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Philosophy and Real Politics Raymond Geuss Philosophy and Real Politics PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS Princeton and Oxford Copyright © 2008 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire ox20 1tw All Rights Reserved isbn-13: 978-0-691-13788-9 British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available Th is book has been composed in Minion with Syntax display Printed on acid-free paper. ∞ press.princeton.edu Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Contents Preface vii Introduction 1 Part I Realism Who Whom? 23 Priorities, Preferences, Timing 30 Legitimacy 34 Tasks of Political Theory 37 Understanding, Evaluation, Orientation 37 Conceptual Innovation 42 Ideology 50 Part II Failures of Realism Rights 60 Justice 70 Equality 76 Fairness, Ignorance, Impartiality 80 Power 90 Conclusion 95 Notes 103 Works Cited 109 Index 113 Preface Th e following text is an expansion of a lecture I gave at the University of Athens in April 2007 under the title “(Lenin), Rawls, and Political Philosophy.” Th e original lecture has since appeared in the journal Cogito, in a translation into Modern Greek, for which I wish to thank Dr. Vasso Kindi. My thanks also to Katerina Ierodiakonou for the kind invi- tation to speak in Athens. Th e death of my friend Michael Frede while swimming in the Gulf of Korinth in August 2007 prevents me from thanking him for three decades of hospitality and illuminating conversation, and specifi cally for the strong encouragement he gave me to publish the lecture. A mainstay of my intellectual life during the past year and a half has been the fortnightly German-language Phil- osophisches Forschungskolloquium based in the Cambridge Faculty of Philosophy; I have had the great good fortune to be able to discuss most of the material in this text extensively (in one form or another) with the members of that group: Manuel Dries, Fabian Freyenhagen, Richard Raatzsch, Jörg Schaub, and Christian Skirke. My thanks also to Rüdiger Bittner, John Dunn, Zeev Emmerich, Peter Garnsey, Istvan Hont, Quentin Skinner, and Ursula Wolf for discussions of the issues treated here and comments on the draft of this vii text. Needless to say, none of these individuals should be construed as necessarily agreeing with any particular claim I make in the text. I owe my greatest debt of gratitude to Hi- lary Gaskin for acute comments that have improved virtually every page of the manuscript. Ian Malcolm of the Princeton University Press has, as usual, been an unfailing source of sound advice, and a pleasure to work with. viii Preface Philosophy and Real Politics