The Role of Moral Norms in Political Theory

In the recent debate on political normativity in political theory, two positions have emerged among political realists. According to the first view, political normativity is understood as orthogonal to moral normativity, and moral considerations do not figure in the reasons given in support of a political principle or a course of action in the political domain. Instead, theorists in this camp have been drawing on instrumental, functional or epistemic normativity in theorizing political normativity. According to the second view, moral norms and political norms are not dichotomous in this sense, as moral considerations may figure in the justification of a political principle or theory. The distinctness rather has to do with how moral norms and prescriptions are ‘filtered through’ the realities of politics such that they are altered by politics’ constitutive features (Sleat 2022; Jubb 2019; Hall 2017). While the first view of political normativity has been severely criticized (Erman and Möller 2015, 2022a, 2022b, 2023; Maynard and Worsnip 2018), the latter view has remained underdeveloped and vague. To take the debate on political normativity forward, the aim in this paper is to explore what it could reasonably mean to claim that moral norms are filtered through politics and are aligned with its constitutive features. More specifically, we explore the role of moral norms in political theory. What work do they do, and under what conceptual and normative conditions? Very little has been written on this, with an exception of Charles Larmore’s attempt to demarcate political from moral philosophy. We take our starting-point in Larmore’s work and make two claims, one critical and one constructive. First, we argue against Larmore’s claim – following political realists – that because political philosophy is concerned with the regulation of basic institutions and legal-political orders, it should primarily focus on political legitimacy rather than justice. In our view, nothing in the constitutive features of politics supports such a conclusion. Second, we argue that any reasonable political theory relies on foundational principles (even if implicitly), and that the role of moral norms in political theory is determined by the fact that since political principles regulate basic institutions and legal-political orders, they cannot fully constitute foundational principles in political theory. Foundational principles (or values) are moral principles (or values) that are independent of a society and polity. As such, they are more basic than political principles in the sense that they put up the normative boundary conditions for such principles. Therefore, any reasonable political theory needs to rely on at least one moral premise.