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Topoi
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-024-10158-0
the criteria (or at least some of the criteria) for determining
political obligation, as well as for assessing the goodness
or correctness of political principles, actions, institutions,
and laws?
The issue of the relationship between ethics and politi-
cal normativity can be traced back to philosophers such as
Socrates and Aristotle in ancient Western philosophy. We
also nd it in more recent authors like Machiavelli, Hobbes,
Kant or Max Weber, and the contributions of contemporary
philosophers such as Leo Strauss, Hannah Arendt, John
Rawls, Jürgen Habermas, Christine Korsgaard or Raymond
Geuss are equally relevant. All of them, and many more,
have undoubtedly inuenced the present debate. However,
the originator of the realism-moralism debate in the political
philosophy of the 21st century is Bernard Williams. More-
over, Williams (2005) initiated the debate by defending a
realist framework which, despite certain ambiguities in its
formulation, has provided the ground for other realist pro-
posals, even when many of them have developed or signi-
cantly modied Williams’ initial contributions.
As for the close sources of the main alternative to politi-
cal realism, usually labeled as “political moralism”, the
answer is less unequivocal. If we stick to Williams’ char-
acterization of political moralism, moralist philosophers
would be the majority among moral and political philoso-
phers of the past and present, including members of such
broad and inuential theories as deontologism, utilitarian-
ism, or political constructivism. Accordingly, if we were to
speak of the foundations, both distant and close, of political
moralism, the list would inevitably be very long. However,
since we are placing our focus around the possibility of an
autonomous political normativity, we believe we can point
to two main sources for the positions labeled “moralist”: on
the one hand, constructivist authors such as Rawls, Haber-
mas and Korsgaard; on the other, anti-constructivists such
as G.A. Cohen.1
1 Now, as we shall see, while Cohen’s inuence has notoriously
served to ground anti-realist positions, constructivism has instead pro-
vided arguments both for moralist philosophers and for advocates of
1 Introduction
In this essay, we aim to provide a comprehensive overview
of the various stances in the contemporary debate on the
sources of political normativity. Besides, we describe some
consequences of this debate for several related areas of phil-
osophical discussion. We believe this overview may help
readers navigate and connect the numerous works within
the expanding literature on political normativity, as well as
the controversies between advocates of political realism and
so-called political moralists, including the articles featured
in Topoi’s collection Political Normativity and Ethics.
2 On main Routes and Secondary Roads
By what criteria do we determine what should and should
not be done in politics? By what standards do we evaluate
political principles, norms, actions, or institutions? These
two questions constitute the two interconnected aspects of
political normativity and its sources. In turn, political nor-
mativity cannot be separated from the broader concept of
normativity, nor from the characterization of dierent con-
texts of practical deliberation, including the political one.
Given the privileged role typically attributed to morality
in such deliberation, it is unsurprising that the relationship
between political normativity and ethics has been a central
concern for many philosophers throughout history. The
question can be framed as follows: should ethics provide
Javier Rodríguez-Alcázar
frodguez@ugr.es
Cristina Corredor
ccorredor@fsof.uned.es
1 Departamento de Filosofía I, Universidad de Granada,
Granada, Spain
2 Departamento de Lógica, Historia y Filosofía de la Ciencia,
Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Madrid,
Spain
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. 2024
Political Normativity and Ethics: A Roadmap
JavierRodríguez-Alcázar1· CristinaCorredor2
1 3
J. Rodríguez-Alcázar, C. Corredor
The inuence of all the aforementioned philosophers has
contributed decisively to fuel the debate on the role of eth-
ics in politics down the rst decades of the 21st century and
has shaped two main sides in that debate: on the one hand,
those who point to ethics (moral principles, moral ends,
etc.) as the fundamental source of political normativity;
on the other hand, those who reject or, at least, downplay
the importance of morality in the orientation of politics. As
we have mentioned already, Williams (2005) labeled these
responses, respectively, as “moralist” and “realist.” Cer-
tainly, the labels were devised and dened by a conspicu-
ous representative of the realist camp, as Williams was,
and many, especially among those labeled “moralists,”
have questioned the fairness or accuracy of this classica-
tion (see Leader Maynard 2024). On the other hand, a few
critics deny that this classication encompasses all possible
metapolitical positions on this debate and defend third ways
(Larmore 2013; Rodríguez-Alcázar 2017a; Bermejo-Luque
2024). However, the distinction between realists and moral-
ists is still useful, insofar as most of the authors who have
recently participated in the debate on the nature of political
normativity are usually included in one of these two groups.
Moreover, those who consider themselves neither realists
nor moralists have felt compelled to explain how they dier
from both. So, here too, we will take this classication as a
reference.
3 Bernard Williams and the Realist Route
The most cited publication in recent debates about the
sources of political normativity probably is In the Beginning
was the Deed: Realism and Moralism in Political Theory, a
posthumous book by Williams (2005). However, it would
be dicult to understand Williams’ proposal without refer-
ring, at least, to another well-known and inuential book of
his: Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (Williams 1985).
Particularly relevant for our topic are Williams’ critique
of the “morality system” and his presentation of practical
rationality as an “all things considered deliberation”. The
morality system is characterized, according to Williams
(1985, 196–197) by the conviction that “moral obligation is
inescapable”, which implies that “the fact that a given agent
would prefer not to be in this system or bound by its rules
will not excuse him”. Another consequence of accepting
the framework of the morality system is the reduction, typi-
cal of authors like Kant, of practical deliberation to moral
deliberation.
As two of the articles included in this special issue (Tes-
tini 2024; Bermejo-Luque 2024) recall, in the face of this
a political normativity not dependent on moral normativity, as Som-
mavilla (2024) illustrates.
reductionist tendency, Williams (1985, 7) described practi-
cal deliberation as the attempt to answer the question “What
should I do, all things considered?” This question, in turn,
would acquire meaning, in each context, by reference to the
more general question “How should one live” (Williams
1985, p. 5). With respect to the dening question of practi-
cal deliberation, other questions (such as “what should I do
from an ethical point of view?” or “what should I do from a
self-interested point of view?”) produce only “subdelibera-
tions” that can be incorporated into practical deliberation as
parts of it (Williams 1985, p. 6) but cannot replace it.
If, for Kant and other advocates of the “morality sys-
tem”, practical rationality in general is ultimately reduced to
moral rationality, a consequence is that political deliberation
would be subordinated to moral deliberation. So does Kant
when he states that “politics can take no steps forward with-
out rst paying tribute to morality”, or that “all politics must
bend its knee before right”, i.e., what is morally right (Kant
2006, 8: 380). Williams (2005) rejected this subordination
and the consequent conversion of political philosophy into
a chapter of moral philosophy. Against this temptation, he
defended the autonomy of politics as a eld with its own
purposes and the existence of a space for reection on the
political, which cannot be considered a chapter of applied
ethics.2
Undoubtedly, one of the main aims of Williams’s proj-
ect was to oer an image of practical deliberation closer to
human reality. A rst step towards this was the inclusion of
desire as a legitimate ingredient of practical deliberation,
rejecting the priority granted to duty by Kantian moral-
ism. But not just any desire would be eligible, for Williams
does not want the inclusion of the agent’s desires in practi-
cal deliberation to lead to the renunciation of normativity:
desire deserves to guide practical deliberation only “if the
desire were not one that the agent merely happened to have,
but was essential to the agent and had to be satised” (Wil-
liams 1985, p. 210).
In a further eort to bring his conception of practical
deliberation closer to human reality, Williams (2005) sought
to ground political philosophy in real politics, a motivation
he shares with other realist political philosophers (see Geuss
2008 and 2016; Galston 2010; Sleat 2016; McQueen 2017;
Bagg 2022). Yet, even in this second step, Williams remains
committed to the normative force of political philosophy.
Consequently, he turns to the concept of legitimacy, as is
common among realists. However, in doing so, he prioritizes
a particular strand of normativity (which Bermejo-Luque
2024; calls “axiological”), primarily focused on establish-
ing criteria for political goodness or correctness.3 These
2 Geuss (2008, 6–8) also makes this point.
3 Rossi (2024) identies the prioritization of this axiological (or
“evaluative”) perspective as a dening feature of realism and justies
1 3
Political Normativity and Ethics: A Roadmap
two Williamsian choices (namely, legitimacy and axiology)
stand in contrast to the usual emphasis on justice as the
central normative concept by moralists, together with their
prioritization of political obligation (the “deontic” strand of
political normativity, as Bermejo-Luque 2024; calls it).
Williams’s eort to align philosophical discourse with
reality seems reasonable: after all, the normative conclu-
sions of practical deliberation are typically intended to
guide the actions of real individuals and social groups,
not merely to determine what timeless rational agents or
ideal societies would do in counterfactual scenarios. The
aspiration for political philosophy to oer something use-
ful in the real world and to account for its complexities is
not unique to political realists; many advocates of political
moralism share this goal (see, for instance, Leader Maynard
and Worsnip 2018, p. 765 and 785; Leader Maynard 2024;
Floyd 2017). However, the extent to which, and the ways
in which, empirical information is relevant to grounding
normative proposals in political philosophy are more con-
tentious issues, with realists often accusing moralists of not
meeting this demand adequately.
On the other hand, although some realists have pointed
to anti-idealism and anti-utopianism as dening features of
realism (see again Galston 2010 and McQueen 2017), oth-
ers have argued that the dening feature of realism is not the
methodological discussion that confronts, within liberalism,
ideal and non-ideal theory (see Sleat 2016; Favara 2022).
The distinctiveness of realism, therefore, would lie not at
the methodological level but in its substantive conception
of politics. Specically, in would lie in the conviction (not
shared with liberal authors such as Rawls 1993) that “poli-
tics takes place in conditions of ineradicable conict and is
hence a site of perpetual struggle for power and dominance”
(Sleat 2016, p. 31). For his part, Rossi (2019) has rejected
the association of realism with non-ideal theory, to claim
realism’s compatibility with utopian or politically radical
projects. The way in which a normative political philoso-
phy with a realist slant could support radical projects would
consist in showing the epistemic imsiness of legitimation
stories that support existing structures and highlighting the
epistemic guarantees of those proposals that defend alter-
native structures (Rossi 2019, p. 646). In this regard, Enzo
Rossi’s contribution to this special issue (Rossi 2024) illus-
trates the dierences between liberal realism and radical
realism.
that the radical realism he advocates relinquishes the deontic (or “pre-
scriptive”) perspective.
4 Two Moralist Routes: The Inuence of
Gerald Cohen and John Rawls
While not losing grip on reality is often considered essential
for political philosophy—and practical philosophy in gen-
eral—we have already highlighted another key motivation
for political philosophers: preserving the normative capac-
ity of political philosophy. After all, there is a widely shared
consensus among scholars in this eld that the latter diers
from political science, sociology, or history in that it aims
to engage in debates about the goodness of political norms,
behaviors, and institutions, as well as about what should
be done in politics. At the very least, political philosophy
aspires to discuss the criteria for political goodness and cor-
rectness, and for evaluating what ought to be done.
This motivation seems to be at odds with the commitment
to reality (see Rossi 2016). In general, realist authors are
attributed with a tendency to jeopardize, or even completely
dispense with, the normative capacity of political philoso-
phy to safeguard its anchoring in reality. This is the accusa-
tion that, for example, Larmore (2013, 279, n. 3) addresses
to Geuss (2008), a leading representative of political real-
ism. In contrast, Gerald Cohen, one of the most inuential
authors on contemporary political moralism, seemed will-
ing to run the opposite risk: to be accused of forgetting the
facts in exchange for keeping the normative capacity of his
discourse intact. This endeavor to save a genuine normativ-
ity in moral and political discourse is found in his inuential
book Rescuing Justice and Equality (Cohen 2008), some
of whose ideas are already announced in an earlier article,
“Facts and principles” (Cohen 2003). In these works, Cohen
argued that facts alone cannot ground normative principles.
While facts and principles may be combined in the argu-
mentative chain used to justify a normative principle, at the
end of the chain there must be a fact-free principle that is not
justied by facts. Many political moralists would agree with
this claim, as well as with another key tenet in Cohen’s writ-
ings: the emphasis on justice—understood both as a moral
virtue and, in the words of Rawls (1971, 3), as “the rst
virtue of social institutions”—as the fundamental source of
political normativity. This stands in contrast to the concept
that many realists consider holding the fundamental norma-
tive force in politics: legitimacy.4
Later authors have derived an important consequence
from Cohen’s arguments: political principles cannot be
derived from facts, political or otherwise, but from other nor-
mative principles. Now, there is not complete agreement as
to the nature of those ultimate principles. The most common
4 One exception is Bagg (2022), who challenges the usual association
between realism and legitimacy and advocates a practical approach
in which political theory would compare the concrete possibilities for
action of political actors.
1 3
J. Rodríguez-Alcázar, C. Corredor
are combined, also in Rawls’ conjecture, with certain moral
principles. But here appears the third element of the conjec-
ture, which distinguishes Rawls’ moralist proposal from the
moralist proposals based on Cohen: the claim that it is the
process of construction that provides moral principles with
normative charge.5
Thus, we would have two moralist paths. In both, the jus-
tication of political institutions or actions rests on moral
principles. But while in one of them (the one inspired by
Rawlsian constructivism) those moral principles are in turn
justied by their process of construction (a process that,
in combination with the principles, confers justicatory
weight to certain facts), in the other (the one inspired by
Cohen) we rely on some alternative metaethical conception
(intuitionist or coherentist, for example) of moral principles
and give less weight to those “normative facts” that appear
in Rawls’s conjecture. These two moralist roads, certainly,
are opposed to those realist paths of political justication
that reject or minimize the role of moral principles in the
justication of political institutions, norms or actions.
It is worth mentioning at this point that certain forms of
realism (Prinz & Rossi 2017; Rossi 2019) have resorted to
a strategy of justication and critique of the political that
maintains certain elements in common with Rawlsian con-
structivism (in particular, the conviction that it is correct
to invoke facts to substantiate normative political theses),
but with an important dierence: they dispense with the
mediation of moral principles, to make political normativ-
ity depend directly on the relevant facts and the appropri-
ate methodology, to the point of understanding realism as
“empirically informed critique of social and political phe-
nomena” (Prinz & Rossi 2017, 348). The resulting variant
of realism would thus dissociate itself from those traditions
of critical philosophy that realist philosophers consider
insuciently sensitive to facts (as would be the case of G.
Cohen), and from the excessive conservatism that radical
realists (Prinz and Rossi 2017; Rossi 2024) attribute to lib-
eral realism. For his part, Sommavilla (2024) places himself
within the constructivist tradition. He shares with moralist
political constructivism its focus on political obligation,
5 In the case of another outstanding representative of political con-
structivism, Jürgen Habermas, the key is also in the procedure: in par-
ticular, his conception of political normativity is grounded on a theory
of deliberative democracy (Habermas 1998). Regarding the moral
grounding of politics, Habermas (2003) outlines a nuanced relation-
ship between morality and ethics. On the one hand, the eld of ethics
encompasses individual and collective conceptions of the good—or,
from a political perspective, the plural values and ways of life deemed
worthy of being called ‘good’ based on reective assessment (with
this appeal to reective assessment underscoring the constructivist
nature of Habermas’s proposal). On the other hand, moral discourse
addresses what is good for everyone from an impartial perspective.
Consequently, in Habermas’s political philosophy, moral discourse is
conned to matters of interpersonal justice.
response, and the closest to the spirit of Cohen’s argument,
is that of non-constructivist political moralists, for whom
political concepts are dependent on moral premises, where
this dependence must be understood in a justicatory sense,
and not in the sense of causation, temporal precedence, or
conceptual or epistemological priority (Erman and Moller
2024). This ultimate grounding of politics in moral princi-
ples leads to the metaethical problem of the status of those
moral principles and their exposure to the Moorean open
question (Bermejo-Luque 2024). Moreover, in the case of
those political philosophers who have appealed to an ulti-
mate moral end as a criterion for determining political obli-
gation, it is worth asking why one should accept that this
criterion (be it justice, welfare, freedom or any other) con-
stitutes the ultimate end, or the ultimate normative criterion,
when the same moral philosophers disagree among them-
selves in establishing the priority among the moral ends of
politics (Rodríguez-Alcázar 2017a).
However, not all authors who contend that political prin-
ciples, institutions or behaviors need to be justied by prin-
ciples that are not exclusively political defend that these
principles are moral. Some have argued that these latter
principles can be methodological or epistemological (as is
the case of Ronzoni and Valentini 2008). Now, as Leader
Maynard and Worsnip (2018) remind us, defending that
political normativity can be derived from methodological
principles does not necessarily make someone a realist or a
moralist. Indeed, there are two versions of this idea: one is
usually considered moralist and is represented by the con-
structivist tradition whose most prominent representative is
John Rawls. But there is also a realist version of the project
of grounding political normativity in epistemic or method-
ological principles, as we shall show.
Rawls’ (1993, 1999) political constructivism conicts
with Cohen’s (2003, 2008) claim that principles—whether
political or otherwise—cannot be grounded in facts. Rawls
(1993, 96; 1999, 305) defended the “conjecture” that cer-
tain facts provide valid reasons for political action, and that
this is so because certain moral principles confer a positive
normative status on those facts. These moral principles, in
turn, can confer such status because they are validated by
an appropriate construction procedure (see Williams 2022).
For our purposes, there are three elements in this “con-
jecture” that are worth pointing out. In the rst place, the
moralist character of the proposal (which would back Wil-
liams 2005 in his characterization of Rawls as a political
moralist): it is moral principles that turn certain facts into
reasons capable of justifying political action. Secondly, the
role given to facts in the justication of political propos-
als: against Cohen, certain facts appear endowed with the
capacity to justify political action. It is true that Cohen could
reply that these facts have normative capacity because they
1 3
Political Normativity and Ethics: A Roadmap
would call “practical normativity”, encountering the same
problems in establishing priorities between “general moral-
ity” and “political morality” that realists who admit a role
for ethics in politics encounter in determining in which
cases and to what degree morality should condition politics.
5 Returning to the Realist Route: Obstacles
and Bypasses
Although the criticisms directed from the moralist camp at
Williams and other realist authors are often convincing, the
lack of a problem-free moralist proposal provides grounds
for realists to persevere in their path, seeking to strengthen
the realist framework and protect it from the objections
received. Despite the temptation of some advocates of real-
ism such as Geuss (2008, 2016) to slim down the norma-
tive aspirations of political philosophy, most realists nd it
necessary to characterize and justify political normativity. It
is true that, in line with Williams’ criticisms of the “moral-
ity system,” some tended to set aside the idea of political
obligation in favor of being concerned by the evaluation
of political principles, institutions, and decisions (see Sleat
2016; McQueen 2017; Rossi 2024). But, at least in this
aspect, Williams and other realists seek to safeguard the
normative capacities of political philosophy. In the case of
Williams (2005), the starting point was the identication of
the “rst political question” (FPQ), which for him is “the
securing of order, protection, safety, trust, and the condi-
tions for cooperation.” (Williams 2005, p. 3). While for
Williams answering FPQ was a necessary condition for a
state to be considered legitimate, it was not a sucient con-
dition, as there could be “unacceptable” solutions to FPQ,
i.e., unacceptable ways of ensuring order and security. Con-
sequently, Williams (2005, 4–6) adds two complementary
requirements, the Basic Legitimation Demand (BLD) and
the Critical Theory Principle (CTP), which would prevent
politics from becoming a mere calculation to satisfy FPQ.
BLD species the conditions under which a given response
to FPQ can be considered adequate, and it boils down to the
condition that the state must be able to oer a justication
of its power to each subject. CTP states that the acceptance
by subjects of the justication of state power does not count
as legitimation if it is achieved through the exercise of the
coercive power it purports to justify.
Williams’ proposal has met with various objections, both
from the moralist camp and from other theoretical frame-
works, including other defenders of political realism. Mor-
alists’ main criticism is that if BLD can safeguard a genuine
political normativity, then it must be a moral principle. Wil-
liams himself (2005, 5) anticipates this criticism by admit-
ting that perhaps it can be considered a moral principle, but
contrary to realists’ predilection for the evaluative aspect
of political normativity. However, as opposed to moralist
constructivism, he defends a distinctively political kind of
normativity.
Moralist political constructivism has received vari-
ous criticisms from other moralist positions. For example,
Erman and Möller (2024; n. 11) reject that foundational
methodological principles play any role in the justication
of substantive political principles: e.g., Rawls’s original
position is rigged just to mimic a set of reasonable moral
values, such as impartiality. Thus, despite appearances, it
would not be methodological principles, but moral princi-
ples that would ultimately justify political principles.
An alternative to constructivism, without leaving the
moralist tradition, is the “role approach”, which Erman and
Möller (2022) consider a promising, though yet underde-
veloped, avenue. The starting point of this proposal is the
explicit recognition that “political normativity is a moral
kind” (Erman and Möller 2022, p. 7). However, citizens,
institutions and other political actors may have dierent
moral obligations depending on the role they play in dif-
ferent circumstances. These obligations may conict with
others. For example, an individual’s obligations as a citi-
zen may conict with his or her general moral obligations
as a person. In such circumstances, the priorities between
obligations of one type and the other could not be estab-
lished automatically but would have to be argued on a
case-by-case basis. Surely, one could recognize in this pro-
posal a new variant of the attempt (criticized by Williams
2005) to characterize political philosophy as a chapter of
moral philosophy. However, the advocates of this approach
would reject that they are turning political philosophy into
an “applied ethics”, since there would not be a mechanical
derivation of the normative conclusions of political philoso-
phy from general moral principles (as would be proper to
the “morality system”), but a trade-o between the various
sources of moral obligation that are relevant for each agent,
given their diverse roles in each context. Thus, this position,
without abandoning the moralist framework, would have
taken a step, called for by political realism, in the direction
of recognizing a greater specicity to politics with respect
to general morality. But, on the other hand, the proponents
of this solution will have to explain, when they advance in
their development, how they avoid one of the objections
that political moralism has addressed to realists, namely:
if political considerations can defeat, in certain contexts in
which the roles of an individual come into conict, general
moral considerations, in what sense can we say that moral-
ity is justiably prior to politics and from where does the
normativity of the latter derive? Ultimately, the only dier-
ence of this kind of moralist solution with a realist position
would consist in calling “moral normativity” what realists
1 3
J. Rodríguez-Alcázar, C. Corredor
goals of political institutions and practices that exist in soci-
ety (Rossi 2019, p. 642). Sangiovanni (2008) distinguishes
two types of praxis-dependence in the justication of rst
principles of justice: while for cultural conventionalists
like Walzer (1983), culturally contingent values and mean-
ings would determine the rst principles of justice in each
society, institutionalists like Sangiovanni (2008 and 2016)
argue that the nature of shared political institutions, such
as the modern state, provides the reasons to endorse cer-
tain principles of justice (Sangiovanni 2008, p. 138). Rossi
(2012) argues for a similar position, but with a more unam-
biguously realist character by focusing on legitimacy rather
than justice. However, a major challenge for both types of
contextual realism is to explain how contingent values and
institutions, which are supposed to be the source of politi-
cal justication, are in turn politically justied (Rodríguez-
Alcázar, Bermejo-Luque & MolinaPérez 2021).
A second strategy to try to circumvent the criticisms
received by Williams (2005) is the instrumentalist one. In
this vein, Cross (2022 and 2024) has argued that BLD and
CTP can be justied as means to adequately respond to
FPQ in the long run. Instrumentalism, however, has been
criticized for not being able to show that politics is a nor-
mative domain of its own. Thus, Bermejo-Luque (2024)
argues that this is so because instrumentalism “makes rea-
sons to pursue the politically good dependent on reasons to
pursue the things that the politically good delivers”, which
ends up weakening the pretensions of establishing politics
as a domain with a normativity of its own. For their part,
Erman and Möller (2022, 4) have pointed out that the ar-
mation that order is the end of politics does not reect an
incontestable truth, but a normative thesis that will have to
be confronted with others. This last criticism, directed at
instrumentalism by defenders of political moralism, is how-
ever identical to that directed from other positions (Larmore
2013; Rodríguez-Alcázar 2017a; Bermejo Luque 2024) to
the pretension of some philosophers of the moralist tradi-
tion (Kant, Strauss or the utilitarian tradition) to suppose
that some moral end (freedom, virtue, well-being) is the pri-
mary end of politics.
In an attempt to avoid the problems of instrumentalism,
Burelli (2022) has developed a “functionalist” conception
of political value. According to it, the function of politics
would be to “secure binding collective decisions” (Burelli
2022, p. 629), which would provide a partial criterion for
political evaluation (Burelli 2023). This novel proposal has,
however, already received some criticism. For example,
Erman and Möller (2023) wonder why we should submit to
group norms or contribute to the production of binding col-
lective decisions. In these circumstances, this political con-
ception of political value would still lack (like other realist
proposals, according to its critics) the capacity to provide
in that case, it would belong to a morality that is not “prior”
to politics. Now, what does “prior” mean here? If Erman and
Moller (2024) are right, “prior” should mean that it provides
a justication for political principles, and Williams would
be saying that it does not. But if it does not, then, from the
perspective of moralist philosophers who accept Cohen’s
approach, political power would be left without ultimate
justication. On the other hand, if all Williams means is
that BLD is not temporally prior to political practice, while
recognizing that it is justicatorily prior, then he would be
admitting that politics is justied on the basis of a moral
principle, the BLD, so that legitimacy would play the same
normative role that justice plays in the proposals of moralist
philosophers. Hence, Williams’ proposal would be indistin-
guishable from theirs and would share the same problems.
One of these problems would be this: just as Williams
criticizes moralists for the arbitrary choice of some moral
end or criterion (liberty, welfare, justice, etc.) as “the” end
of politics or “the” criterion from which to establish politi-
cal obligation, it seems equally arbitrary to postulate that
order and security are the ultimate ends of politics (or the
criterion by which to determine the goodness or correct-
ness of political decisions, principles or institutions), and
not merely a cluster of additional ends or criteria to add to
the list of reasonable goals that dierent political communi-
ties may include, with dierent relative weight depending
on the community and the time, in the list of their priori-
ties (Rodríguez-Alcázar 2017a). This is a critique made,
evidently, not from moralist assumptions but from a third
way stance (in this case, the so-called “political minimal-
ism”) that rejects the “substantialist” pretension, common
to moralists and realists, of basing political normativity on
some purpose that is not constitutive of the practice itself
(Bermejo-Luque 2024).
An additional criticism of Williams’ solution (and of all
attempts to ground political normativity in the very deni-
tion of politics)6 is its inability to distinguish between poli-
tics and good politics: if politics is characterized as meeting
the requirements of BLD and CTP (and, in general, is
dened against any form of “sheer domination”), can we not
reasonably criticize as bad political decisions some that we
may nevertheless consider legitimately adopted by those in
power? (see Erman and Möller 2022, p. 3; Bermejo-Luque
2024).
Seeking to avoid the problems faced by Williams, real-
ist philosophers have attempted to make progress along dif-
ferent avenues. One is what Rossi (2019) calls “contextual
realism.” Contextual realists claim that the legitimation
of political principles depends on the interpretation of the
6 This strategy is what Erman & Möller (2022) call “the conceptual
approach”, which we can nd, in addition to Williams (2005), in Rossi
& Sleat (2014), Jubb & Rossi (2015) and Hall (2017).
1 3
Political Normativity and Ethics: A Roadmap
the defenders of the epistemic variant of realism to rely
on value-free facts. A dierent objection to the attempt to
reconstruct political normativity from ideology critique
(Rodríguez- Alcázar, Bermejo-Luque and Molina Pérez
2021, 817) is that, while negative critique is important and
the mention of relevant facts may rule out certain political
options, in the positive construction of political projects the
ideology critique leaves the scope of proposals too indeter-
minate. One would expect from a normative practice such
as politics the (justied) proposal of projects and not only
the critique of others’ proposals.
6 Third Ways: The “Filter View” and Political
Minimalism
The diculties encountered by both moralism and realism
on political normativity and its relation to morality have
motivated some attempts to develop “third ways” based on
dierent strategies. One such attempt is what Erman and
Möller (2024) call the “lter view”, building on Sleat’s
(2022, 474) claim that moral principles should be “ltered
through or aligned to the realities of politics” if they are
to contribute to political normativity. While Larmore (2013,
279), another proponent of a version of this lter view,
resists describing his own proposal within political realism
or moralism, other philosophers to whom the lter view can
be attributed, such as Sleat (2022) and Jubb (2015,) iden-
tify themselves as realists, although they tend to distance
themselves from those versions of realism that want to make
political normativity independent of morality (Sleat 2022,
p. 466).8 Whether or not it is classied as realist, in any
case, this is a proposal that combines elements tradition-
ally attributed to both the moralist and realist traditions. The
fundamental moralist element of this view is the recogni-
tion of the ineliminable role of moral elements in the jus-
tication of political proposals. As for the realist elements,
they can be summarized in two. The rst is the primacy
of legitimacy over justice as the central theme of political
philosophy (Larmore 2020, p. 15; Sleat 2022); the second,
already mentioned, is the need to “lter” moral principles
with relevant facts to form the basis of political normativ-
ity. Although these proposals try to avoid the problems of
the most radical forms of realism, they continue to receive
criticism from the moralist camp. Thus, Erman and Möller
(2024) consider that, by prioritizing legitimacy over jus-
tice, Larmore (like other defenders of the “lter view” and
most realists) risks overly restricting the scope of political
philosophy. Moreover, this prioritization would not free the
8 In this regard, even the latest version of epistemologically-grounded
radical realism advocated by Rossi (2024) can be seen as another form
of “lter view”.
political reasons for action (see Bermejo-Luque 2024). For
his part, Leader Maynard (2024; Sect. 4) points out that the
criteria Burelli stipulates to characterize a function would
be compatible, if applied to politics, with many forms of
brutal political repression.
Another attempt to overcome the limitations of Williams’
proposal regarding the grounding of political normativ-
ity consists in understanding such grounding in epistemic
terms. Thus, Prinz and Rossi (2017, 357) propose to dispense
with the “residual moralism” of William’s CTP, retaining
its causal or genealogical element, but motivating it with
epistemic rather than moral considerations.7 One source
for this project is Haslanger’s (2012) reformulation of the
social constructionist critique of ideology. Rossi combines
the realist tradition of ideology critique with Cohen’s (2008)
rejection of feasibility constraints. Thus “realists can make
prescriptions that do not take feasibility into account, but
other constraints apply” Rossi (2019, 644). These limita-
tions are summarized in the attention to the complexities of
political dynamics and would allow to avoid, among other
shortcomings that Rossi attributes to the various forms of
political moralism, a problem that he nds in Cohen and to
which we have already referred: the diculty of explain-
ing where the grounding of moral intuitions and judgments
comes from.
Rossi’s (2019) proposal has been criticized from the
moralist camp, using the same type of criticism that Cohen
already addressed to Rawls’ constructivism: a normative
political judgment cannot be derived solely from facts nor
from epistemic norms, although both can participate in the
inference: “practical, action-guiding norms (i.e., practical
normativity)” are necessary (Erman and Möller 2022, p.
5), which for these authors is equivalent to saying: “moral
norms, moral normativity are necessary”. This objection,
however, has force only if one assumes that normativity
cannot come out of politics itself, but must come from out-
side: either from moral or epistemic norms. Once epistemic
norms have been ruled out, it is obvious to the political mor-
alist that they must be moral. In a similar, moralist vein,
Frega (2020) has criticized realists’ use of empirical stud-
ies of political behavior for assessing normative theories of
democracy and has claimed that democracy is a practical
postulate of political reason. Leader Maynard, for his part,
criticizes Aytaç & Rossi’s (2023, 8) assertion that the “epis-
temic critique” of political arguments is less subject to ideo-
logical distortion because “morality doesn’t even try to be
politically innocent, whereas epistemology does”. Accord-
ing to Leader Maynard (2024; Sect. 4), it is precisely the
fact that moral discourse does not hide its value-ladenness
that makes it less misleading, as opposed to the claim of
7 Geuss (2016) and Rossi (2019 and 2024) also argue for genealogy
as a specic method of negative critique of ideologies.
1 3
J. Rodríguez-Alcázar, C. Corredor
parties. This argumentative exchange provides certainly
one of the most interesting debates within the eld that we
can call “metapolitics”, an autonomous eld of discussion
that occupies a level of abstraction analogous to metaethics
and that maintains with normative political philosophy and
politics itself a relationship similar to that which metaethics
maintains with moral philosophy and morality. As is well
known, some authors (e.g., Dworkin 1996) have questioned
the metaethics/normative ethics distinction, and even those
who accept it usually admit the limits that the adoption of
one given metaethical position often impose on normative
ethics. Similarly, we are convinced that the metapolitical
debate about the sources of political normativity has impor-
tant consequences in other areas. Regarding the realist
eld, two books edited by Sagar and Sabl (2018) and Sleat
(2018) collect numerous articles that draw the consequences
of political realism for various elds. Among these elds,
one is democratic theory (see Raekstad 2020), while Jubb
(2015) has pointed out the consequences of realism when
evaluating egalitarian political demands. For their part,
Rodríguez-Alcázar (2017b), and Rodríguez-Alcázar et al.
(2021), have pointed out that a consequence of the rejection
of political moralism in favor of a minimalist metapolitical
position is the redenition of debates, traditionally attrib-
uted to applied ethics, as political problems, while Bermejo-
Luque & Rodríguez-Alcázar (2025 forthcoming) show the
consequences of political minimalism for the recovery of
cosmopolitanism as a political ideology, after having been
previously reformulated as a moral doctrine by authors such
as Pogge (1992). This exploration of the external conse-
quences of the metapolitical debate is also present in several
articles of this special issue, namely those by Rossi (2024),
Burelli & Destri (2024), Cibik (2024), Cunningham Matam-
oros (2024), and Bernstein & Gomila (2024).
We include in this special issue metapolitical contribu-
tions by authors representative of the main currents involved
in the present debate. Among them, we nd advocates of
political moralism (Leader Maynard, Erman & Möller, Tes-
tini), of political realism (Enzo Rossi, Burelly & Destri),
and of one of the third avenues mentioned: political mini-
malism (Bermejo Luque). We also include an author (Som-
mavilla) who defends an unusual stance, since he starts from
a constructivist framework (usually associated with political
moralism) to defend the existence of an autonomous politi-
cal normativity, a thesis that could allow him to be included
in the realist camp. Based more on the moral constructiv-
ism of authors such as Korsgaard (1996) and Street (2010)
than on the political constructivism of Rawls or Habermas,
Sommavilla argues for the existence of collective political
obligations which, however, would only constitute “thin”
obligations for individuals.
critics of moralism from having to accept a greater weight
of morality than they want to acknowledge: admitting that
a decision can be both legitimate and morally question-
able would be compatible, according to Erman and Möller
(2022; Sect. 3), with holding that legitimacy is attributed on
the basis of moral premises.
Another third way out of realism and moralism is politi-
cal minimalism (Rodríguez-Alcázar 2017a; Bermejo-Luque
2024). Political minimalism is a constitutivist position. Its
starting point is to characterize politics as a constitutively
normative practice whose constitutive end is to provide
good answers to the question “what shall we do?”, asked by
or on behalf of a political community. The proposal is mini-
malist because it forgoes specifying a “substantive” end for
politics, unlike many versions of both realism and moralism.
Political minimalism inherits the Williamsian conception of
practical deliberation as an all things considered delibera-
tion but distinguishes two basic types of practical delibera-
tion: that which answers the question “what shall I do?” and
that which answers the question “what shall we do?” Both
questions may include moral sub-deliberations, but neither
is reducible to moral deliberation, nor does it take moral-
ity as the source of its justication. In this sense, political
minimalism breaks more radically than the “lter view” the
justicatory link of political normativity with moral prin-
ciples. Nevertheless, it is not a type of realism, among other
reasons because it does not commit itself to the thesis that
conict and struggle for power are consubstantial elements
of politics, nor does it share the priority usually attributed
by realists to political legitimacy (Bermejo-Luque 2024;
Sect. 7). Although it is a novel proposal for politics, consti-
tutivism is a strategy with a certain tradition in other elds,
such as argumentation theory (see Bermejo-Luque 2011) or
rationality theory (e.g. Korsgaard 2009), so the viability of
this proposal is linked to the possibility of showing the fruit-
fulness of constitutivist strategies to account for dierent
types of normativity.
7 The Impact of the Debate in Other Areas
and the Contribution of the Articles in this
Special Issue
As the above discussion makes clear, the question on the
sources of political normativity opens a lively arena of debate
and, although the discussion has been greatly nuanced since
the publication in 2005 of Williams’ posthumous book, dis-
agreements remain on some crucial points. The moderate
and radical defenders of moralism and realism, as well as the
supporters of some of the third ways described above, con-
tinue to rene their criticisms of the opposing positions and
reinforce their own, with occasional concessions to the other
1 3
Political Normativity and Ethics: A Roadmap
of liberalism, Rossi seeks to reinforce political stances that
challenge the status quo. Specically, he oers a middle path
between relational and structural theories of power, aiming
to address the limitations of ideology critique as understood
by both Foucauldians and classical Marxists.
Carlo Burelli and Chiara Destri go one step further in
applying metapolitical theses to a specic eld—namely,
public discourse. They criticize, from a political realist per-
spective (assumed as a starting point rather than argued), the
issues caused by the adoption of moralistic attitudes within
this eld. After analyzing three types of moralism and their
negative consequences, the authors propose a strategy for
enhancing the quality of public discourse. This approach
emphasizes the recognition of not only a plurality of val-
ues but also a plurality of spheres of values in public life.
According to the authors, this inescapable plurality implies
the inadequacy of morality in answering the question “What
should we do?” and highlights the need to turn to political
discussion to address it.
The three remaining articles deal with examples from
quite dierent areas: while Cibik’s article focus on climate
change, the text by Cunningham Matamoros discusses
immigration theories, and Bernstein & Gomila’s center on
truth in the media.
First, Cibik takes the moralism-realism debate into a
practical context by asking about the importance of fram-
ing a problem in moral or political terms. Against the mor-
alistic inclination to tightly link these frames, and against
the tendency to frame and understand in moral terms many
of the most urgent political problems, Cibik exemplies
through the case of the ght against climate change the need
to keep the moral and political frames separate and to pay
more attention to the conclusions provided by the political
approach to certain problems.
Cunningham Matamoros, writing from a greater sym-
pathy for political moralism, poses an internal critique of
certain elements usually associated with moralist positions,
like moral monism and moral overridingness. Taking the
methodology of migration ethics as a case study, he argues
for the recognition of prudential normativity and normative
pluralism as a way to avoid what he calls “the toy theory
problem” in migration ethics methodology.
Finally, Bernstein & Gomila adopt as their starting point
an element in the philosophy of Williams (2005) that has
not being referred to in other papers of this special issue: the
question of truthfulness in politics, and Williams’ warning
that the media often work against truthfulness. The authors
focus on two phenomena that occur frequently in the new
social media platforms: the rise of conspiracy theories
and the moralization of politics. Both connect with two of
Williams’ concerns: conspiracy theories, on the one hand,
epitomize the risk of self-deception. On the other hand, the
In his contribution to this special issue, Jonathan Leader
Maynard notes that positive characterizations of political
moralism are often lacking in the debate between politi-
cal realists and moralists, so he proceeds to ll this gap by
explaining what political moralism is and what it is not. He
does so on the basis of the theses defended by the moralist
philosophers themselves and by excluding from his portrait
some features that, in his view, are unfairly attributed to
political moralism by its opponents.
Eva Erman and Niklas Möller explore the role of moral
norms in political theory as a basis for criticizing both
the more radical variants of political realism that exclude
morality as a source of political normativity and the more
moderate “lter view,” which is sometimes presented as a
third way between realism and moralism. While other mor-
alist positions have developed from constructivist positions
such as Rawls’, the critical theses of Erman and Möller have
as their main referent GA Cohen’s arguments against the
possibility of developing normative conclusions from facts,
without resorting to moral premises.
The third metapolitical article identied with the convic-
tions of political moralism is that of Francesco Testini. He
rejects the Williamsian conception that understands political
normativity to be based on all-things-considered judgments,
since he considers that these judgments can be explained
by the interplay of general moral principles and contextual
facts, which is equivalent to admit that morality provides
the foundation of political normativity.
Finally, in an article that represents a third way between
political moralism and political realism, Lilian Bermejo-
Luque takes Williams’ conception of practical rationality in
terms of an all things considered deliberation as the starting
point to show, against moralist stances, that politics consti-
tutes a normative domain of its own. However, she departs
from the realist strategies of Williams and others to ground
political normativity by means of the constitutivist strategy
proper to political minimalism.
As for articles that illustrate the implications of the meta-
political debate in other areas, we begin with two that pro-
vide, at the same time, a defense of political realism, namely
those by Rossi and Burelli & Destri.
Enzo Rossi’s article is positioned between metapoliti-
cal analysis and normative political discussion. On the one
hand, he defends a form of realism—radical realism—that
grounds political normativity in epistemic normativity,
under a reliabilist conception of knowledge, rather than in
moral normativity. At the same time, however, this radical
realism applies the strategy of ideology critique by tracing
a genealogy of legitimizing narratives that helps diagnose
the distribution of power in society. Thus, contrasting with
the tendency of other realist authors to support politically
conservative ideas or to advocate for non-moralist versions
1 3
J. Rodríguez-Alcázar, C. Corredor
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moralization of politics, that would trigger sectarianism and
hate for the “others”, relates with the caveats of Williams
against the morality system and the insucient recogni-
tion of the autonomy of politics, which are so present in the
metapolitical discussions of this collection.
Undoubtedly, the metapolitical debate on the sources of
political normativity is more vibrant than ever, with new
developments likely in the coming years. We can also antic-
ipate a redenition of numerous theoretical and practical
topics as a result of this debate’s ndings. We hope that this
special issue captures the dynamism of the discussion and
the breadth of its implications. Additionally, we hope it con-
tributes to fostering greater attention to political normativity
in contemporary philosophy.
Acknowledgements The work presented here has been funded by the
Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (projects
PID2019-107478GB-I00 and PID2023-147881NB-I00).
Ethics Declarations
Conicts of interests The authors declare no conict of interest con-
cerning this article.
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