What Normative Facts Should Political Theory Be About?

2020 ◽  
pp. 185-220
Author(s):  
Christian List ◽  
Valentini Laura
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
Coarse Grained ◽  
The Political ◽  
Similar Question ◽  
Inadmissible Evidence ◽  
Public Reasoning ◽  
Moral Theories ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
Normative Political Theory

Just as different sciences deal with different facts—say, physics versus biology—so we may ask a similar question about normative theories. Is normative political theory concerned with the same normative facts as moral theory or different ones? By developing an analogy with the sciences, this chapter argues that the normative facts of political theory belong to a higher—more coarse-grained—level than those of moral theory. The latter are multiply realizable by the former: competing facts at the moral level can underpin the same facts at the political one. Consequently, some questions that moral theories answer are indeterminate at the political level. This proposal offers a novel interpretation of John Rawls’s idea that, in public reasoning, we should abstract away from comprehensive moral doctrines. The chapter contrasts its distinction between facts at different levels with the distinction between admissible and inadmissible evidence, and discusses some implications for the practice of political theory.

Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy Volume 6

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
Personal Space ◽  
Coarse Grained ◽  
Moral Theories ◽  
Special Relationships ◽  
The Right ◽  
The University ◽  
Past Injustices

This consists of eight papers in political philosophy that were presented at the Sixth Annual Workshop for Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy, at the University Pavia, Italy, in June 2018. In Part I: Rights and Wrongs, Kimberley Brownlee analyses how wrongs can create new rights. Zofia Stemplowska argues that it is possible to mitigate some past injustices done to those who are no longer alive. Japa Pallikkathayil develops an account of how our bodily rights constrain the right to free speech. In Part II: Immigration and Borders, Valeria Ottonelli defends the right to stay where one lives, on the basis of the right to control one’s body and one’s personal space. Nils Holtug argues that the equality required by justice has global scope and that open borders can be expected reduce global inequality. Johann Frick argues that special relationships among members of a group (e.g. one’s compatriots) cannot justify strong forms of partiality, unless the boundaries of this group can also be justified. In Part III: Other Matters, Christian List and Laura Valentini argue that the normative facts of political theory belong to a higher—more coarse-grained—level than those of moral theory and that, consequently, some questions that moral theories answer are indeterminate at the political level. Aart van Gils and Patrick Tomlin explore the issue whether weaker claims can be aggregated in order to collectively defeat stronger claims, and they focus on the limited aggregation view, according to which this is sometimes, but not always so.

The Rights Kind of Politics

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brooke A. Ackerly
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Global Justice ◽  
Normative Theory ◽  
Political Community ◽  
The Political ◽  
Transformative Politics ◽  
Taking Responsibility ◽  
Normative Political Theory

Just responsibility is a way of taking responsibility for all forms of global injustice (not just women’s human rights) and to all people, even those who consider themselves removed from the politics of global injustice (though they want to be engaged). Chapter 7 applies the theory to taking responsibility through the enactment of roles in the political economy—those of consumer, donor, worker, and activist—and beyond. It summarizes the view of political community, accountability, and leadership essential to transformative politics. Just responsibility is more than a normative theory of human rights principles. It is also a normative political theory of how to carry out those principles not only in the practices proscribed by our roles in the political economy, but also in imaginative practices that defy the boundaries of those roles in order to transform the political economy. Just responsibility is a human rights theory of global justice.

scholarly journals Political Realism as Methods not Metaethics

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Leader Maynard
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Theory Building ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Realism ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Moral Theories ◽  
Moral Normativity ◽  
Political Form ◽  
Political Realities ◽  
Normative Implications

AbstractThis paper makes the case for a revision of contemporary forms of political realism in political theory. I argue that contemporary realists have gone awry in increasingly centring their approach around a metaethical claim: that political theory should be rooted in a political form of normativity that is distinct from moral normativity. Several critics of realism have argued that this claim is unconvincing. But I suggest that it is also a counterintuitive starting point for realism, and one unnecessary to avoid the ‘applied morality’ approach to political theory that realists oppose. Instead, realism should be methodologically orientated around what I term ‘empirically constitutive political realities’ - enduring features of real political contexts that are systematically consequential in their normative implications. Realists can persuasively argue that such empirically constitutive political realities must be attended to in political theory-building, and not merely treated as a context in which independently formulated moral theories are simply applied. This framing of realism accords real politics a genuinely foundational theoretical role, but without requiring any contentious metaethical stance about a non-moral political normativity. I explain some methodological implications that follow for realism – in particular the need to prioritise empirically grounded theorisation of real political contexts over abstract and rather essentialist claims about ‘the political’. I also argue that such a framing of realism helps engender a more accurate, less divisive, and more pluralist conception of methodological debates within political theory.

Auf der Suche nach einer komplexen Friedenslogik –Versuch einer metatheoretischen Verortung undNeuorientierung

2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 158-163
Author(s):  
Wilfried Graf
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Debate ◽  
Dialogical Logic ◽  
Logic Of Action ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Theoretical Paradigms ◽  
Different Levels

The dualistic juxtaposition of the logic of peace and the logic of security is necessary for the political debate but not sufficient to overcome the dominance of the security approach in political theory and practice. This article seeks to broaden and deepen the understanding of the relationship between the logic of peace and the logic of security on different levels of meaning. Firstly, this relationship is explored on the level of meaning of a logic of action and intervention. Secondly, this relationship is discussed on the level of meaning of a logic of research and the meta-theoretical paradigms on which the logic of action is constructed. Thirdly, this relationship is further reflected on the level of meaning of a logic of thought and rationality. Founded in a philosophy of complexity a dialogical “logic of complexity” is proposed as a metaparadigm for a complex logic of peace that is both critical and integrative of the logic of security.

Elinor Ostrom, Governing the Commons

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Brennan
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Central Unit ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Unit Of Analysis ◽  
Moral Problems ◽  
The Commons ◽  
Modern Nation State ◽  
Normative Political Theory

Few political theorists have read Elinor Ostrom’s Governing the Commons or incorporated its insights into their work. At first glance, it may seem to be of interest only to social scientists, with little relevance to purely normative political theory. On the contrary, Ostrom’s work in fact shows a kind of presumptuousness in moral theory. It illustrates that theorists tend to assume rather than prove that the central unit of analysis is the modern nation-state. It further shows that theorists may be unable to design solutions to moral problems or problems of justice; they may, at best, only be able to identify such solutions when they appear.

On the Will of the People: Notes on the Political “Theory” of Populism

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Claus Offe
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Identity ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Conflicts Of Interest ◽  
Political Rhetoric ◽  
The Political ◽  
The People ◽  
National People ◽  
The Will

The “will of the (national) people” is the ubiquitously invoked reference unit of populist politics. The essay tries to demystify the notion that such will can be conceived of as a unique and unified substance deriving from collective ethnic identity. Arguably, all political theory is concerned with arguing for ways by which citizens can make e pluribus unum—for example, by coming to agree on procedures and institutions by which conflicts of interest and ideas can be settled according to standards of fairness. It is argued that populists in their political rhetoric and practice typically try to circumvent the burden of such argument and proof. Instead, they appeal to the notion of some preexisting existential unity of the people’s will, which they can redeem only through practices of repression and exclusion.

Turnout in Multi-Level Systems

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sona N. Golder ◽  
Ignacio Lago ◽  
André Blais ◽  
Elisabeth Gidengil ◽  
Thomas Gschwend
Keyword(s):  
National Level ◽  
The Body ◽  
Political Community ◽  
The Political ◽  
European Level ◽  
National Elections ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
European Elections ◽  
Multi Level ◽  
Different Levels

Voters face different incentives to turn out to vote in one electoral arena versus another. Although turnout is lowest in European elections, it is found that the turnout is only slightly lower in regional than in national elections. Standard accounts suggest that the importance of an election, in terms of the policy-making power of the body to be elected, drives variation in turnout across elections at different levels. This chapter argues that this is only part of the story, and that voter attachment to a particular level also matters. Not all voters feel connected to each electoral arena in the same way. Although for some, their identity and the issues they most care about are linked to politics at the national level, for others, the regional or European level may offer the political community and political issues that most resonate with them.

Concern, Respect, and Cooperation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Garrett Cullity
Keyword(s):  
Moral Theory ◽  
Fundamental Principle ◽  
Simple Set ◽  
Collective Activity ◽  
Complexity Results ◽  
Concern For Others ◽  
Moral Theories ◽  
Moral Responsibilities

Three things often recognized as central to morality are concern for others’ welfare, respect for their self-expression, and cooperation in worthwhile collective activity. When philosophers have proposed theories of the substance of morality, they have typically looked to one of these three sources to provide a single, fundamental principle of morality—or they have tried to formulate a master-principle for morality that combines these three ideas in some way. This book views them instead as three independently important foundations of morality. It sets out a plural-foundation moral theory with affinities to that of W. D. Ross. There are major differences: the account of the foundations of morality differs from Ross’s, and there is a more elaborate explanation of how the rest of morality derives from them. However, the overall aim is similar. This is to illuminate the structure of morality by showing how its complex content is generated from a relatively simple set of underlying elements—the complexity results from the various ways in which one part of morality can derive from another, and the various ways in which the derived parts of morality can interact. Plural-foundation moral theories are sometimes criticized for having nothing helpful to say about cases in which their fundamental norms conflict. Responding to this, the book concludes with three detailed applications of the theory: to the questions surrounding paternalism, the use of others as means, and our moral responsibilities as consumers.

Aristotle on the Concept of Shared Life

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Brill
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Character

Aristotle on the Concept of Shared Life studies Aristotle’s understanding of the political character of human intimacy via an examination of the zoological frame informing his political theory. It argues that the concept of shared life, i.e. the forms of intimacy that arise from the possession of logos and the capacity for choice, is central to human political partnership, and serves to locate that life within the broader context of living beings as such, where it emerges as an intensification of animal sociality. As such it challenges a long-standing approach to the role of the animal in Aristotle’s thought, and to the recent reception of Aristotle’s thinking about the political valence of life and living beings.

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