Public Reason 7 (1-2): 81-92

© 2016 by Public Reason

A Realist Critique of Moralism in Politics. The Autonomy of Bernard

Williams’s Basic Legitimation Demand

Cristina Voinea

University of Bucharest

Abstract. In this article I aim to show that one of the criticisms that have been leveled at Wil iams’s Basic Legitimation Demand (BLD), the one that states that it rests on a moral

presupposition – that of the equal worth of persons – arises out of a misreading of his realist politics. For this purpose, I will start by sketching Wil iams’s critique of moralism in ethics, which will serve as the basis of later analyzing his realist critique of moralism in politics. Once Wil iam’s arguments have been laid out I will proceed to show that what has been interpreted

as the moral presupposition on which he builds his whole project, is nothing more but a

misreading of Wil iams’s purposes.

Key words: states, legitimation, moralism, politics, realism.

The years 2000’s have brought about new chal enges for most of the countries

worldwide. In the wake of the refugee crisis and more and more terrorist attacks in the

West, many states have been shaken and weakened by waves of nationalism and even

extremism. This is a direct consequence of the lack of trust in what was once the biggest

guarantor of the possibility of living a fulfil ing life, namely democracy. Once people

grew uneasy with the promises of democracy, liberalism lost its appeal; the politics in

some European countries slowly but surely made a transition towards more restrictive

and authoritarian political arrangements (see Hungary, Poland1) and one of the greatest

super-powers, the United States of America, is fol owing in this trend footsteps.

The decrease of trust in democracies and its corol ary politics and policies has

created the premises for the apparition of governments with authoritarian tendencies that

empower various security agencies to enact general surveil ance on the people. This is

where a vicious circle appears, as people lose trust in states and their power to assure a safe and decent life, and governments treat their citizens as potential criminals whose actions

must be known in order to be prevented. As more and more civil liberties disappear

(Turkey is a paradigmatic case2) and states become egotistical agents not only in the

international arena, but also in the relations with their citizens, one seems compel ed

1] The Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has become famous for vehemently opposing

receiving immigrants in Hungary and, moreover, in his treatment of domestic political opponents one can find echoes of authoritarian tendencies. In Poland, too, the actions of the newly elected right-wing Law and Justice Party has prompted people to take the streets in defense of democracy. This state of affairs has been acknowledged even by the EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in a recent interview for the Belgian journal Le soir (Jurek Kuczkiewic. Jean-Claude Juncker au «Soir»: «Il y a un sérieux problème de gouvernance en Europe». In Le Soir, November 11. http://plus.lesoir.be/67351/article/2016-11-05/jean-

claude-juncker-au-soir-il-y-un-serieux-probleme-de-gouvernance-en-europe (accessed November 24, 2016).

2] According to the 2016 Freedom House Country Report (Freedom House Country Report.

2016. https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2016/turkey, accessed November 22, 2016)

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A Realist Critique of Moralism in Politics. The Autonomy of Bernard Wil iams’s

Basic Legitimation Demand

to approach these problems from a moral standpoint. Hence, many grassroot protest

movements have started demanding governors more ethical, human-rights guided

international and national policies. These idealists have been accused by some of being

utterly unrealistic, while others are praising them for having the courage to demand the

introduction in the political environment of something that has been said to have missed

for decades: morality.

The two aforementioned positions can be reduced to a pressing issue in political

sciences and political philosophy: should politics be informed by morality or is it a

total y different domain of though and action? Is political moralism still viable or has

its place been taken by cold-hearted pragmatism? In this article I plan to show that this

question is by no means easy and that its answer should not aim at making a clear cut

distinction between a politics for the people – infused with morality – and one that is

almost identical to ‘real politik’, deeply pragmatic and definitely amoral. For this purpose

I will use Wil iams’ critique of political moralism in order to point to the fact that a middle ground can be reached, one that avoids the pitfal s of the two extreme positions, i.e. either

that politics should be developed within a moral framework or that politics is a total y

different domain of human thought and activity that should never be informed by or

accept influences from the sphere of morality. For this purpose, I will start by sketching

Wil iams’s critique of moralism in ethics. Once Wil iam’s arguments have been laid out I

will proceed to show that what has been interpreted as the moral presupposition on which

he builds his whole project, is nothing more but a misreading of Wil iams’s purposes.

I. THE REALIST CRITIQUE OF MOR ALISM

In order to ful y understand Wil iams’s perspective on moralism in politics, one

should at least have a sense of his discontents with modern ethical theory. As this subject

has been approached by Wil iams in painstaking detail, I will only give a brief account of

his criticism, one that will serve as the basis for a deeper and more nuanced understanding

of his political realism.

Wil iams starts his critique of moralism in ethics by making a very simple, yet very

profound observation: many philosophers have fal en into the trap of trying to uncover

universal y moral biding principles and values that ignore real-life contexts and the

human psychology. Hence, what some of the most well refined mainstream modern

ethical theories lack is the conceptualization and integration in their theoretical bodies of

some of the most basic human phenomena, regret and luck.

In one of the first works where Wil iams approaches the criticism of moralism

in ethics, Ethical Consistency (1973), he stresses the importance of acknowledging the possibilities of agents experiencing conflicting ethical beliefs. Any theory that tries to

give an account of morality that does not incorporate in its body the actual experience

of inconsistencies in ‘the moral life’ that people lead is doomed to fail for a very simple

reason: not having in view the actual moral psychology of people leads to an artificial

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perspective of morality, one that tries to impose principles in order to mold people so that

theories will succeed (Hall 2013, 32).

Inconsistencies in ethical and moral beliefs are an integral part of human life and

their practical consequence, that of agent-regret (Wil iams 1973, 170), are central to

understanding the complex and contingent phenomena of morality. Neither utilitarianism

nor kantianism admit the possibility of regret in the life of moral agents; the first moral

theory puts an emphasis on the consequences of actions after a calculation of the pains

and pleasures generated by that particular action, thus ignoring the fact that although

proceeding with a course of action might have the best outcome in terms of ‘the most

good’, it might still involve doing something wrong, a fact that generates regret in normal

human beings. Kantianism is eluding too the possibility of regret by way of promoting

the categorical imperative as a universal guarantor of moral y justified actions; hence,

from a Kantian perspective, once an action passes the test of the categorical imperative

the possibility of regret would appear as irrational (1973, 172). Wil iams’s point is that

conflict and inconsistency are deeply intertwined with human life and moreover they

are an indicator of humanity, thus any theory that tries to ignore this basic characteristic

of human psychology would fall into the trap and il usion of trying to build a perfectly

‘elegant’, complex and refined conceptual apparatus, internal y coherent but still useless

in the attempt of explaining or even guiding human behavior.

Although Wil iams’s critique of moralism is very profound and complex, what I want

to stress here is his insistence of using philosophy in order to give an account of how people actually live and not for how they should live. The latter perspective has been approached by most moral and ethical theories, which has led to the construction of more and more

complex, detailed and technical theoretical bodies that make no appeal to the layperson,

who ultimately has no interest and finds no purposes in these complex conceptual

schemes. Moral and ethical life should never by analyzed sub specie aeternitais (Hall 2013, 36), from a universal and eternal standpoint, regardless of historical circumstances

and contingencies. Ethical and moral theories should necessarily have in their view the

inconsistencies, conflicts and idiosyncrasies that populate human life; in other words,

they should be embedded in practical life, always conceptualized in a bottom-up fashion,

from a historical and contextual perspective that could take into account people’s actual

dispositions and desires (Wil iams 1986). Ethical and moral theories are useful in

giving us shortcuts of imagining different courses of actions and life-guiding values, but

they cannot give individuals a justification for fol owing those particular precepts and

principles.

Another important concept in Bernard Wil iams’s ensemble of works is the one of

moral luck, developed and refined in Moral Luck (1981). What Wil iams is interested in is to show to what extent and how moral values are influenced by luck. For this purpose the

already famous example of Gauguin has been offered: the painter Gauguin has a difficult

choice to make, to leave his family in order to pursue his artistic career in a more primitive society where he could more easily express himself or to remain with his family and

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A Realist Critique of Moralism in Politics. The Autonomy of Bernard Wil iams’s

Basic Legitimation Demand

renounce all thoughts of fame and artistic mastery. One of the first questions that arises

is whether Gauguin’s project is a rational y justified one. Wil iams argues that one cannot

answer this questions without knowing if Gauguin succeeded in his endeavor (1981, 36);

if this were the case, then it is clear that Gauguin was rational y justified in doing as he

did, but if he failed, then his project was unjustified. Given that the rationality of a choice can be assessed (and oftentimes people judge other people’s actions this way) only by also

assessing its success and given that in a certain way, success is dependent on luck, Wil iams

argues that rational justification also depends on luck. But it is not any kind of luck that

plays a role in this assessment, but only the intrinsic one that arises from the elements of the action considered and not from external sources (Chappell 2006). So, in Gauguin’s

case, if he were to be stricken by a lightning, thus unable to paint again, we would not

say that his departure was rational y unjustified because this event was not in his control.

But if he were to madly fall in love, never able to paint again due to being distracted, then

Gauguin would experiment a case of intrinsic bad luck, which would make his entire

project rational y unjustified. Wil iams’s point is to show that in certain cases rationality

and morality clash, due to the fact that a rational y justifiable action is, to a certain extent, dependent on luck and that morality (understood as a supreme value) is never dependent

on luck. As in Gauguin’s case, it is clear that an action can be both moral y unjustified

(even if Gauguin becomes the greatest painter, his leaving his family remains a moral y

bad, unjustified act) and rational y justified (if Gauguin succeeds, then clearly his project

was justified).

So can a moral y justified action be rational y unjustified? Through this example

Wil iams aims to show that the Kantian approach to morality, which equates acting

moral y with acting rational y, is mistaken once again, because it fails to take into account

people’s incongruities and inconsistencies that arise out of everyday, mundane situations

and contexts. More precisely, Wil iams shows that if morality is not the supreme value,

and if it is sometimes less important than rationality, then it fol ows that morality can

also be vulnerable to luck. Morality as a pure system, as it is commonly understood, is

vulnerable to luck and this is precisely why, in Wil iams’s view, it loses its status of the

supreme and pure value, because it seems that an act is judged retrospectively, in light of

the consequences of the concerned action and it does not derive its value only from the act

itself (Cal cut 2008, 273).

Although my sketch of Wil iams’s critique of moralism in ethics is by no means

complete, I tried to highlight the most important elements that will prove useful in

understanding his bril iant critique of moralism in politics. Firstly, his wide analysis

of consistency, regret and luck in the moral domain are indicators of the fact that for

Wil iams, ethics cannot be separated from the practical, day to day life or from the

empirical. Moreover, his insistence on dispositions and character shows that in order

to build a theory that real y speaks for the people and that aims to build a ‘world for the

people’ one should start from the actual moral psychology of individuals and not from

universal principles that have to be juxtaposed on the layperson’s life. Philosophy should

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be down to earth, meaning that it should always admit the contingency of the concepts,

elements or tools that it employs (Chappell 2006) in the process of clarifying the world,

and ethics is no different in this respect.

II. THE ‘FIRST POLITICAL QUESTION’ AND THE BASIC LEGITIMATION DEMAND

Wil iams starts charting the relation between morality and politics by identifying

the patterns that have dominated political thinking. Thus, he identifies two dominant

models that served as a foundation for political theory. The first one, the enactment model,

“formulates principles, concepts, ideals, and values; and politics (so far as it does what

the theory wants) seeks to express these in political action, through persuasion, the use

of power, and so forth” (Wil iams 2005, 1). Wil iams continues by stressing that the

paradigmatic case of this former model is utilitarianism, a theory that is constructed

with the ‘panoptical view’ in mind: society is supervised so as to see where are things

not conforming to the basic demands of the theory and, afterwards, to correct these

incongruities by formulating and imposing new policies that directly reflect the normative

principles of utilitarianism. In the second model, the structural one, the aim of the theory is to “lay down moral conditions of co-existence under power, conditions in which power

can be justly exercised” (2005, 1). These latter model (for which Rawls’s theory stands as a

paradigm) constrains what power – and also its practical expression, politics and policies

– can do, by having in view an external moral principle.

Despite the differences, both the enactment and the structural model express the

“priority of the moral over the political”. And with this short statement Wil iams is already

announcing the motives for his opposition: much of modern political theory retains a

moralistic stance, by fil ing policies, political structures, institutions and other political principles with a moral content. Thus, in general, politics is first conceptualized from

outside the political realm, and morality represents a starting point for this endeavor;

this is a phenomena that transforms political theory ‘to something like applied morality’

(2005, 2). The error of such endeavors is that they constrain the thought of leaders and

other political actors by imposing what they should think “not only in moral terms, but in

the moral terms that belong to the political theory itself”. Further on, Wil iams’s explicit

aim is to correct this wrong perspective of the nature of the political by developing an

approach that “gives a greater autonomy to distinctively political thought” (2005, 3).

In order to achieve his aim, Wil iams fol ows Hobbes’s lines by identifying a ‘first’

political question, that of “securing of order, protection, safety, trust, and the conditions

of cooperation”. It is important to understand and fix the meaning of ‘first’ which does

not imply that once answered, we already have settled the aims of political theory that

will remain the same through and throughout, but only that in order to pose any other

questions of a political nature, we have to first answer to this question. Moreover, ‘the

first political question’ is not posed only once, but it demands an answer all the time, due to its being dependent on historical circumstances. In Wil iams’s words, answering this

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A Realist Critique of Moralism in Politics. The Autonomy of Bernard Wil iams’s

Basic Legitimation Demand

question is a necessary condition for the state’s existence, but it is by no means a sufficient one. Admitting that ‘the first political question’ may have several answers, that translate

into different political arrangements, raises the question of legitimacy. Despite many historical examples that demonstrate the plurality of answers, Wil iams points out that

only some such political structures are legitimate, namely those that respond to the Basic

Legitimation Demand (BLD) (2005, 4).

BLD appears when states need to impose order and suppress chaos, a situation that

requires the use of power. But solving the problem of disorder does not necessarily imply the

appearance of a justified state, because the solution to the problem might easily become part

of the problem (Sleat 2010, 486). Those subject to the state’s power might find themselves

in a situation where their freedom is suppressed in a different manner than in the context

of disorder. Hence, they will ask the rulers and implicitly the state what is price they have to pay for order, in other words they will formulate the BLD (Hawthorn 2005, xi ).

The role of the state is to redeem its subjects of fear or terror and Wil iams

acknowledged that these sentiments could also be instil ed in citizens by states (for

example, in authoritarian states citizens most of the times live in a constant state of fear).

Hence, the aim of the BLD is to stop states from inflicting pain and terror on its citizens;

more precisely the state must “offer a justification of its power to all its subjects” (2005, 5). In order to better understand Wil iams’s claim, I will offer an example. The Turkish Republic

is considered by almost everyone a legitimate state, its rule of power assures, despite

many complaints (especial y in the last couple of months), stability and its citizens can

enjoy a basic framework of cooperation and safety. But, in Wil iams’s view, Turkey is not a

legitimate state, because of its long history of persecuting the Kurdish population, which,

unlike any other minority on the Turkish territory, cannot be said to enjoy the same basic

liberties and freedoms like the other citizens. In other words, the Kurdish population does

not have its safety assured, neither in relation with external enemies, nor with the state’s

power; thus, for them the Turkish state is not a legitimate one, as it does not offer a justified solution to the BLD. In order for this state to become legitimate, it must incorporate this

disadvantaged population, the Kurds, into the mass of its citizens, otherwise these would

not have a reason to accept the Turkish state as a legitimate one, if they retain their status of

‘internal enemies’ and continue to be treated as such (Sleat 2010, 487). Otherwise put, for

the Kurds the Turkish state is not offering a solution, but it becomes part of the problem.

But the BLD is by no means a principle belonging to the moral realm, but on the

contrary “it is a claim that is inherent in there being such a thing as politics … because

it is inherent in there being a first political question” (Wil iams 2005, 5). Wil iams’s

point is as impressive as it is simple; the situation in which a group of people holding a

monopoly on violence uses it in order to torture another group of people is by no means

a political situation, it is actual y the kind of situation that politics must resolve, al eviate or replace. And if a disadvantaged people must accept a state that is inflicting violence

upon them, then that state must explain to them “what the difference is between the

solution and the problem” without making recourse to violence or coercion. This is the

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point where Wil iams introduces the critical theory principle that states “the acceptance of a justification does not count if the acceptance itself is produced by the coercive power

which is supposedly being justified” (2005, 5). Thus, people accepting a certain political

arrangement out of fear does not make that state a legitimate one. And this is also where

his realism emerges; the demands of legitimacy of a state are not derived from moral

principles external to the realm of politics, but they come directly from the practice of

politics (Sleat 2010, 488).

Are the demands of the BLD only accounted by liberalism? Not necessarily, Wil iams

would answer, because the demands of liberalism only make sense in a particular context

and although any state must pass the BLD so that it could become LEG, it must also

accomplish some other secondary demands of the historical context to which it belongs.

It only makes sense to us, in the particular historical circumstances we live in, that only a

liberal state would pass the BLD test in order to become a legitimate one. Wil iams grants

the fact that there were also non-liberal states that were legitimate, due to the particular

specificities of the concerned epoch. Wil iams synthesizes this very important point

through a simple and elegant equation: LEG + Modernity = Liberalism (Wil iams 2005,

8). Liberalism is by no means a set of moral truths, the results of ahistorical reasoning, that appeared before us and which proves that any other legitimation story before it was wrong.

To much of contemporary political science and philosophy, which sees politics

as a form of applied morality, Wil iams contrasts a view that conceptualizes political

thought that does not start from pre-political moral engagements, be they ideals, precepts

or principles, but from what is specific to politics. Hence, any attempt of thinking about

politics, states or legitimation must “use distinctively political concepts, such as power,

and its normative relative, legitimation” (2005, 77). This endeavor is not equivalent to the

realism proffered by international relations, which promotes amoralism in inter- and intra-

state relationships, but to an attempt of shifting the nature of normative questions asked in

political philosophy. As opposed to moralists who build their theories by placing morality

first, thus outside the political realm, Wil iams proposes to ask normative questions and

conceptualize morality in the same time as asking the ‘first political question’. Thus he

does not reject the possibility of thinking about the relationship of morality to politics, but he only stresses that morality is relevant only when it is conceptualized inside the political.

Politics should not take the form and should not be molded starting from an external

standpoint, but it should prioritize those questions that are specific to its nature (Hall

2011, 14). The more important and deeper point is that by starting from moral principles

outside politics in the attempt of conceptualizing its role, one would miss the true moral

psychology of persons which includes the incongruities, conflicts and misunderstandings

that are clearly part of the moral lives of individuals.

The main thrust of Wil iams’s argument is that politics is autonomous in relationship

with the moral realm. The pursuit of the answer to the first political question should by no

means be constrained by pre-political moral imperatives, but it should rather be the other

way around. Only a persuasive answer to the first political question and the creation of

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A Realist Critique of Moralism in Politics. The Autonomy of Bernard Wil iams’s

Basic Legitimation Demand

a state that passes the BLD test would offer the necessary grounds for people to pursue

moral and ethical behaviors.

III. DOES THE BLD REST ON MOR AL PRESUPPOSITIONS?

The BLD test seems to be, at a first view, a coherent way of settling if and why states

are legitimate. This Basic Legitimation Demand is always made by citizens and the answer

offered by states must be persuasive to all their subjects. But, once this claim becomes

clear, a question arises that, at a first view, seems to threaten the internal coherence of

Wil iams’s argument. More precisely, how is the BLD justified? Why must it take this

particular form and not any other? Why should all citizens, subjected to the state’s power, acquiesce and agree with the BLD? In Sleat’s words, “Why should we care about the plight

of the tyrannized, weak and powerless?” (2010, 496). It seems that the demand that BLD

be agreed upon by all citizens in a given territory, including the powerless, fal s back on one of the central claims of liberalism, that of the equal worth of persons. The problem is

that this claim is a moral one, if not one of morality’s first amendments, and it rests at the basis of an attempt to emancipate politics from morality.

Sleat argues that in order for “political realism and political moralism to be distinct it

has to be the case that it is possible to ful y explicate politics and the necessary conditions of legitimacy without recourse to external moral conditions” (2010, 497). It is unclear

how Wil iams manages to sustain the demand of universality implicit in the BLD without

making appeal to some moral standards or principles that are from the beginning outside

the political real. Moreover, this demand is a strong, normative one that draws on some

equal y strong normative moral assumptions. It seems that the fact that all citizens in a

given territory become the subjects of the agreement to the BLD rests on the essential y

moral presupposition that all these individuals are of equal worth. Because all people

matter in the same way, they all need a justification of the power imposed on them. Thus it

seems that universal acceptance becomes one of the necessary conditions of legitimacy of

states, a condition that is clearly derived from the moral realm.

Further on, Sleat argues that Wil iams’s Basic Legitimation Demand is, essential y,

a liberal demand (2010, 495), one that has in its view the protection of the most

disadvantaged from arbitrary violence because we think that even these marginals are

worthy and deserving of our protection. This claim is strikingly similar to the normative

core of liberalism that includes in the political body all people subject to a state’s power.

This similarity demonstrates, in Sleat’s view, one of the weaknesses of Wil iams’s attempt

of constructing a realist political theory: more precisely, even though he claims that the

BLD is derived from within the political, he does not prove it. Moreover, the demand

for universality that Sleat sees as being embedded in the BLD – and which is strikingly

similar to liberal commitment to the equal worth of persons – cannot be derived but from

some moral demands.

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For a theory that tries to emancipate itself from the moral, resting on an essential y

moral presupposition is extremely problematic. It would also mean not only that Wil iams’s

attempt of constructing a realist theory of politics failed, but also that in general such a

theory would be impossible. In Sleat’s words: “It is very possible that Wil iams ended up

with a view of the political not dissimilar to that of liberalism because he began with the

moral assumption that all people matter and therefore deserve a justification of the use

of coercive power over them” (Sleat 2010, 496). If we try to retain the notion of universal

acceptance within a realist framework, which in our contemporary world would make

perfect sense, then we would have to find alternative ways to derive universality from

within the political. But this would of course be a difficult and almost impossible task.

Thus, morality will always populate, even in a minimal way, our political theories, even the

ones that have as a main task the emancipation from the moral.

Even though Sleat’s criticism seems, at a first view, a strong and coherent one, it

nonetheless rests on a misreading of Wil iams’s legitimation story. The justification of the

use of violence, thus the BLD, should be offered only to the citizens or political subjects of the concerned state, and not to all the individuals who happen to be subjects of the state’s

power. There is a very important difference between the two categories, as Wil iams puts it:

There can be a pure case of internal warfare, of the kind invoked in the case of the

Helots. While there are no doubt reasons for stopping warfare, these are not the same

reasons, or related to politics in the same way, as reasons given by a claim to authority. In

terms of rights the situation is this: first, anyone over whom the state claims authority

has a right to treatment justified by the claim of LEG; second, there is no right to be a

member of a state, if one is not a member [. .]; third, there is no claim of authority over

enemies, including those in the situation of the Helots. In virtue of this last point, such

people do not have a right of the kind mentioned in the first point [. .] the significant

cases for the present problems are those in which the radical y disadvantaged are said

to be subjects and the state claims authority over them. (2005, 6)

It seems that Sleat has misread Wil iams’s justification and scope of the BLD. It

is clear that there is a difference between citizens of a state, considered by the rightful

authority political subjects and the external enemies (like the Helots) to whom a

justification of power need not be offered (Hall 2011, 79). These latter people, which were

not initial y members of the concerned state (like the case of the Hel ots) have no right of

becoming members, in Wil iams’s view. An important specification is that the state must

wish the ‘integration’ of these people in order for the BLD to be applied in their case as

wel . With regard to Wil iams’s historical sensitive account, one might deduce the fact

that there might be LEG states where there are also some persons only considered to be

‘naked objects of coercion’ (2011, 80), like slaves, inmates, captives and so on. This might

seem surprising but this is where Wil iams’s realism is most manifest: there is no place

for morality outside the political realm, it is precisely the political that can make possible moral claims. More precisely, the state must offer a justification only to those people that

are expected to show their al egiance to the state. All states must offer justification to their

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A Realist Critique of Moralism in Politics. The Autonomy of Bernard Wil iams’s

Basic Legitimation Demand

citizens, but the scope of the justification and the people to which it is being offered differs in certain historical contexts.

Consequently, there are no hidden moral premises on which the BLD rests, once we

realize that Wil iams did not have in mind the universal applicability of the justification

for coercion that states must offer their subjects. It is also important to note that a state

has this duty only towards those citizens that are integrated in its political body and that

are rightful y believed to be political subjects; this al ows for the possibility for certain

individuals to be coerced without a justification being offered to them and this particular

situation arises only when it also makes sense for those considered to be full citizens (more

precisely, it made sense for the Spartans to inflict violence upon the Hel ots because they

were arch enemies; thus, the Hel ots were not seen by the Spartan state as equal y worthy

of respect as the Spartans).

Such a view might not make sense to us because of the historical circumstances

we live in. We would not go around to persecute those that do not belong in our ethnic,

religious or national group, not because we would think that the political ideals forbid

such a thing, but because we have grown to incorporate in our world view some moral

precepts, like the equal worth of persons, regardless of their specificities. This assessment

of the equality of individuals that is pervasive in Western societies has nothing to do with

politics or with the political arrangements in these countries, it belongs solely to morality.

But, because as Wil iams put it, the application of the BLD in the context of modernity

has as its main outcome the birth of liberalism, it is clear why we have such a hard time

distinguishing between these two areas of human thought and activity.

There is no moral presupposition that precludes Wil iams’s argument, his only aim is

that of distinguishing between political authority and morality. Nothing tel s us to whom

the BLD must be applied nor its scope, it all rests on the state’s shoulders – when it decides who counts as a political subject and who doesn’t.

IV. CONCLUSIONS

Bernard Wil iams’s aim was to bring philosophy down to earth, to make it speak for

the people once again. Even though today, with the development and rise of practical and

applied philosophy, his dream has actualized, we should still remember his amendments

because even in these pragmatic approaches to morality and ethics there lie certain

dangers:

As I say, philosophers now have taken up discussing issues directly. All the philosophical

journals are full of issues about women’s rights, abortion, social justice, and so on.

But an awful lot of it consists of what can be cal ed in the purely technical sense a

kind of casuistry, an application of certain moral systems or principles or theories

to discussing what we should think about abortion. […] Wel , there is something

there, some rational process there. But it is easy for that sort of discussion to become

a narrowly quasi-legalistic exercise, or else it becomes so aridly simplified that it real y

does not help people to think very wel . (Wil iams 1983)

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Wil iams’s approach of political philosophy inherits some of the critiques he made

of moral philosophy and applied ethics. His main point was to directly confront the

purpose and meaning of bringing ‘moralism’ in politics, a state of affairs specific to many

contemporary political theories that try to identify some moral values from which to derive

all sorts of normative prescriptions. To a kind of ‘applied morality’ in politics, Wil iams

contrasts a view that conceptualizes this realm from a distinctively political standard of

evaluation, the Basic Legitimation Demand, stemming from ‘the first political question.’

In this article I tried to show that one of the most poignant critique of Wil iams’s

attempt of building a realist theory of political philosophy, namely that it rests on a moral

presupposition, is based on a misreading of Wil iams’s legitimation story. I started by

sketching Wil iams’s critique of moralism in ethics, which served as the basis of analyzing

his realist critique of moralism in politics. I then proceeded by laying out the main

arguments that identify in the Basic Legitimation Demand a moral presupposition, namely

that of the equal worth of persons. What I final y showed is that Wil iams’s legitimation

story is more nuanced and complex than was assumed by his critics. It seems, in the end,

that there is no external moral principle premised in Wil iams’s account namely because

he stresses the fact that the state does not have to maintain political relations with all those which he coerces, but only with those whom it sees as true citizens.

cristina.a.voinea@gmail.com

REFERENCES

Cal cut, Daniel. 2008. Introduction. In Reading Bernard Williams, edited by Daniel Cal cut. New York: Routledge.

Chappel , Sophie Grace. 2006. Bernard Wil iams, edited by Edward N. Zalta. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://stanford.library.sydney.edu.au/entries/wil iams-bernard/#Mor (accessed 28

October, 2016).

McDonald, Donald. 1983. The uses of Philosophy. The Center Magazine: 40-49.

Hal , Edward. 2011. Realism and Liberalism in the Political Thought of Bernard Williams. PhD

Dissertation, The London School of Economics and Political Science.

Sleat, Matt. 2010. Bernard Wil iams and the Possibility of a Realist Political Theory. European Journal of Political Theory 9 (4): 485-503.

Wil iams, Bernard. 1973. Problems of the Self: Philosophical Papers 1956-1972. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

———. 1981. Moral Luck: Philosophical Papers 1973-1980. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

———. 1986. Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.

———. 2005. In the Beginning Was the Deed: Realism and Moralism in Political Argument, edited by Geoffrey Hawthorn. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Document Outline

- A Realist Critique of Moralism in Politics. The Autonomy of Bernard Williams’s Basic Legitimation D

- I. The Realist Critique of Moralism

- II. The ‘First Political Question’ and the Basic Legitimation Demand

- III. Does the Bld Rest on Moral Presuppositions?

- IV. Conclusions

- References

Table of Contents

A Realist Critique of Moralism in Politics. The Autonomy of Bernard Williams’s Basic Legitimation D

I. The Realist Critique of Moralism

II. The ‘First Political Question’ and the Basic Legitimation Demand

III. Does the Bld Rest on Moral Presuppositions?

IV. Conclusions

References

I. The Realist Critique of Moralism

II. The ‘First Political Question’ and the Basic Legitimation Demand

III. Does the Bld Rest on Moral Presuppositions?

IV. Conclusions

References