Political Realism: Method Not Metaethics

In this paper I make the case for a revision (or perhaps reversion) of contemporary forms of political realism in political theory. This revision starts from critique of (much) recent realist scholarship. Specifically, I argue that many realists have gone awry in increasingly centring their approach around what is fundamentally a metaethical claim: that political theory should be rooted in a political form of normativity that is fundamentally distinct from moral normativity. I argue that this claim is a counterintuitive and unhelpful starting point for political realists. It is not central to the longer intellectual tradition of realist thought – to which I encourage realists to return – and entangles realism in technical philosophical debates with which most contemporary realists have displayed little genuine interest. I suggest that, instead, realists should more consistently focus on a methodological orientation – not against morality per se, but on the dangers associated with certain kinds of excessive idealism. I illustrate the comparative attractiveness of this approach by re-examining debates over realism and normative theory in international politics. I show that the realism-as-metaethics approach falls back into some longstanding traps of realist international relations thinking that have largely been critiqued and dismissed within international normative theory. By contrast, the realism-as-methods approach returns the focus to forms of excessive idealism which might be thought especially problematic in the constrained, non-legalistic domain of international politics. In international politics, I suggest, both hiving political normativity away from morality and assuming that international policies are primarily guided by ideal principles of justice are extremely dangerous approaches. Providing examples from normative theories of legitimate warfare, I show that the most important and neglected issues – to which realists are well placed to make a contribution – instead revolve around the way in which moral constraints on violence are operationalised in circumstances where a fully just outcome cannot even be identified, let alone legislated into being.