Williams’s well-known critique of the ‘moralism’ of liberal political philosophy—its disconnect from political reality—holds special significance for the theory and practice of constitutional adjudication, where calls for ‘realism’ increasingly resound. Is constitutional discourse also guilty of moralism—as Williams himself thought—or might it succeed where political philosophy has failed? This paper reconstructs Williams’s critique of political moralism as one that decries the empty idealism of the philosophical project of abstraction: the quest for general, timeless, (...) and universal principles drains theory of its prescriptive force. It then argues that legal-constitutional reasoning, even in its most ambitious ‘forum of principle’ conception, is not a flight to abstraction but precisely a pragmatist negotiation of the concreteness-abstraction tension through acts of justification. But constitutional discourse in its current form remains moralistic in another distinct sense: it idealizes the political, thereby failing to account for the social and political pressures on courts and the proper normative significance of institutional considerations. Constitutional discourse could only offer a solution to the ailments of political philosophy if it cures its own chronic idealization. (shrink)

Volume 30, Issue 6, December 2022, Page 973-991.

In depicting the Utopia's main character Raphael Hythloday, Thomas More appears to have drawn on the character Evodius in Augustine's dialogue On Free Choice. Hythloday and Evodius hold similar views on the relation between human law and the divine prohibition on homicide. Hythloday's views appear at first to be inconsistent, but Evodius's arguments for his related views can help make better sense of Hythloday's. Both characters also turn out to display similar moral-political confusions, caused by the interaction of their (...) Christian faith with their insufficient political education, that hurt their ability to serve their country as good citizens. These confusions are typical of educated Christian citizens but not inevitable: More and Augustine each offer alternative models of more clear-sighted Christians who can serve their earthly homeland in full awareness of its imperfections. (shrink)

What is it that one fundamentally rejects when one criticizes a way of thinking as moralistic? Taking my cue from the principal leveller of this charge in philosophy, I argue that the root problem of moralism is the dualism that underlies it. I begin by distinguishing the rejection of moralism from the rejection of the moral/nonmoral distinction: far from being something one should jettison along with moralism, that distinction is something that any human society is bound to (...) develop. But this valuable distinction is transformed into a problematic dualism when it casts the two sides of the distinction as contrasting sharply in nature, value, and structure. In ethics, the resulting dichotomy takes the form of a dualism of morality and prudence. In politics, it takes the form of a dualism of principle and interest. I explain the enduring appeal of such dualisms before laying out the costs of moralism thus conceived: moralism erodes our sensibility to the moral and political costs of value conflicts; it projects an unrealistic conception of agency that sets up scepticism about responsibility; and it limits our ability to appreciate and realize the wider variety of nonmoral values that sustain us, our achievements, and morality itself. (shrink)

Much of the recent work on modus vivendi politics has come from writers who are broadly sympathetic to the realist critique of liberal moralism. They present modus vivendi politics as an alternative to the political moralism that is associated with liberal Anglo-American philosophers such as John Rawls and Ronald Dworkin. This chapter argues that the opposition between these two sets of views—liberal moralism and modus vivendi politics—has been misconceived. On the one hand, it argues that liberal (...) moralists have failed both to accurately characterize and to adequately appreciate the importance of modus vivendi arrangements for political order. On the other hand, it argues that realist critics of liberal moralism have generally failed to appreciate the extent to which an adequate defense of a modus vivendi arrangement presupposes commitment to moral principles of the sort defended by liberal moralists. After advancing these two lines of criticism, the chapter takes a more constructive turn and discusses the notion of a moralized modus vivendi, explaining how this notion draws on ideas from both liberal moralism and modus vivendi political theory. The possibility of a moralized modus vivendi, the chapter concludes, illustrates not only the compatibility but also the integration of liberal moralism and modus vivendi politics. (shrink)

What is the relationship between morals and politics? What is the relationship between moral philosophy and political philosophy? Defenders of political moralism postulate moral aims or constraints for politics, and hence they see political philosophy as a chapter of moral philosophy. Contrastingly, advocates of political realism describe politics as an independent endeavor aiming at providing order and security, and conceive of political philosophy as an autonomous discipline. This article claims that political moralism (...) and political realism share the mistake of assuming that politics has substantial, permanent goals or constraints. After criticizing political substantialism, the article explains the main ingredients of its alternative, political minimalism: the idea that politics, understood as collective instrumental rationality, aims at providing adequate means for the accomplishment of people's goals, whatever these are; and the conception of the relationship between morality and politics as one of “reciprocal containment.” Finally, it addresses some foreseeable criticisms of political minimalism. (shrink)

This imaginative and unusual book explores the moral sensibilities and cultural assumptions that were at the heart of political debate in Victorian and early twentieth-century Britain. It focuses on the role of intellectuals as public moralists and suggests ways in which their more formal political theory rested upon habits of response and evaluation that were deeply embedded in wider social attitudes and aesthetic judgments. Collini examines the characteristic idioms and strategies of argument employed in periodical and polemical writing, (...) and reconstructs the sense of identity and of relation to an audience exhibited by social critics from John Stuart Mill and Matthew Arnold to J.M. Keynes and F.R. Leavis. (shrink)

In this rejoinder to Erman and Möller’s reply to our “Political Norms and Moral Values” we clarify the sense in which there can be specifically political values, and expound the practice-dependent notion of legitimacy adopted by our preferred version of political realism.

This article sets out some of the key features of a realist critique of liberal moralism, identifying descriptive inadequacy and normative irrelevance as the two fundamental lines of criticism. It then sketches an outline of a political theory of modus vivendi as an alternative, realist approach to political theory. On this account a modus vivendi should be understood as any political settlement that involves the preservation of peace and security and is generally acceptable to those who (...) are party to it. In conclusion, some problems with this conception of modus vivendi and with a realist political theory more generally are discussed. In particular, the question is raised of whether a realist political theory should be understood as an alternative to liberal moralism or only a better way of doing basically the same kind of thing. (shrink)

Fabian Wendt argues that political realism is not capable of explaining how the state’s moral right to rule over its subjects is generated. I believe that Wendt’s criticism is not sound because his position relies on the false implicit assumption that realism and moralism ask the same philosophical questions on state authority. I contend that it is fallacious to evaluate the realist account of legitimacy by the standards of moralism, and vice versa, as these two accounts arrive (...) at different conceptions of legitimacy by raising different sets of philosophical questions. The two sets of philosophical questions are not reducible to each other. The realist account of legitimacy does not aim to explain what the moralist account of legitimacy aims to explain. (shrink)

:This article examines the moralistic language and arguments used in relation to genetics. The focus is on three practices: the claims that there is a duty to know about one’s own genetic makeup, assertions that genetic information should be used to inform reproductive decisions, and the proposition that there are moral reasons to participate in biobank research. With these three, the author contends that there are equally good, if not better, arguments to challenge them from a Millian perspective. Furthermore, especially (...) in the current political climate, there is a need to respect people’s privacy concerns. (shrink)

This book examines the contributions of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French women philosophers and intellectuals to moralist writing. Moralist writing, a distinctively French genre, draws on philosophical and literary traditions extending back to classical antiquity. Closely connected to salon culture and influenced by Augustinianism, it engages social and political questions, epistemology, moral psychology, and virtue ethics. The first half of the book analyzes women’s use of moralist forms such as the essay, maxim, and “character” or portrait to explore classical topics: (...) self-knowledge and knowledge of the self, the ethics and obligations of friendship, the relation of the passions to happiness. The second half focuses on topics that relate directly to women’s lifeworld: the critique of the institution of marriage, the status of older women, and the question of women’s nature and capabilities. Each chapter traces the evolution of women’s moralist thought from the late seventeenth century to the Enlightenment and the decades immediately following the French Revolution, a period of tremendous change in the horizon of possibilities for women as public figures and intellectuals. (shrink)

It is a safe prediction that, especially now with cultural contacts freely flowing between East and West in both directions, the Hungarian thinker Istvan Bibo will soon be given full accolade as one of the most outstanding political theorists of this century, in stature equal to the �greats� in the entire European tradition of political thought. Bibo's significance far exceeds local, parochial interests. While profoundly original and organically stemming from Hungarian culture, Bibo belongs also to the �West�. If (...) his political thought is to be epitomized in one succinct phrase, it is �the realism of moralism�, or the almost flawless synthesis of a deeply radical, morally infused vision and value-system with the hard-nosed, unsentimental realist-s insight into enduring problems of politics and society. This synthesis is �almost� flawless: in the closing section of this article I will advance a few constructively critical remarks concerning some questionable points in the trajectory of Bibo's thought. (shrink)

This chapter assesses John Gray’s modus vivendi-based justification for liberalism. I argue that his approach is preferable to the more orthodox deontological or teleological justificatory strategies, at least because of the way it can deal with the problem of diversity. But then I show how that is not good news for liberalism, for grounding liberal political authority in a modus vivendi undermines liberalism’s aspiration to occupy a privileged normative position vis-à-vis other kinds of regimes. So modus vivendi can save (...) liberalism from moralism, but at cost many liberals will not be prepared to pay. (shrink)

Political realists’ rejection of the so-called ‘ethics first’ approach of political moralists, has raised concerns about their own source of normativity. Some realists have responded to such concerns by theorizing a distinctively political normativity. According to this view, politics is seen as an autonomous, independent domain with its own evaluative standards. Therefore, it is in this source, rather than in some moral values ‘outside’ of this domain, that normative justification should be sought when theorizing justice, democracy, (...) class='Hi'>political legitimacy, and the like. For realists the question about a distinctively political normativity is important, because they take the fact that politics is a distinct affair to have severe consequences for both how to approach the subject matter as such and for which principles and values can be justified. Still, realists have had a hard time clarifying what this distinctively political normativity consists of and why, more precisely, it matters. The aim of this paper is to take some further steps in answering these questions. We argue that realists have the choice of committing themselves to one of two coherent notions of distinctively political normativity: one that is independent of moral values, where political normativity is taken to be a kind of instrumental normativity; another where the distinctness still retains a justificatory dependence on moral values. We argue that the former notion is unattractive since the costs of commitment will be too high, and that the latter notion is sound but redundant since no moralist would ever reject it. Furthermore, we end the paper by discussing what we see as the most fruitful way of approaching political and moral normativity in political theory. (shrink)

In Morality and Socially Constructed Norms, Valentini searches for a unifying principle that underlies whatever genuine obligations we might have to obey the norms of any and all social practices, ranging from line queueing norms, through offsides rules in soccer, to obligations not to break the law. I argue that this search is driven, and distorted, by a commitment to what Bernard Williams labeled the ‘morality system’. Once we see this, we should question the value of the unifying project. Most (...) social norms can be considered on their own terms, as part of a rich and variegated ethical life, without subsuming them under the question of whether others’ moral rights are at stake. Similarly, political obligation needs to be understood in relation to the practical activity of politics, not as an abstract moral quandary. (shrink)

Most contemporary political philosophers take justice—rather than legitimacy—to be the fundamental virtue of political institutions vis-à-vis the challenges of ethical diversity. Justice-driven theorists are primarily concerned with finding mutually acceptable terms to arbitrate the claims of conflicting individuals and groups. Legitimacy-driven theorists, instead, focus on the conditions under which those exercising political authority on an ethically heterogeneous polity are entitled to do so. But what difference would it make to the management of ethical diversity in liberal democratic (...) societies if legitimacy were prior to or independent from justice? -/- This question identifies a widely underexplored issue whose theoretical salience shows how the understanding of what constitutes the primary question of political philosophy has a deep impact on how practical political questions are interpreted and addressed. What difference would it make, for example, whether the difficulties concerning the safeguard of human rights were couched in terms of the justice or of the legitimacy of the documents and treaties sanctioning their implementation. How should the issue of the quality of democracies be addressed whether one assigned priority to the justice or legitimacy of democratic institutions? Addressing these and other topical questions, the book offers a new theoretical angle from which to consider a number of pressing social and political issues. (shrink)

The topic of this paper is the debate between political moralists and political realists. I will try to show that it is possible to find the middle ground that simultaneously satisfies the main demands of both camps while resisting objections directed against each. In the first part, I start with the view shared by both moralists and realists: that the main challenge lying before a political theory is solving the problem of legitimacy. I first sketch Rawls? moralist (...) approach. I then move to outline the realist criticisms of such moralism. I will mainly follow one of the most detailed recent theories - Sleat?s realist theory, although I will also draw from other well-known realists. In the second part, I outline objections against realism. They somewhat similar to the same criticisms they themselves direct against moralists. The main issue is, in short, the problem of underdetermination - that is, the insufficient determination of political action by facts. Since realists hold that a political theory has to be applicable, their view is thus considerably weakened by such criticism. In the third part of the paper, I point to deliberative theory as a view that can answer both realist criticism - because its main aspect is dealing with the way things work in actual politics of concrete societies - but it can also answer criticisms directed against realists themselves, because empirical research of deliberation suggests an actual and viable way to solve the problem of legitimacy - by raising the quality of deliberation. Moreover, a deliberative theory retains autonomy of the ethical, although it doesn?t do that, unlike moralism, by encroaching on the autonomy of politics. Thus, at the end of the paper, I claim that such a deliberative approach can be accepted by both realists and moralists. (shrink)

Bernard Williams is remembered as one of the most brilliant and original philosophers of the past fifty years. Widely respected as a moral philosopher, Williams began to write about politics in a sustained way in the early 1980s. There followed a stream of articles, lectures, and other major contributions to issues of public concern--all complemented by his many works on ethics, which have important implications for political theory. This new collection of essays, most of them previously unpublished, addresses many (...) of the core subjects of political philosophy: justice, liberty, and equality; the nature and meaning of liberalism; toleration; power and the fear of power; democracy; and the nature of political philosophy itself. A central theme throughout is that political philosophers need to engage more directly with the realities of political life, not simply with the theories of other philosophers. Williams makes this argument in part through a searching examination of where political thinking should originate, to whom it might be addressed, and what it should deliver. Williams had intended to weave these essays into a connected narrative on political philosophy with reflections on his own experience of postwar politics. Sadly he did not live to complete it, but this book brings together many of its components. Geoffrey Hawthorn has arranged the material to resemble as closely as possible Williams's original design and vision. He has provided both an introduction to Williams's political philosophy and a bibliography of his formal and informal writings on politics. Those who know the work of Bernard Williams will find here the familiar hallmarks of his writing--originality, clarity, erudition, and wit. Those who are unfamiliar with, or unconvinced by, a philosophical approach to politics, will find this an engaging introduction. Both will encounter a thoroughly original voice in modern political theory and a searching approach to the shape and direction of liberal political thought in the past thirty-five years. (shrink)

Various political realists claim the superior ‘action-guiding’ qualities of their way of approaching normative political theory, as compared to ‘liberal moralism’. This paper subjects that claim to critique. I first clarify the general idea of action-guidance, and identify two types of guidance that a political theory might try to offer – ‘prescriptive action-guidance’ and ‘orienting action-guidance’ – together with the conditions that must be met before we can understand such guidance as having been successfully offered. I (...) then go on to argue that if we take realist understandings of political psychology seriously, then realist attempts to offer action-guidance appear to fail by realism’s own lights. I demonstrate this by means of engagement with a variety of different realist theorists. (shrink)

Bernard Williams is remembered as one of the most brilliant and original philosophers of the past fifty years. Widely respected as a moral philosopher, Williams began to write about politics in a sustained way in the early 1980s. There followed a stream of articles, lectures, and other major contributions to issues of public concern--all complemented by his many works on ethics, which have important implications for political theory.This new collection of essays, most of them previously unpublished, addresses many of (...) the core subjects of political philosophy: justice, liberty, and equality; the nature and meaning of liberalism; toleration; power and the fear of power; democracy; and the nature of political philosophy itself. A central theme throughout is that political philosophers need to engage more directly with the realities of political life, not simply with the theories of other philosophers. Williams makes this argument in part through a searching examination of where political thinking should originate, to whom it might be addressed, and what it should deliver.Williams had intended to weave these essays into a connected narrative on political philosophy with reflections on his own experience of postwar politics. Sadly he did not live to complete it, but this book brings together many of its components. Geoffrey Hawthorn has arranged the material to resemble as closely as possible Williams's original design and vision. He has provided both an introduction to Williams's political philosophy and a bibliography of his formal and informal writings on politics.Those who know the work of Bernard Williams will find here the familiar hallmarks of his writing--originality, clarity, erudition, and wit. Those who are unfamiliar with, or unconvinced by, a philosophical approach to politics, will find this an engaging introduction. Both will encounter a thoroughly original voice in modern political theory and a searching approach to the shape and direction of liberal political thought in the past thirty-five years. (shrink)

One of the main challenges faced by realists in political philosophy is that of offering an account of authority that is genuinely normative and yet does not consist of a moralistic application of general, abstract ethical principles to the practice of politics. Political moralists typically start by devising a conception of justice based on their pre-political moral commitments; authority would then be legitimate only if political power is exercised in accordance with justice. As an alternative to (...) that dominant approach I put forward the idea that upturning the relationship between justice and legitimacy affords a normative notion of authority that does not depend on a pre-political account of morality, and thus avoids some serious problems faced by mainstream theories of justice. I then argue that the appropriate purpose of justice is simply to specify the implementation of an independently grounded conception of legitimacy, which in turn rests on a context- and practice-sensitive understanding of the purpose of political power. (shrink)

The article deals with the concept of war in modern political realism. Realism claims to have an original notion of war, which distinguishes it from empirical war studies and from other schools in international relations theory. Realism does not have a strict formal definition of war like empirical studies do, it focuses on understanding the causes and nature of war instead. The distinction between realism and other international relations theories like idealism, Marxism or constructivism consists in the realist notion (...) of politics. Realism understands politics as an eternal struggle for power that underlies all social life, while war is the most intense manifestation of this struggle. Thus, the possibility of war cannot be eradicated. The article shows the normative aspects of such understanding of war. Realism, unlike pacifism or just war theory, is less enthusiastic about ethical or legal regulation of war; furthermore, it shows the dangers that may be caused by political moralism and “criminalization” of war. On the other hand, realism fails to provide a set of norms or principles that would surpass the just war principles. The realist principles of national interest and prudence are as vague, unclear and prone to misuse as classic just war principles are. Author draws a conclusion that to be able to create a valid set of principles of war, realism needs to further converge with international relations theory schools and “enlarge” the set of its base theoretical notions. (shrink)

Moralism is a frequent charge in politics, and especially in relation to the ‘politics of recognition’. In this essay, I identify three types of moralism — undue abstraction, unjustified moralism and impotent moralism — and then discuss each in relation to recent debates over multiculturalism in liberal political theory. Each of these forms of moralism has featured in interesting ways in recent criticisms of the political theory and public policy of multiculturalism. By ‘multiculturalism’ (...) I mean, broadly speaking, the pursuit of group‐differentiated public policies that move beyond the protection of basic individual civil and political rights. Here the charge is not so much that moral judgments have no application in relation to the treatment of cultural and associational minorities, but that the moral claims of defenders of multiculturalism are: appealed to without any sense of the practical realities on the ground ; asserted as if they were self‐evidently true ; which often results in a stifling of reasoned criticism of the orthodoxy surrounding multiculturalism. I assess these charges in the course of defending the democratic character of the most plausible forms of multicultural accommodation in liberal democratic societies. (shrink)

Political realists claim that politics should be regulated by a distinctive political normativity, one that does not rely on external, pre-political moral standards. It is in this sense that they distinguish political realism from ‘political moralism’, regarded as an approach that understands political theory as applied ethics. Importantly, realists’ anti-moralism is not motivated by the conviction that moral considerations do not play any role in the political realm. Rather, the target is (...) the externalism of the normative resources on which moralist theories typically ground their conceptions of legitimacy. In contrast to moralists, some realists have argued for the need to elaborate internal theories of legitimacy, ones that develop normativity internally – that is, from within the political context under evaluation. This commitment entails the effort to reconnect legitimacy to the beliefs and attitudes of people subjected to the political power. In these accounts of legitimacy, critique is typically exercised internally, by means of self-reflection and ideology critique. Contra some realists, I argue that some forms of externalism are desirable and compatible with internalist accounts of legitimacy, and I show how to accommodate them within internalist theories of legitimacy. They are desirable because they strengthen the emancipatory potential of internal reflection and, in some cases, even stimulate it, as when, because of political circumstances, internal critique cannot be exercised. In addition, they prevent internalist approaches from falling into descriptive accounts of de facto acceptance of power. These forms of external critique can be compatible with internalist accounts of legitimacy, provided that they do not contrast with what I call methodological and substantive internalism. Accordingly, in the article, I discuss which stances of external critique can and should be accommodated within internalist accounts of legitimacy, without renouncing to the realist character of the approach. (shrink)

Williams did not think of political problems as a mere adjunct to ethical questions. He believed that there can be no timeless justification of political power, which he takes Kant and Rawls to aim at. Likewise, liberalism ignores that legitimation depends on historical circumstances. Williams’s historical relativism comes hand in hand with a realism that makes him object to utopian theories. To him, political projects are “essentially conditioned, not just in their background intellectual conditions but as a (...) matter of empirical realism, by their historical circumstances.”. (shrink)

Against the background of historical antipartyism in practice and in democratic theory, and with a focus on American political thought, this paper takes issue with contemporary arguments that value the political identity ‘Independent’ and disparage partisanship. A typology of ‘Independent’ is offered and both empirical and moral claims about the superiority of Independent voters are rebutted, with particular focus on the ‘weightlessness’ of Independents. The reasons to appreciate the moral distinctiveness of partisanship for democracy are set out: commitment (...) to political pluralism, to regulated political rivalry, and to shifting responsibility for governing. Inclusiveness, comprehensiveness, and compromisingness set the contours for an ethic of partisanship. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook Jahrgang: 2016 Heft: 1 Seiten: 51-74.

After distinguishing different species of Legal Moralism I outline and defend a modest, positive Legal Moralism, according to which we have good reason to criminalize some type of conduct if it constitutes a public wrong. Some of the central elements of the argument will be: the need to remember that the criminal law is a political, not a moral practice, and therefore that in asking what kinds of conduct we have good reason to criminalize, we must begin (...) not with the entire realm of wrongdoing, but with conduct falling within the public realm of our civic life; the need to look at the different processes of criminalization, and to ask what kinds of consideration can properly figure in those processes; the need to attend to the relationship, and the essential differences, between criminal law and other modes of legal regulation. (shrink)

Why has Sidgwick's political philosophy fallen into oblivion while his ethics continues to be celebrated? Not because his performance in that field was inferior, nor because his choice of topics has become outdated, nor because his conclusions were largely conservative. Instead the problem stems from the weight he attached to common sentiments and beliefs in his application of the utility principle, illustrated by his treatment of topics such as secession and colonialism. Moreover hisElements of Politicsis arranged in such a (...) way that he never has to confront the basic question of what makes states legitimate. This means that neither political moralists, who want to see the utility principle applied in more radical fashion, nor political realists, for whom the problem of establishing political order is central, find much to commend in his political philosophy. (shrink)

This paper aims to offer a critique of a rigidly moralistic temperament in public discourse from the perspective of political realism. It unpacks three types of moralism in public discourse, and for each, it explains why it is normatively problematic from a realist perspective: ‘Moralist Causalism’ is the belief that moral preaching is an apt way to affect the world for the better; ‘Moralist Manicheism’ is a dichotomous division of the world between good and evil; ‘Moralist Absolutism’ is (...) the conviction that only morality matters when we answer the question, ‘What should we do?’. The paper then turns these negative criticisms into a positive recipe for how to look realistically at what is valuable in the world. First, there are not only multiple values in the world but also different sources of values (epistemic, instrumental, aesthetic…) which may conflict with one another. We call this requirement ‘Meta-Normative Pluralism’. Second, politics is pivotal because it is the sphere where the clashes among all other spheres of value are authoritatively resolved—a role which moralists usurp for morality. (shrink)

Stendhal.--Tocqueville.--Proudhon.--Sainte-Beuve.--Taine.--Renan.

Moralism is an often-cited feature of populist politics; yet, as a concept, it remains under-theorised in current literature. This paper posits that to understand the threat that populism poses to democracy, it is necessary to develop this key feature of populism. Essential to discerning what moralism is is the difference between moralism, or moralistic blame, and moral criticism. While moral criticism is a restrained and thoughtful method of holding persons accountable for their actions, moralism amounts to (...) a distinctly punitive form of exclusion: it seeks to undermine the equal moral status of the target of criticism. As a key feature of populism, then, moralism enables a political actor to solidify a conception of the ‘morally-pure‘ while normalising hate and disrespect for particular persons and groups in society. Populism – shaped by the features of anti-pluralism and moralism – therefore presents a clear threat to democracy, especially if we consider pluralism and recognition-respect as two basic principles underpinning democracy itself. (shrink)

The essays collected here, somewhat autobiographical in their effect, range from a discussion of the despair of the Cold War and Vietnam in 1966 to reflections on the euphoria over the ending of the Cold War in Eastern Europe in 1990. The opening essays are general in nature: exploring the foundation and limitation of sound morality; examining what is "American" about American morality; measuring all by the yardsticks provided by classical and modern philosophers. Anastaplo's overriding concern here is to show (...) how one can be moral without being either cranky or moralistic. He then turns his attention to the issues of the day: the first amendment, religious liberty, women and the law, gun control, medicine, capital punishment, local politics, civil disobedience. (shrink)

Robert Michels is best known as the author of a classic work of political sociology, Political Parties. However, not only are his voluminous other writings typically sidelined in most commentary, but his quite substantial writings on the subject of patriotism have been the subject of almost total neglect. This paper examines these writings and suggests that Michels's analyses of patriotism can indeed best be interpreted within the context of his general intellectual trajectory from socialist to ‘elite theorist’. However, (...) one important consequence of illustrating Michels's account of the history, theory and sociology of patriotic thought in particular is that the picture of the transition in his writings towards elite theory appears to be rather more complex than is normally appreciated. A corollary of this is that the descriptive tag of ‘elite theorist’ actually obscures important aspects of Michels's position in the history of European ideas. (shrink)

In this paper I unpack a realistic conception of politics by tightly defining its constitutive features: conflict and order. A conflict emerges when an actor is disposed to impose his/her views against the resistance of others. Conflicts are more problematic than moralists realize because they emerge unilaterally, are potentially violent, impermeable to content-based reason, and unavoidable. Order is then defined as an institutional framework that provides binding collective decisions. Order is deemed necessary because individuals need to cooperate to survive, but (...) groups cannot spontaneously secure collective decisions and are prone to conflicts. Particularly, the fact that potentially violent conflicts emerge unilaterally means that order requires coercion. I conclude that mischaracterizing conflict and order leads to undesirable normative principles, and that this criticism can be leveraged not only against Rawlsian liberals who moralize conflicts away, but also against some agonists who underestimate the need for order and some communitarians who underplay both circumstances. (shrink)