Normative thoughts and political principles

This Paper argues that there are, conventionally, three types of thought used by contemporary political theorists in the process of justifying political principles: the decisions we imagine we would make in hypothetical political-choice situations (e.g. decisions in 'the original position'); considered judgements about existing or possible institutions or practices (e.g. 'slavery is wrong'); and intuitions in response to abstract thought experiments of analogous relevance to politics (e.g. decisions about 'runaway trolleys'.) These are all 'normative thoughts' in the sense that they are either about what should or should be the case in the world or about what we should or should not do within it. There are though important differences between these thoughts, which often get lost due to the rather loose way in which terms like intuition, judgement, conviction, and commitment, etc., are deployed in contemporary argument. My aim here is to bring clarity to our thinking about these thoughts, whilst also drawing out the strengths and weaknesses of each thought-type.