Realism and Moralism in Political Thought

Abstract

In more recent years, the debate between political moralists and political realists has enjoyed increasing relevance within the philosophical literature, and this thesis adds another voice to that debate. I start out with an explication of both moralism and realism as they have been defined in the literature so far, with particular emphasis on the liberal moralism of John Rawls, the (radical) realism of Raymond Geuss, and the (liberal) realism of Bernard Williams. I then consider a number of moralist objections to realism, to which I argue realists have good responses. I go on to show that, notwithstanding their capacity to respond effectively to moralist objections, the realisms of Geuss and Williams fail (in different ways) to satisfy a key methodological requirement of political realism itself: that political theory must be properly sensitive to the conditions of real-world politics. I then show that the political theory of Michael Oakeshott provides us with a novel and interesting way to satisfy this requirement.