Why Do We Need a Critical Realist Approach to Morality in Political Science?

This paper argues that empirical political science fails to recognise the multifaceted forms of morality, focusing merely on empirically observed moral judgements. Such thin conceptualisation results in epistemic fallacy, which, in turn, lumps together truth-apt moral beliefs and non-cognitive attitudes, thereby blurring the social dynamics of morality. The descriptive and explanatory power of such an approach remains constrained within the borders of its own thin definition, and, by proxy, strips the research of its usefulness in terms of normative political theorising. I seek to address this issue by discussing the critical realist meta-theoretical perspective to studying morality in political science. I draw up a dual model of morality, building on the moral theories of Bhaskar and Sayer to highlight the various aspects of the connection between moral theorising and empirical research with the aim of demonstrating how the critical realist conception of morality can be informative for political philosophy.