realist position. This enterprise, I take to be a first step to an answer to the realist’s critical challenge.

Political philosophy and the problem of realism

The charge that political philosophy is either insufficiently realistic and should be abandoned or else transformed is an increasingly familiar one.¹ And as has been said, this call to realism is a difficult challenge to gainsay.² Who could possibly disagree with realism? Well of course, the right response is that it depends upon what the reference to realism involves. Is it a metaphysical claim about the nature and ontology of values? Or is it a practical claim about the character and object of enquiry? What political theory does not have, but which its sister sub-discipline of international relations does, is a clear target in the form of realism. Apart from its very early years, when international relations was more akin to what is now often practiced as Peace Studies, the subject has functioned with an idea of realism as its default position. The type of realism deployed in international relations has varied from classical to neo-realist positions and has drawn on classical political theories, such as those of Machiavelli or Hobbes, historical studies and more recently game theory and other formal models of political behaviour. Despite being the default position of international relations, realism and realist accounts of world politics have by no means been accepted as true. Much international relations theory, and all of what is now described at international political theory, has challenged the realist paradigm for explaining and justifying international action (see Brown 2002). But at least international relations have the advantage over political philosophy, in possessing some clear sense of what the virtues or problem of realism is. Political philosophers do not have a clear default position or common enemy when confronting the realist challenge. Political scientists might challenge political philosophy with being unrealistic or idealistic, but that is not really the point. Those who claim that political philosophy has some kind of realism deficit are not arguing that it should be replaced by a more empirically rooted political science, or if that is the case, they tend to disguise the claim. For philosophers such as Geuss, it is pretty clear that positive political science fares no better than the supposedly applied ethics approach of normative political philosophy. If John Rawls is the problem, then it is pretty clear that Norman Schofield, Ken Shepsle, Gary King or Adam Przeworski do not offer the solution.

The perspective of international relations is different from that of political philosophy. In the former the nature and problem of realism is at the heart of the subject, whereas for political philosophy it is much less clear what the issue of realism is, and whether the many references to it actually have a common referent. A system of mutually antagonistic states with discrete interests competing for advantage over scarce resources explains why the realist’s default position in international relations is one of pervasive conflict or the permanent threat of war. It would be a considerable stretch of the imagination to claim that many serious political scientists believe that the background condition of politics is similarly one of persistent mortal conflict. Yet is this what is being claimed by political philosophers who have fallen under the spell of realism?

One of the propositions I want to defend is that there is a surprising similarity between the claims of many classical realists in international relations and those of at least some realists in political philosophy. The one obvious difference is the absence of a states system as the main object of enquiry, but perhaps even that seemingly significant difference can be finessed. As we shall see, the idea of ‘modus vivendi’ does extend a similar view of group conflict and hostility into the realm of political compromise and the justification of norms. I do not intend to claim that there is a causal connection between classical realist theories in international relations and the appeal to realism in political philosophy, although I suspect that such a case could be made. An adequate history of British political thought in the twentieth century would explore the connections between a generation of philosophers, such as Stuart Hampshire and Isaiah Berlin, whose experience of the breakdown of appeasement in the interwar period parallels that of critics of the idealism of interwar international relations, such as E.H. Carr. The relations are complex and indirect, but they nevertheless have a bearing on the culture of post-war moral and political philosophy and its self-understanding. What does seem to be the case is that the supposed attraction of realism in political philosophy is derivative of the attractions of realism in international relations at least in its British variant.

International relations theory provides many parallels and insights in discussing the challenge of realism in political philosophy, and those who are suspicious of the challenge of realism can also learn much from the debates about realism amongst international relations theorists. One such simple lesson concerns how one characterises the nature of realism. In his Ways of War and Peace, Michael Doyle (1997) characterises aspects of classical realism by referring to a number of great thinkers whose works are seen as archetypal statements of realism. Thus, he distinguishes complex or Thucydidean realism from fundamentalist Machiavellian and structuralist Hobbesian realism. He also develops a further category of constitutional realism associated with Rousseau. The point is that each approach brings to the fore certain dimensions as central to explaining the realist perspective. Hobbesian realism, for example, emphasises the structural context of interaction, whereas Machiavellian realism focuses attention on the nature and motives of the agent. The complex vision of Thucydides on the other hand intricately connects agents and structures in contingent historical contexts such that one cannot simply emphasise the primacy of agency or subordinate agency to the structure of interaction. Although designed to illuminate the problem of realism in international relations and drawing on thinkers who have very distinctive positions in the subject of international political thought, this sort of approach can illuminate what is at stake in the case of realism in political philosophy as well. The relevant thinkers might differ between the two approaches because there is no similar canonical status for these three thinkers in political philosophy: the canon is much larger and the relevant representatives would vary depending on their conception of the fundamental problems of politics. That said, there is also something to be said for a fundamentalist, a structuralist and a complex view as ways of characterising the problem of realism in political philosophy. Similarly, there is something to be said for Hobbes as the representative of the structuralist approach and Thucydides as the representative of a complex theory, though the fundamentalist view is perhaps better represented for my purposes by a combination of Nietzsche and Lenin than by Machiavelli.³ I will use these organising categories to explain and analyse what is claimed by various advocates of a realist approach to political philosophy. The political philosophers I want to explore under these headings are Raymond Geuss, John Gray and Bernard Williams, but I will also include Isaiah Berlin, even though he is a much more equivocal advocate of realism in political philosophy,⁴ simply because he is such an influence on Williams and Gray.

Fundamentalist realism: Nietzsche

There are two common features of the realist critique of political philosophy. The first is the claim that it is excessively moralistic, and the second is the widely shared commitment to the truth of value pluralism. Geuss, Gray and Williams all share the view that modern political philosophy is excessively moralistic. Berlin is perhaps an exception but even he shares their scepticism about political philosophy justifying a single unified moral vision and about the excessive defence and pursuit of ideals. Geuss is one of the more vocal critics of the narrowly ethical character of political philosophy, accusing it of attempting to collapse the realm of politics into a version of applied ethical theory.

‘Politics is applied ethics’ in the sense I find objectionable means that we start thinking about the human social world by trying to get what is sometimes called an ‘ideal theory’ of ethics. This approach assumes that there is, or could be, such as thing as a separate discipline called Ethics which has its own distinctive subject-matter and forms of argument, and which prescribes how humans should act toward one another. It further assumes that one can study this subject-matter without constantly locating it within the rest of human life…. (Geuss 2008, 6–7)

It is clear that the targets of this criticism are philosophers such as Rawls, who it is suggested collapses the diversity of politics into a single ethical concern for social or distributive justice. John Gray makes a similar point but suggests that modern liberal philosophers are in the thrall of legalism or the philosophy of law rather than of moralism as such. For Gray, philosophers such as Rawls and Ronald Dworkin see

political philosophy [as] a branch of the philosophy of law – the branch which concerns justice and fundamental rights. The goal of political philosophy is an ideal constitution, in principle universally applicable, which specified a fixed framework of basic liberties and human rights. This framework sets the terms – the only terms – on which different ways of life may coexist. (Gray 2000, 14)

Williams, like Geuss, is also a critic of the ‘moralism’ of liberalism and sees this as one of the fundamental flaws of contemporary political theory. That said, Geuss and Williams’ emphasis on moralism should not be seen to contradict Gray’s critique of the legalism of Rawls and Dworkin. For the conception of moralism or applied ethics as identified by Geuss and Williams is most closely associated with the legalist moral theory of Kant. Indeed it is primarily Kantian moralism that Geuss has in mind, and the same is true in the case of Williams.⁵ Gray’s charge of the excessive legalism of liberal theory is also closely related to the overtly Kantian style of Rawls’ political philosophy.

But a further and perhaps more important feature of the critique of moralism concerns the conception of moral practice that is involved. The common feature shared by Gray as well as Geuss and Williams is the legalistic character of morality. That conception of morality is shared by natural law theorists such as Locke and Pufendorf, as well as Kant and his modern followers, and it is to be contrasted with virtue ethics. For Williams, who is the most important critic of this conception of morality or what he calls the ‘peculiar institution’ echoing the American euphemism for slavery, morality is a distinctive historical practice that develops to replace the decline in an authentically religious conception of principles of social order. The core ideas of morality, such as responsibility, duty and obligation, are derived from an earlier Christian worldview, but are recast in a way that is supposed to save them from the collapse of the basic foundation of this worldview (Williams 1985). The problem with this worldview is the absence of an authoritative lawgiver. For Locke and Pufendorf the legalist conception of morality ultimately relies on the idea of an external lawgiver, namely God. But the epistemology that is supposed to vindicate this conception of a divine lawgiver actually undercuts it. Kant’s response is to seek an alternative basis for this legalist conception of morality in the nature of practical reason. Even arch opponents of Kantianism such as utilitarians, according to Williams, still employ as similar conception of morality based on obligation. The fundamental difference is merely their alternative naturalistic source of authority. What remains similar in both the cases is the legalist character of morality and the search for an authoritative source of obligation. Much contemporary moral philosophy (with the exception of that of a few sceptics such as Williams himself) consists of defending evermore sophisticated attempts to vindicate the legalist conception of morality in the face of the criticism of Kantian and utilitarian arguments. Much can be said for and against Williams’ particular arguments, but what is more difficult to pick apart in the way much moral philosophy proceeds is the underlying conception of morality itself. When the quest for an ultimate vindication is abandoned and replaced with an explanation of morality’s nature and source, we end up with a very different approach to the practice of ethical theory and a perspective from which the practice of moralism and ‘legislation for the world’ seems not only naïve but impossible. This explanatory account can be given in a variety of ways. In Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, Williams seems to acknowledge the power of Marxist explanations of the peculiar institution of morality as merely epiphenomenal. Critical theory, drawing on some version of dialectical materialism will therefore replace the moralistic practice of legislating for the world. At best moral or ethical philosophers will be engaged in an analytical or diagnostic task very different from that advocated by most if not all applied ethics and in political philosophy. Geuss’s sympathy for the analytic and explanatory side of critical theory also explains his similar conception of morality as simply one historically contingent social form of activity.

In his later works, Williams appears to move towards a greater sympathy for a Nietzschean and genealogical account of the peculiar institution as an alternative explanation and interpretation of the origin and nature of morality (Williams 2002). Marxian materialist explanations of the practice of morality can have some value but they tend to over-determine the peculiarities of the institution that Williams wants to interpret and explain. The chief consequence of this more Nietzschean understanding is the emphasis on morality’s debt to Christianity, but with an acknowledgement of the ‘death of God’ and therefore an alternative interpretation of what that theological legacy is. In this way, William’s approach to ethics shares much with that of Elizabeth Anscombe, Alasdair MacIntyre and Charles Taylor, as he acknowledges (at least in the case of MacIntyre and Taylor) in the essay ‘Liberalism of Fear’ (Williams 2005, 53). These Catholic thinkers all emphasise the need to respond to the C...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Citation Information
• Introduction: Rationality in politics and its limits
• 1. Political philosophy and the attraction of realism
• Realism and imagination: a response to Kelly
• 2. Hobbes and human irrationality
• Sovereigns and citizens: a response to Field
• 3. Reason, statecraft and the art of war: a politique reassessment
• Morality and contingency: a response to Jones
• 4. Thumos and rationality in Plato’s Republic
• Argument and imagination: a reply to Tarnopolsky
• 5. ‘A habitual disposition to the good’: on reason, virtue and realism
• Reason, faith and modernity: a response to Pabst
• 6. Franz Jägerstätter as social critic
• The social critic and universal morality: a response to Finn
• Reply to Roff
• 7. Oakeshott on theory and practice
• Oakeshott on the theory-practice problem: a reply to Terry Nardin
• Index