Forthcoming in Philosophy Compass (2014) Realism in Normative Political Theory Enzo Rossi | University of Amsterdam Matt Sleat | University of Sheffield Abstract: This paper provides a critical overview of the realist current in contemporary political philosophy. We define political realism on the basis of its attempt to give varying degrees of autonomy to politics as a sphere of human activity, in large part through its exploration of the sources of normativity appropriate for the political, and so distinguish sharply between political realism and non-ideal theory. We then identify and discuss four key arguments advanced by political realists: from ideology, from the relationship of ethics to politics, from the priority of legitimacy over justice, and from the nature of political judgment. Next, we ask to what extent realism is a methodological approach as opposed to a substantive political position, and so discuss the relationship between realism and a few such positions. We close by pointing out the links between contemporary realism and the realist strand that runs through much of the history of Western political thought. Much contemporary Anglo-American political philosophy operates as a branch of applied ethics: normative political theory is supposed to implement moral commitments external to politics, be they teleological ideals or deontological constraints. However in recent years-under the loose label of 'political realism'-an alternative approach has emerged, or perhaps reemerged (Galston 2010; Runciman 2012). Crudely, realists maintain that political philosophy should not seek to regiment politics through morality; rather, it should theorise about the distinctive forces that shape real politics. Critics of realism see this move as a capitulation of normative theory in favour of descriptive approaches to politics. Realists see it as a way to make political philosophy more relevant and less ideological. This article has two main objectives and as many main sections. First, we propose a working definition of realism, and a critical overview of what we take to be the four key arguments in favour of that position. Second, we explore the status of realist theory: is it best characterised as a series of methodological concerns or does it represent a substantive political position it is own right? In the brief conclusion we discuss to what extent realism is (or could be) a new development rather than a revival of a traditional current of political thinking. What Is Political Realism? Realists reject what Bernard Williams dubs 'political moralism', or the 'ethics first' approach (Geuss 2008: 9), in both its variants: the 'enactment model' and the 'structural model' (2005: 1- 2 3).1 The former consists in deriving political prescriptions from pre-political ethical ideals such as happiness, equality, or autonomy. The latter amounts to specifying the limits of permissible political conduct through pre-political moral commitments such as a Kantian notion of autonomy or some conception of moral rights. Those ethical values are pre-political in two senses: they are taken to float free from the forces of politics, and they are assigned a foundational role insofar as they have antecedent authority over the political and determine or exhaust the appropriate ends and limits of politics. Realists take issue with both of those claims. Before considering the arguments for rejecting the moralist position, let us get clearer about what the realist alternative amounts to. As the negative characterisation above prefigures, insofar as realism is a normative theory (some realists have doubts about the sharpness of the normative/descriptive dichotomy: cf. Geuss 2008; Rossi 2010a) it can be distinguished on the basis of its choice of the relevant sources of political normativity. Broadly, realists maintain that political theory should begin (in a justificatory rather than temporal sense) not with the explication of moral ideals (of justice, freedom, rights, etc.) which are then taken to settle the questions of value and principle in the political realm but in a (typically interpretative) understanding of the practice of politics itself (Geuss 2008; Newey 2010; Rossi 2012; Sangiovanni 2008; Waldron 2013; Williams 2005). Mainstream moralist political philosophy fails, from the realist perspective, to take seriously enough the peculiarities of the political and in doing so is unable to appreciate the complexity of the causal and normative relationship between morality and politics. And to the extent to which politics can be theorised in a manner that is appropriately sensitive to the nature of politics, political philosophy ceases to be a branch of moral philosophy (Philp 2012: 631). There are strong and weak variations of this central realist claim regarding the autonomy of the political. The strong version insists that it is possible to derive normative political judgments from specifically political values - a position resting on a subset of the view that not all values are moral values, plus the more controversial claim that such political values can and should guide politics, whereas moral values are ill-suited to that task (Geuss 2008). Whether and how either or both components of that claim can be sustained is an issue high on the agenda of realists (e.g. Rossi 2012; Sleat 2014) and of their critics. The controversy largely turns on whether moral normativity is eliminable from political philosophy (e.g. Hurka 2009; Erman and Möller 2013, but cf. Jubb and Rossi 2014; Larmore 2013, but Sleat 2014). The weaker version of the realist claim accepts that there is a place for morality in politics but seeks, in Williams' words (2005: 3), to explicate 'an approach which gives greater autonomy to distinctively political thought'. On this view there is not such a stark contrast between politics and morality, and indeed morality may have a role to play in providing a source of political normativity, yet it remains important to appreciate the manner in which politics remains a distinct sphere of human activity, with its own concerns, pressures, ends, and constraints which cannot be reduced to ethics (nor law, economics, religion, etc.) (Philp 2007, 2012; Newey 2013; Sleat 2014; Sleat 2013; Waldron 1999). This definition allows us to clarify the difference between realism and non-ideal theory. Realism is often construed in opposition to utopianism, and so it is taken to be characterised 1 For more on the 'vice' of moralism see Coady (2008) and Taylor (2011) 3 simply by a concern for issues of feasibility (e.g. Freeden 2012; Valentini 2012: 657-660; Zuolo 2012). Yet if the defining feature of realism is the attempt to give autonomy to the political and political theorising through a fuller understanding of the sources of normativity in politics, then the issue of feasibility turns out to be orthogonal to the realism/moralism dichotomy – which is not to say, though, that feasibility issues will not feature in some comprehensive realist accounts of politics, but they will not be exhaustive of them and will sit alongside a host of other considerations (such as those explored below). Furthermore, there is no reason to presume that specifically political values incorporate feasibility constraints any more than moral values do.2 Realist concerns with people's actual motivations, with the difficulties of collective action problems, and with the inevitability of (some) coercion have been misinterpreted as concerns about feasibility, whereas they are concerns about the modes of action most typical of politics, as opposed to other spheres of human action. Utopianism may even be better served by a realistic take on which values can be genuinely transformative and which ones are merely ideological (Geuss 2010; Owen 2010) - which isn't to say that realism cannot engender complacency towards the status quo (Finlayson 2014). Still, conceptually nothing precludes realists from