scholarly journals Transformative Contextual Realism

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manon Westphal
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Realist Approach ◽  
Political Theories ◽  
The Status

AbstractRealist political theory is often confronted with the objection that it is biased towards the status quo. Although this criticism overlooks the fact that realist political theories contain various resources for critique, a realist approach that is strong in status quo critique and contributes, constructively, to the theorising of alternatives to the status quo is a desideratum. The article argues that contextual realism, which sources its normativity from particular contexts, harbours an underexploited potential to establish such a form of political theorising. By drawing on ideas and principles that have guided critical engagements with social and political forms in a particular context, and on widely shared views of need for reform, realists can identify deficits of the status quo and contribute to a debate on how these deficits might be addressed. This article describes and illustrates the idea of a transformative contextual realism, and defends it against some potential objections.

scholarly journals The natural duty of justice in non-ideal circumstances: On the moral demands of institution building and reform

2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Valentini
Keyword(s):  
Distributive Justice ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The State ◽  
Response Strategy ◽  
Macro Level ◽  
Institution Building ◽  
Institutional Agents ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
The Status

Principles of distributive justice bind macro-level institutional agents, like the state. But what does justice require in non-ideal circumstances, where institutional agents are unjust or do not exist in the first place? Many answer by invoking Rawls's natural duty ‘to further just arrangements not yet established’, treating it as a ‘normative bridge’ between institutional demands of distributive justice and individual responsibilities in non-ideal circumstances. I argue that this response strategy is unsuccessful. I show that the more unjust the status quo is due to non-compliance, the less demanding the natural duty of justice becomes. I conclude that, in non-ideal circumstances, the bulk of the normative work is done by another natural duty: that of beneficence. This conclusion has significant implications for how we conceptualize our political responsibilities in non-ideal circumstances, and cautions us against the tendency – common in contemporary political theory – to answer all high-stakes normative questions under the rubric of justice.

scholarly journals Hope Abjuring Hope: On the Place of Utopia in Realist Political Theory

2017 ◽  
Vol 46 (5) ◽  
pp. 671-697 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mathias Thaler
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Literary Genre ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Utopian Fiction ◽  
Double Function ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
Judith Shklar ◽  
The Relationship

This essay reconstructs the place of utopia in realist political theory, by examining the ways in which the literary genre of critical utopias can productively unsettle ongoing discussions about “how to do political theory.” I start by analyzing two prominent accounts of the relationship between realism and utopia: “real utopia” (Erik Olin Wright et al.) and “dystopic liberalism” (Judith Shklar et al.). Elaborating on Raymond Geuss’s recent reflections, the essay then claims that an engagement with literature can shift the focus of these accounts. Utopian fiction, I maintain, is useful for comprehending what is (thus enhancing our understanding of the world) and for contemplating what might be (thus nurturing the hope for a better future). Ursula K. Le Guin’s novel The Dispossessed deploys this double function in an exemplary fashion: through her dynamic and open-ended portrayal of an Anarchist community, Le Guin succeeds in imagining a utopia that negates the status quo, without striving to construct a perfect society. The book’s radical, yet ambiguous, narrative hence reveals a strategy for locating utopia within realist political theory that moves beyond the positions dominating the current debate. Reading The Dispossessed ultimately demonstrates that realism without utopia is status quo–affirming, while utopia without realism is wishful thinking.

Articulating virtue: Planning ethics within and beyond post politics

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 282-299
Author(s):  
Katie McClymont
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
Contemporary Society ◽  
Ethical Judgement ◽  
Political Condition ◽  
Political Theories ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
Value Judgement

Post-foundationalist political theories have provided some of the most radical tools of critique in recent years. As well as challenging the dominant orthodoxy of achieving consensus in decision-making, they give voice to claims that the world can be conceived differently than how it is expressed in contemporary neoliberal hegemony by the reassertion of disagreement as fundamental to democratic politics. However, this conflict itself is a means not an end: it provides the intellectual tools to dissemble the dominant qua hegemonic version of contemporary society and its concomitant framing of values, but it does not provide a way in which to assess the validity of any counterclaims to the contemporary hegemony. Post-foundationalist approaches can critique the status quo for its practice and ontology, but do not offer substantive grounds for an alternative. This is of particular importance for planning as an outcome-based activity; engaging daily with ideas of better or worse developments. If planning is to be conceived as ‘the art of situated ethical judgement’, questions of value judgement are central to any theoretical conceptualisation or critique. The article develops this argument by considering the contribution that Alasdair MacIntyre’s ethical and political thought could make to this debate. MacIntyre’s notion of virtue ethics demonstrates how ethical judgement can be made without the need for an enlightenment foundationalist ontology to underpin its claims. The article demonstrates how this approach allows for new ways of thinking through the ethical questions implicit in much of the post-foundationalist critiques of planning practice and, in turn, offers a situated way of judging outcomes, which is not constrained by the post-political condition.

Constructing Democratic Thought in Ireland in the Age of Revolution, 1775–1800

2013 ◽  
pp. 149-161 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ultán Gillen
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Age Of Revolution ◽  
Irish Context ◽  
Democratic Polity ◽  
The Status ◽  
Irish People

During the 1790s, some keen radically to change the status quo in Ireland began to describe themselves as democrats. We can reconstruct what they thought a more democratic polity and society would be like. It would not be subordinated to Britain, but responsive to the aspirations of the Irish people; it would be more equal, not discriminating on religious grounds. Attempts would be made to address structures that inhibited national prosperity and kept many people poor. The terminology was new, but democratic political theory drew on existing traditions: on theories about rights, classical republicanism, Enlightenment ideas about toleration and political economy, and egalitarianism, as well as revolutionary internationalism. These were welded into a political outlook that was shaped by the distinctive Irish context. Democrats pitched what they had to say to relatively poor audiences, and strove to show the relevance of what was happening in France to their situation.

The Fallacy of Approximation

Utopophobia ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 271-287
Author(s):  
David Estlund
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Brake Pedal ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Cost ◽  
The Ideal

This chapter discusses the fallacy of approximation. When political theory constructs models that are idealized in certain ways, it is natural to ask whether they are of any use in practice. If there is hope of fully achieving them, then they might serve as appropriate practical goals. And even if they are not fully achievable, or not worth the cost or risk, they will often be something to approximate. The value of approximating them cannot be assumed, however, since the approximation might leave out something crucial. For an example in a different context, a car with a missing brake pedal is approximately like a car with a brake pedal, but most of the value is missing. Still, it is a valuable first step to identify the respects in which the status quo differs from the valuable model or ideal, and that requires identification of the ideal.

scholarly journals Contributions of critical thinking as a form of participation and political deliberation

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (27) ◽  
pp. 5-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diego Felipe Arbeláez-Campillo ◽  
Vasyl Ya. Tatsiy ◽  
Magda Julissa Rojas-Bahamón ◽  
Oleg G. Danilyan
Keyword(s):  
Critical Thinking ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Human Activities ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Philosophical Essay ◽  
The Status ◽  
Per Se ◽  
Political Deliberation ◽  
Critical Reason

Critical thinking is an attribute of consciousness that can be manifested in all human activities where it is required, as a condition of possibility, in the use of critical reason and deliberation. Consequently, it is in the domains of politics that critical thinking is used more frequently, to discuss the scope and concrete significance of the discourses and practices that, from the exercise of public powers, are deployed on intelligent citizenship and with the minimum necessary of information for peer deliberation. The objective of this article is to deconstruct the most common contributions of critical thinking as a form of participation and political deliberation. Methodologically it is a research of documentary design developed in the coordinates of the philosophical essay, next to the Latin American philosopher and the revision of the most popular political theory. Among the main findings, the idea that critical thinking is not the exclusive patrimony of certain self-defined political and ideological tendencies as progressive in the region stands out. It is concluded that, this way of thinking is uncomfortable per se for all the paradigms that serve as the basis for the status quo, in politics and society.

With radicals like these, who needs conservatives? Doom, gloom, and realism in political theory

2015 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 264-282 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorna Finlayson
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Real World ◽  
Critical Distance ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The Real ◽  
The Status

This paper attempts to get some critical distance on the increasingly fashionable issue of realism in political theory. Realism has an ambiguous status: it is sometimes presented as a radical challenge to the status quo; but it also often appears as a conservative force, aimed at clipping the wings of more ‘idealistic’ political theorists. I suggest that what we might call ‘actually existing realism’ is indeed a conservative presence in political philosophy, and that its ambiguous status plays a part in making it so. But I also argue that there is no necessary connection between realism and conservatism. This paper describes the three contingent and suspiciously quick steps which lead from an initial commitment to being attentive to the real world, via a particular kind of pessimism about political possibilities, to an unnecessarily conservative destination. In the process, I try to show how the ubiquitous trinity of realism, pessimism and conservatism might be pulled apart, thus removing the artificial tension between ‘being realistic’ and the demand for far-reaching social change.

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