Raymond Geuss

Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge Raymond Geuss

Many contemporary political thinkers are gripped by the belief that their task is to develop an ideal theory of rights or justice for guiding and judging political actions. This book argues that philosophers should first try to understand why real political actors behave as they actually do.

Philosophy and Real Politics

Lily

Philosophy and Real Politics is, in essence, a polemic against the ethics-first approach to politics, heralded by the works of figures such as John Rawls. In this view (as Geuss puts it), we begin by determining universal ethical principles (and theories) independent of any particular political society or case and "then in a second step . . . apply that theory to the action of political agents". According to Geuss, political philosophy should be "realist" in that it should focus on "real motivation", upon "the way the social, economic, political, etc., institutions actually operate in some society at a given time, and what really does move human beings to act in given circumstances". It's necessary to point that Geuss's political "realism" does not deny the relevance or efficacy of norms per se; but he criticizes the seeping of the philosophical practice of moral evaluation into a generalized theory of politics. Particularly in the second chapter, Geuss develops his criticism of the philosophical approach taken up by Rawls and Robert Nozick by pointing out the contingency of their core ideas and conceptualizations regarding 'rights' and 'justice'. 

Individuals or groups can cultivate their ethical intuitions and exercise their capacities for moral approval or disapproval ad libitum...as long as they do not con-fuse that with attaining any understanding whatever of the world in which they live, or think that their (clarified) moral intuitions have some special standing as completely adequate guides to political action

This is a short book that is basically an elaboration of a lecture. The prose is clear and a general familiarity with the theories mentioned is enough for the reader to follow through. Guess admits that he can't be expected to develop a complete positive alternative to the view he's attacking in such a short book, and I think this is its main liability; it is, in the end, incomplete and somewhat abstract. This isn't to say that the criticisms that Geuss puts forth are not interesting or intriguing, but that as they pertain to this particular book, they leave something to be desired.

Philosophy and Real Politics

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