Abstract:Political realism criticises the putative abstraction, foundationalism and neglect of the agonistic dimension of political practice in the work of John Rawls. This paper argues that had Rawls not fully specified the implementation of his theory of justice in one particular form of political economy then he would be vulnerable to a realist critique. But he did present such an implementation: a property-owning democracy. An appreciation of Rawls s specificationist method undercuts the realist critique of his con… Show more
“…Or think of the luck egalitarianism, espoused by many contemporary political philosophers: roughly put, normative political principles of distributive justice are derived from pre‐political commitments about the importance of moral responsibility. Whether Rawls also adopted a moralist approach is debatable (Gledhill, ; Jubb, ; Thomas, ). Nozick, on the other hand, articulated his moralism most explicitly: Moral philosophy sets the background for, and the boundaries of, political philosophy.…”
Section: Being Realisticmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…In the most general sense, political realism is a view about the normative autonomy of the political, and the negation of what Bernard Williams calls 'political moralism' (Williams, 2005, p. normative political principles of distributive justice are derived from pre-political commitments about the importance of moral responsibility. Whether Rawls also adopted a moralist approach is debatable (Gledhill, 2012;Jubb, 2014;Thomas, 2017). Nozick, on the other hand, articulated his moralism most explicitly:…”
“…Or think of the luck egalitarianism, espoused by many contemporary political philosophers: roughly put, normative political principles of distributive justice are derived from pre‐political commitments about the importance of moral responsibility. Whether Rawls also adopted a moralist approach is debatable (Gledhill, ; Jubb, ; Thomas, ). Nozick, on the other hand, articulated his moralism most explicitly: Moral philosophy sets the background for, and the boundaries of, political philosophy.…”
Section: Being Realisticmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…In the most general sense, political realism is a view about the normative autonomy of the political, and the negation of what Bernard Williams calls 'political moralism' (Williams, 2005, p. normative political principles of distributive justice are derived from pre-political commitments about the importance of moral responsibility. Whether Rawls also adopted a moralist approach is debatable (Gledhill, 2012;Jubb, 2014;Thomas, 2017). Nozick, on the other hand, articulated his moralism most explicitly:…”
“…Realism prefers a style of theorizing that starts with the complexity of real-life politics and looks for limitedly generalizable lessons depending on contextual factors and admitting the primacy of political practice over theorizing as opposed to moralists' systematic efforts to establish a coherent and rationally demonstrable set of fundamental principles (Baderin, 2014;Bellamy, 2010;Philp, 2007;Sabl, 2002Sabl, , 2012Sagar, 2013;Thomas, 2015;Williams, 2005). Rahul Sagar, for instance, repeatedly contends in his Secrecy and Leaks that it is not possible, or at least it is extremely difficult, to offer a regulatory framework for monitoring the use of state secrecy that is 'efficient, credible, and legitimate' (Sagar, 2013: 14) and he also provides a long list of the limits of generalizability of his argument.…”
The ambition of this article is threefold. First, it is to offer a realist reading of Aristotle’s regime theory as it is laid out mostly in Books IV–VI of his Politics. The author argues that Aristotle’s regime theory has three fundamentally realist claims about the workings of politics: first, the search for a perfect regime is not the only legitimate subject of political theory; second, every regime is built on a delicate balance of a particular understanding of political justice, a variety of sociological factors and the institutional design and political virtues of its politicians; third, there are almost as many different regimes as polities, and although they can be grouped into major regime types, there are many sub-types and mixed and transitory regimes. Second, the article argues that modern democratic theories have an unacceptable ‘moralistic bias’ from a realist point of view. Third, that a neo-Aristotelian regime theory can offer an attractive realist alternative to the predominant contemporary understandings of political regimes.
“…Or think of the luck egalitarianism, espoused by many contemporary political philosophers: roughly put, normative political principles of distributive justice are derived from pre-political commitments about the importance of moral responsibility. Whether Rawls also adopted a moralist approach is debatable (Gledhill, 2012;Jubb, 2014;Thomas, 2017). Nozick, on the other hand, articulated his moralism most explicitly:…”
The greatest artist does not have any concept Which a single piece of marble does not itself contain Within its excess, though only A hand that obeys the intellect can discover it.
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