Arendt and political realism: towards a realist account of political judgement

Abstract

This article argues that Hannah Arendt's thought can offer significant insights on political judgement for realism in political theory. We identify a realist position which emphasises the need to account for how humans judge politically, contra moralist tendencies to limit its exercise to rational standards, but which fails to provide a sufficient conception of its structure and potential. Limited appeals to political judgement render the realist defence of the political elusive, and compromise the endeavour to offer a meaningful alternative to the moralist tendency to displace politics. The potential and limitations of realist discussions on judgement are made visible in relation to proto-realists Judith Shklar and Isaiah Berlin. In seeking to enrich the realist conception of the political, the article introduces the displacement critique found in the neglected Arendtian 'realism'. It also provides the foundations for a distinctly realist account of political judgement which, we argue, requires elaboration along two dimensions: the social coding of political judgement and the political capacities that help judgement build a suitable political sphere.

‘Painted scenes’ or ‘empty pageants’? Superficiality and depth in (realist) political thought

“…To wit, failure to appreciate the distinction between Dorian Gray and Sibyl Vane-style realism does not merely compromise the realist endeavour to develop a coherent alternative to moralism, but also renders the realist challenge less pellucid than assumed. To be sure, realists advance several criticisms of political philosophy (see Galston 2010, Philp 2012, Rossi and Sleat 2014, Hall 2015, Vogler and Tillyris 2019, Geuss, 2020), and it is not our intention to elaborate on all of these here. We wish to illustrate, however, how imprecision about reality muddies the waters of a prominent realist objection to moralism – an objection which is thought to be constitutive of the realist turn: the tendency of philosophers to articulate hopeful, abstract and monistic visions of perfection under the aegis of rational harmony; comprehensive, all-inclusive conceptions of the good and/or justice, captured by a set of substantive ideals upon which rational agents can ascend.…”

“…Though not unproblematic (see Sleat 2013), this shift of focus – from supposed agreement on and quest to realise justice or the common good to the appreciation and prevention of suffering and injustice – seems innately valuable for the realist project. Though negative and (still) pessimistic in its outlook – ‘it just tells us’, to use Rossi’s (2019, 645) words, ‘that, given its diagnosis, the society we should aspire to is, for the time being, a non-place’ – Dorian Gray-style realism moves beyond contemporary realism’s ‘mere’ emphasis on legitimacy and order, tethers the relativist temptations and ‘conflict fetishism’ of contemporary realist thought and does not displace realism’s emancipatory or radical potential tout de suite 14 (Rossi 2016; Vogler & Tillyris, 2019).…”

“…In his seminal paper, Realism in Political Theory , William Galston identifies the (re)emergence of an alternative approach to political philosophising, captured by the term ‘political realism’ – a ‘dissenting movement’ against the dominant mode of political philosophising (Galston 2010, 386) which is steeped in Platonism, and which propounds a monistic vision of perfection and harmony (see also Geuss 2008, 2015, 2020; Raekstad 2015; Sabl and Sagar 2017; Vogler and Tillyris 2019). ‘The place for political realism’, Mark Philp writes, ‘has been inscribed in political philosophy since Plato first distinguished between cave and sunlight, with realists being committed to bringing political theory out of the sun’, drawing our attention to the ‘grubby exigencies of the political cave’ (2012, 2, 18).…”

“…5That the distinctiveness of realism remains somewhat unclear is a well-documented issue in realist scholarship. As Andrew Sabl and Rahul Sagar note, ‘realism was often unclear as to what it was actually aiming at’, as its proponents have spent more time critiquing moralism ‘than doing “realist theory”’: ‘Eager to escape the Rawlsian camp, many realists understandably cared more about justifying the exodus … than about which path out they took’ (2017, 270; see also Horton 2010, Hall 2015, Baderin 2014, Vogler & Tillyris 2019, Freeden 2018, Rossi 2019, Cross 2021). Though some of the issues we explore partly arise from the complexity of the realist tradition (see Freeden 2012, Rossi, 2019, Cross 2021), our analysis transcends such diagnoses.…”