In moral and political philosophy, we often think of actions as things that get grounded by principles, but never of principles as things that get grounded by actions. This is surprising, given that we often use hypothetical actions as evidential grounds for particular principles. Think, for example, of Rawls’ ‘original position’, Singer’s ‘drowning child’, or any of the various ‘trolley dilemmas’ on offer. Why then couldn’t a real action ground a principle which in turn grounds further real actions? After all, we sometimes only really know what people think or feel about particular situations when they experience them directly, and sometimes only really know of those thoughts and feelings by judging their actions – of resistance, revolt, rebellion, and so on. Think here, for example, of our views on slavery, sexual discrimination, and dictatorship. Actions, we like to say, often speak louder than words, and acts of struggle, I suggest, often speak the loudest when it comes to particular political institutions, and in turn the political principles those institutions express. With all this in mind then, I have two aims in this paper: First, to explain how certain kinds of action ground certain kinds of political principle; second, to explain how this relates to several contemporary problems in our subject, including in particular some of those found in the moralism/realism and ideal/nonideal theory debates.
