In Pursuit of the 'Normative' in Normative Theory

When both academic critique and funding criteria essentially say to political theory, ‘what is the point?’, anxiety creeps into the heart of every normative theorist and agonising self-reflection ensues; the study of the political without advisory comment and application may not seem a good use of public finances, where demands to ‘make better use’ of research (in a UK context at least) are common (Council 2016). Thus our response appears urgent: not just for the standing of the subject, but for its very survival, for the continuation of PhD funding relies upon the quality of the reply. The problem is, the replies do not merely conflict, they rest upon fundamentally opposed views of what the subject actually is. Political philosophy has an intrinsic value, one might say, and if you want impact, then we need to be free of its demands, for the insights of theorising rely upon this freedom to reflect in the abstract. ‘Division of labour’ (Waldron, 1995, p. 167) is our watchword here, where we safely withdraw from the nitty gritty of prescription, or assume that is for another paper. Alternatively, we could be sympathetic to what is essentially a realist attack veiled within the funding criteria, and claim that the ‘normative’ in normative theory is there for a reason. Regardless of the different views such retorts rest upon, both are vulnerable to the charge of elitism: either an ‘introverted elitism’ in which academics talk to academics about what should be done but is not, or an ‘extroverted’ version where we step up to the steeple and presume to ethically instruct individuals and government, risking the move from scholar to figure of moral authority. This Paper prepares the case for normative theory in the context of these academic criticisms and funding criteria by not shying away from the idea of a ‘prescriptive’ role with impact (Waldron, What Plato Would Allow, 1995, p. 161), but neither basing it upon a moral authority per se, or neglecting political philosophy’s fundamental commitment to reflection. To achieve this, I turn to an unlikely saviour in the form of a Nietzschean style of genealogy within a normative approach, where the principle is not a presupposed starting point that we apply to a specific problem, but the problem is our point of origin, which leads to an ‘applicable’ ideal theorising wrapped up in conceptual analysis. Rather than saying ‘this is what we should do, and here’s what happens when we do not’, this method says ‘here is an issue, why do we perceive of it as an issue, what should we do and what values would our proposed actions hinge upon?’ Therefore, I walk the line between normative theory and realism by beginning with the latter, amongst the ‘nitty gritties’ of our realities, with the aim of reaching the latter’s world of the ideal.