āAll government [ā¦] is founded on compromise and barter,ā1 as Edmund Burke reminds us. Compromises are made whenever two or more political players design a piece of legislation, coordinate in international politics, or prepare a new constitution in some country. But while compromises are pervasive in politics, the moral issues involved in compromising have not been studied in sufficient depth and detail in political philosophy. At least since the publication of John Rawls ās A Theory of Justice in 1971, the main focus of political philosophy has been on justice. An impressive amount of research is devoted to theorizing distributive, retributive, and corrective justice, both on the level of abstract principles and on the level of more specific applications. But although justice is, without a doubt, a highly important moral value, it is not all that counts in politics. If we understand āpolitical moralityā as the set of moral considerations that applies to politics, then justice does not exhaust political morality. In this book, I will argue that peace and public justification are values that provide moral reasons to make compromises in politics, including compromises that establish unjustāor not fully justālaws or institutions. Peace is a surprisingly neglected value in political philosophy, and public justification is rarely considered in the context of compromising. In exploring the morality of compromising, the book thus provides some outlines for a map of political morality beyond justice.2
The Model Politician Making Compromises
Imagine a āmodel politicianā who has good reason to believe to have sound views on justice.3 You can also imagine that the model politician actually has sound views on justice. I will not say anything about what sound views on justice are.4 I would like to speak to liberal egalitarians, libertarians, socialists, and conservatives at the same time. The guiding question of the book is what reasons the model politician has to make compromises that establish unjust laws or institutions. Whether you are a liberal egalitarian, a libertarian, a socialist, or a conservative: the question whether you have moral reasons to make such compromises is relevant from each of those perspectives. I argue that the model politician often has moral reasons to compromise and, in particular, that peace and public justification are moral values that provide the model politician with moral reasons to compromise.
Take the case of a model politician in government who is preparing a proposal for a tax reform. Because being our model politician, she has sound views on justice and is justified in believing to have sound views on justice, and she has a justified belief about which bundle of tax laws would be most just. She also deliberates about compliance problems, and comes to develop a view about what her favorite bundle of tax laws would be. Yet many of her fellow politicians in government and in parliament, many leaders of influential organizations and interest groups in society, and even more of her fellow citizens disagree with her about the justice of her proposed tax laws, and some passionately oppose it. The disagreement can be rooted either in different views about what the correct or sound conception of justice is (in the abstract) or in different views about the proper application of an agreed-upon abstract conception of justice to the case of tax laws. Under such circumstances of disagreement, she might not be able to get her favorite proposal through, at least when some of the disagreement comes from people she has to directly coordinate with, like the finance minister or the chairman of her parliamentary group. If she cannot get her favorite proposal through, she obviously is forced to compromise, that is, to agree on a proposal that she thinks is a mere second-best (if she does not want to withdraw altogether). In addition, I will argue in this book, she might also have moral reasons to compromise in light of the disagreement on justice she faces. If it turns out that her original favorite proposal is not publicly justifiableāthat some do not have sufficient reasons to accept it, then this is morally relevant. If she refrains from implementing just tax laws because they are not publicly justifiable, then she makes a compromise for moral reasons.
Another model politician finds himself in a commission that is to design a constitutional reform for a country that went through a civil war among several religious groups. He is about to propose an electoral system that grants those different religious groups some representation in parliament. He does not think that the system is just. He is a convinced democrat and thinks that every vote should count equal, and that parliament should as clearly as possible mirror the number of votes a party or person received. But he knows that it would undermine peace to not grant representation to each religious group, and so he agrees to an unjust electoral system for the sake of peace. He makes a compromise for moral reasons.
It may sound as if the notion of ācompromiseā is not quite accurate to describe what I am after. While our model politicians will have to agree to a proposal that they do not regard as the most just one, it may not seem clear that they have to agree to an overall second-best. If there is a plurality of values, and justice is but one of them, then of course all values have to inform the model politicianās position on, for example, tax laws or electoral systems. Values have to be balanced against each other. But there is no ācompromiseā involved, because the model politician does not accept the tax laws or the electoral system as a second-best, but as the best proposal, given the circumstances. I do not think that is right. Peace and public justification are values, but they are not values that inform the model politicianās position on what the best tax laws and the best electoral system would be. The model politician will think: āIf only my fellow politicians and citizens were smarter, or morally less corrupt, or less hostile towards each other, they would agree that my favorite proposal really is the best one, but unfortunately they do not. Under these circumstances, I will have to accept this other proposal and, of course, this is the best proposal given these circumstances. But I still think that the proposal I originally came up with is the best one.ā Alternatively, the model politician may think: āI can see that my fellow politicians and citizens have reasonable views, but still they are wrong. Under these circumstances, I will have to accept this other proposal and, of course, this is the best proposal given these circumstances. But I still think that the proposal I originally came up with is the best one.ā In that sense, the model politician agrees to a second-best in our two examples, and hence is making a compromise.
Realism and Non-ideal Theory
Because I am interested in political thinking beyond justice, I share some of the concerns of ārealistā political theorists and philosophers.5 The book is about the need to compromise in light of persistent conflict and, in particular, in light of disagreement on justice, which nicely fits most realistsā (and agonistsā) emphasis on the conflictual nature of politics.6 In contrast to (some) realists, though, I do not mean to say that there is something wrong with theorizing justice, or that theorizing justice is not about politics.7 I do not say anything here about how theorizing justice should proceed, but I certainly assume that there is a sound theory of justice and that justice is a value that properly applies to politics and should guide the deliberations of model politicians and citizens. More generally, realists sometimes oppose an āethics firstā approach to politics.8 They think it is misguided to a...