Why Normative Behaviourism Does Not Improve Political Realism

According to normative behaviourism, theorists should ground their principles in the ‘real actions’ of ‘real people’, by turning facts about observable patterns of behaviour into grounds for specific normative political principles. This way of doing normative political theory has strong realist credentials, given its methods, values and ambitions. Indeed, proponents argue that it is an improvement over realism in that it solves two problems that face many realists, namely, the legitimacy problem, i.e., how we should distinguish genuine acceptance of a political system from false acceptance, and the institutional problem, i.e., how we should translate political principles into viable political institutions. With regard to the legitimacy problem, normative behaviourism shares the realist strategy of basing authentic legitimacy on perceived legitimacy. Therefore, just as realism, it has to distinguish legitimate acceptance of a political system from acceptance based on coercion or false consciousness. It does so, not by asking what the majority would say about the suggested political principles, but by observing how people behave under different systems in history. If more people turn to insurrection and crime under a given regime, that regime is illegitimate, even if the majority at present perceive of it as legitimate. With regard to the institutional problem, it starts with a complaint made by realists that political principles defended by mainstream political theorists are too abstract and therefore too indeterminate to generate feasible institutional prescriptions. Realists themselves, however, have not come up with a viable solution to this problem either, according to proponents of normative behaviourism. The appropriate way of addressing this problem, proponents claim, is by moving from proven institutions to abstract principles, in other words, from-is-to-ought, rather than the other way around. That is, normative behaviourism begins with a particular set of institutions that generates the least insurrection and crime in practice, and then argues that whatever principles these institutions express are justified. It thereby offers both determinate and feasible institutional proposals. In this paper we make two claims. First, we claim that normative behaviourism does not solve these two problems encountered by realists. We argue that its solutions rest on a flawed distinction between foundational principles and ‘principles that matter’, together with a failed use of a Humean internal reasons approach. Second, we claim that normative behaviourism encounters new problems that realist approaches typically do not have. First, normative behaviourism is a kind of closet utilitarianism, but with a more problematic value measure, which rests on universal principles of the kind that realists usually reject. Second, normative behaviourism runs the risk of coming even closer to the status quo than realists. We conclude that despite several aspects superficially attractive to the realist project, normative behaviourism fails in its attempt to supply an improved version of realism.