Abstract

This essay provides meta-ethical foundations for an approach to political realism. The foundations appeal to the kind of non-objectivity of morality involved in taking a critical and reflective perspective on our own moral and political outlooks. The essay argues that the distinctive methodology of an approach to political realism can be derived from these non-objectivist foundations. This methodology requires political philosophy to be more critical and reflective than it usually is, for it to be more deeply engaged with history, sociology, and other human sciences, and for it to look less like applied moral philosophy.