Political possibility. A research into the methods of normative political theory

This is a research about the limits and the conduct of normative political thinking. When we take a normative perspective about political matters, we essentially engage in an attempt to figure out how our political practices ought to be, compared to what they are. By being so characterised, however, it looks sensible to wonder whether this sort of theoretical endeavour ought to be somehow disciplined and constrained. Are there any limits with respect to the political worlds that we can imagine as normative? Is there some kind of relation between the world as it is and the world as it should be? In the present study, I explore this fundamental problem. The four essays that together compose this thesis analyse the relationship between political reality and normative theory from different viewpoints. In doing so, they try to offer a better understanding of the limits of political possibility for normative political thinking. The first essay asks what is the appropriate procedure to tackle the problem of the limit of political possibility for normative political theory. The second essay investigates whether political theories ought to identify the desirable political worlds by relying on some features of the actual world, namely by following a bottom-up procedure. The third essay follows a similar lead and defines what sort of theoretical structure would result from the employment of a bottom-up procedure – that is to say, the third essay clarifies how political theories ought to manage the factual knowledge that the bottom-up procedure regards as normatively relevant. Finally, the fourth essay investigates whether the bottom-up theories defended in the second and third essays have to be subjected to some sort of feasibility requirements. In sum, I affirm that the limit of the political possibility for normative political theory ought to be traced where the political worlds which are practically possible, and which are compatible with the instantiation of the values that concrete agents deem important, can be found. This conclusion has important consequences with respect to the conduct of normative political thinking. I maintain that the theorist ought to be primarily an attentive observer and interpreter of concrete political practices. Moreover, the arguments that I outline suggest that we ought to look at our own world primarily in a spirit of reconciliation, rather than criticism. These two ways of looking at our practices are both fundamental, but I suggest that we should first and foremost look at our world and observe whether something makes sense in it and can be valued, rather than focusing on what could be subverted.