Realist liberalism: an agenda

Abstract

This paper proposes a realist version of liberal theory. Realist liberalism denies that societies must (or can) rest on even a thin normative consensus; disbelieves in regulative ideals; and decouples liberal politics and social critique from neo-Kantian projects of rational justification. Drawing inspiration from the Scottish rather than the German Enlightenment, it focuses instead on institutional divisions of labor, unintended consequences, and the furtherance of human interests that are partly common and partly clashing. It analyzes a variety of institutions and practices – including the rule of law, the market, the welfare state, competitive representative and partisan democracy, toleration, and free speech – that reveal themselves in practice to serve a wide and indefinite variety of human interests. Each of these and other liberal institutions enable a particular range of human purposes. And each may be subjected to normative critique to the extent that it excludes important sectors of society from its benefits, is unfairly rigged by powerful actors, or displays systematic and excessive bias with regard to the range of interests it promotes.

Keywords:

• Liberalism
• realism
• realist liberalism

View correction statement:

Erratum

Acknowledgments

Earlier versions of this paper were delivered at the workshop, ‘What is Realism?’ at the National University of Singapore, 9–10 January 2015, as well as at MANCEPT, Manchester, England, 6–7 September 2016, and at Ohio State University’s Political Theory workshop, 26 September 2016 (though time and space constraints prevented full incorporation of comments from the last two). I am grateful for comments from Ed Hall, Eric MacGilvray, Allison McQueen, Terry Nardin, Philip Pettit, Janosch Prinz, Rahul Sagar, Matt Sleat, and an anonymous reviewer.

Notes

1. This list is inspired by many works by Michael Freeden, especially Freeden, 2005, Introduction and Chapter 1. I would follow Freeden in characterizing recent neo-Kantian ‘liberalism’ as a detour and distraction from the larger liberal tradition.

2. For an excellent discussion, with extensive citations, see Sleat (2013).

3. For the different connotations of unintended consequences in Anglo-American thought (benign) and German thought (tragic, angst-inducing) see Müller, 2011, p. 30f. Realist and idealist liberalism largely replicate this difference.

4. ‘State’ as a shorthand for the administrative apparatus is of course fine, but probably less clear than ‘bureaucracy.’

5. That the market systematically and universally rewards the bourgeois virtues is (as Hayek notes) quite unlikely, and those values are in any case disputed. Smith’s apparent defense of wealth creation as good for society but of unclear value for any of its component individuals is utterly lacking in normative persuasiveness. Early Rawls appeared to acknowledge the possibility of a Humean, mutual-advantage interpretation of the difference principle, but it is not clear that later Rawls has room for it.

6. This is proverbially true of Jews, Roma, and other groups considered outside national communities. For a more surprising application to African-Americans, see Austin (1993).

7. See, e.g. Shapiro, 1999. Power and interests are perhaps liberal and radical concepts. Conservative forms of realism might stress still other alternatives to liberal reason: authority (traditionalist conservatism), fear (Hobbesian or reactionary conservatism), or decision (Schmittian or authoritarian conservatism). I shall not pursue these possibilities here.

8. That is: liberalism must marginalize such persons’ purposes or projects, but need not and should not persecute those persons themselves. Here I concur with Sleat, 2013.

9. Schelling (1960/1980) claimed that in his time even experienced arms-control negotiators found this basic fact of game theory counter-intuitive!

10. Knight & Johnson, 2011 explicitly but unconvincingly defend a choice to defend democracy in ‘ideal form’ (in spite of their emphasis on ‘realism’ and power elsewhere) on 165, 169n4, and elsewhere.

11. Because Pettit associates the furtherance of mere interests (unmodified by common deliberation) with respect for narrow, selfish, or material self-interest (‘atomized concerns,’ ‘individual satisfaction’) on the one hand and market models of politics on the other – both of which associations the realist liberal would strongly reject – respect for mere interests strikes Pettit as a recipe for domination, for exposing ‘all weakly placed individuals to the naked preferences of the stronger’ (Pettit 1997, pp., 9, 10, 205). Pettit rightly claims, however, that he is no outlier: contractualist and deliberative-democratic theorists overwhelmingly share his belief that the furtherance of interests alone can provide no normative reasons. For further discussion see MacGilvray, 2011, pp. 190–198.