Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 15 (2):149-164 (2012)
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Abstract |
One of the main challenges faced by realists in political philosophy is that of offering an account of authority that is genuinely normative and yet does not consist of a moralistic application of general, abstract ethical principles to the practice of politics. Political moralists typically start by devising a conception of justice based on their pre-political moral commitments; authority would then be legitimate only if political power is exercised in accordance with justice. As an alternative to that dominant approach I put forward the idea that upturning the relationship between justice and legitimacy affords a normative notion of authority that does not depend on a pre-political account of morality, and thus avoids some serious problems faced by mainstream theories of justice. I then argue that the appropriate purpose of justice is simply to specify the implementation of an independently grounded conception of legitimacy, which in turn rests on a context- and practice-sensitive understanding of the purpose of political power.
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Keywords | justice legitimacy political realism political moralism political idealism authority |
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DOI | 10.1080/13698230.2012.651016 |
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References found in this work BETA
The Law of Peoples: With, The Idea of Public Reason Revisited.John Rawls - 1999 - Harvard University Press.
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Citations of this work BETA
Realism in Normative Political Theory.Enzo Rossi & Matt Sleat - 2014 - Philosophy Compass 9 (10):689-701.
Political Realism as Ideology Critique.Janosch Prinz & Enzo Rossi - 2017 - Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 20 (3):334-348.
How to Do Realistic Political Theory.Edward Hall - 2017 - European Journal of Political Theory 16 (3):283-303.
Facts, Principles, and (Real) Politics.Enzo Rossi - 2016 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 19 (2):505-520.
View all 42 citations / Add more citations
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2012-03-06
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