European Journal of Political

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Realism, liberal moralism and a political theory of modus vivendi

John Horton
European Journal of Political Theory 2010 9: 431
DOI: 10.1177/1474885110374004
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Article

Realism, liberal moralism

and a political theory of
modus vivendi

EJPT
European Journal of Political Theory
9(4) 431448
! The Author(s) 2010
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DOI: 10.1177/1474885110374004
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John Horton
Keele University

Abstract
This article sets out some of the key features of a realist critique of liberal moralism,
identifying descriptive inadequacy and normative irrelevance as the two fundamental
lines of criticism. It then sketches an outline of a political theory of modus vivendi as an
alternative, realist approach to political theory. On this account a modus vivendi should
be understood as any political settlement that involves the preservation of peace and
security and is generally acceptable to those who are party to it. In conclusion, some
problems with this conception of modus vivendi and with a realist political theory more
generally are discussed. In particular, the question is raised of whether a realist political
theory should be understood as an alternative to liberal moralism or only a better way
of doing basically the same kind of thing.
Keywords
legitimacy, liberal moralism, modus vivendi, realism

The complaint that much of contemporary political theory is unrealistic is quite

common and not especially new. Sometimes it simply reveals impatience on the
part of those actively engaged in politics or who have a predominantly practical
cast of mind with any theoretical reection, and thus may represent no more than a
failure to understand how political theory of any kind could be worthwhile.
However, the fact that such criticisms of the dominant strand of recent political
theory also arise from within political theory itself, including from some outstandingly able philosophers, suggests that there is more to them than simple ignorance
or misunderstanding.1 In this article, therefore, I want rst to articulate and
explore in general terms some of what seem to me to be the most important of
these criticisms. Secondly, I shall suggest how a political theory of modus vivendi
could be one constructive and potentially viable and interesting way of trying to
Corresponding author:
John Horton, Keele University, Keele, Staffs ST5 5BG, UK
Email: j.horton@keele.ac.uk

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European Journal of Political Theory 9(4)

respond to such criticisms, although I do not want to claim either that it is the only
possible realist option or that it is fully worked and without signicant problems
of its own. It is presented very much as a nascent idea, in need of further explanation and development before its potential can be properly assessed. Thus, nally,
I shall also briey mention a few of the more serious diculties that are encountered in trying to develop a theory that seeks to incorporate the realist critique;
some are specic to the idea of modus vivendi, but others raise questions about the
prospects for a robust and defensible realist political theory more generally.
The thrust and direction of the argument overall is obviously sympathetic to the
realist critique and at least some of the aspirations of its proponents. However, its
spirit is predominantly exploratory, and while sharing many of the concerns of
realists, it concludes somewhat tentatively and without pretending to have settled
very much. This remains, though, an ambitious conspectus, and it is best to be clear
from the start that I am here more concerned with the big picture than with the
detailed working through of specic ideas. This means that what follows is to some
degree both more schematic and more programmatic than is desirable. For the
most part, it aims to set out an agenda of issues for discussion, rather than seeking
to argue them through to a conclusion.

Realism and the critique of liberal moralism

In perhaps the best brief discussion of the issues, William Galston, surely rightly,
describes the emergence of the realist tendency in recent political theory as a
counter-movement, specically as a reaction against what he calls the high liberalism (and which I shall henceforward refer to, no doubt somewhat tendentiously,
as liberal moralism), associated with Rawls, Dworkin and many others, including
most Habermassians, but which seems to be especially prevalent in the United
States.2 Although I shall focus in what follows specically on the critique of liberal
moralism, it is perhaps appropriate to remark that in my view post-structuralist
political theory does not fare any better in this respect, notwithstanding that perceptive early formulations of some of the principal realist criticisms were advanced
by post-structuralist theorists like Bonnie Honig.3 For the most part, post-structuralist theorists are at least as evasive of politics as liberal moralists, preferring to
engage in what is more like a kind of literary criticism, or by intentionally working
at the margins, as they are inclined to style it. Moreover, when they do write of
what they refer to as the politics of the ordinary, as they sometimes do, it turns
out that they typically do not mean anything that would be thought to resemble
politics in the ordinary, everyday understanding of it.4 This is not to suggest that
such work is without value; but although post-structuralist theorists have often
been at the forefront of the critical response to liberal moralism, with some honourable exceptions such as Honig, the basis of their critiques are frequently
obscure, especially with regard to the source of their normativity, which is often
masked by avoidance and denial. Having noted this, I shall largely set it aside,
focusing primarily on the realist critique of liberal moralism.5

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433

What, though, is the core of the charge that liberal moralism is insuciently
realist or is marked by what has been called an anti-political bias?6 There are, I
suggest, two related but distinguishable broad lines of criticism, although some
realist critics are concerned more with one than the other. First, there is the complaint that the conception of politics at work in liberal moralism lacks descriptive
adequacy. Secondly, there is the objection that it is normatively utopian and therefore largely practically irrelevant. I shall look briey at each of these lines of criticism in turn, although it should be observed that they can, and have been,
elaborated in dierent ways, and that there is, as yet at least, no statement of
either of them that can be taken to be canonical. Moreover, it is not hard to see
how the rst line of criticism can either ground or leak into the second, and both
are often encompassed within the now quite familiar claim that liberal moralism in
some fundamental way denies or displaces politics, that it is political theory with
the political left out.
First, then, there is the contention that liberal moralism is descriptively decient.
At its simplest, this claim points to the fact that one would get a rather odd idea of
what politics is actually like, even in societies that come closest to meeting the
conditions of liberal moralism, if one had only had liberal moralism as ones
guide. There is, for example, little real discussion of political institutions, which
seem to be implicitly viewed in general terms as no more than instruments constructed solely for the purpose of realizing of antecedent moral principles. For
example, one could read the entire corpus of Rawlss work without ever having
much sense of the seminal role of political parties, pressure groups and such like.
Even elections gure as little more than the right to vote. And, as has often been
remarked, conceptions of deliberative democracy favoured within contemporary
liberal theory typically resemble an unusually well-conducted academic seminar
rather than the hurly burly of political debate and argument.7 Generally, the conception of politics appears etiolated, antiseptic and impossibly high-minded.8 In
this regard, therefore, liberal moralism seems already to have erased from its conception of politics in societies like our own what might be thought to be some of its
most recognizable and familiar features.
Further, though, it is argued that liberal moralism mischaracterizes politics in
more fundamental ways. For example, the realities of political power seem to be a
perpetual embarrassment to liberal moralism. It typically begins with a model of
ideally free and equal individuals and, although these are theoretical constructs, it
immediately presents the political in a manner that sidelines, for example, the fact
that people are always socially embedded in a variety of relationships of power, and
never equal in anything but an entirely abstract and rather unspecic moral sense.
While these inequalities and social entanglements might be thought of as in some
sense contingent, they are not, the realist argues, contingently related to politics:
politics is always, at least in part, about having to manage and accommodate
precisely these kinds of features of human life. Moreover, the fact that it is necessary to have political power to achieve almost anything at all in politics, and that
therefore much of politics is about contesting, pursuing, preserving or enhancing

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European Journal of Political Theory 9(4)

power, rather than just governing, tends to be passed over. The focus is almost
always only on a single question, to which everything else is rendered subservient:
on what basis may political power be legitimately used?
That there is no real recognition within liberal moralism that the winning and
maintaining political power is a crucial and unavoidable part of the context in
which it is exercised is particularly debilitating. In liberal democratic societies,
for instance, governmental power can only be attained by winning elections, and
this means being to some degree responsive to a mass of poorly informed people
with a very limited interest in politics and with diverse and complex motivations,
including not a few prejudices of one sort or another. It also means dealing with
mass media that are hardly paragons of public reason. Thus, it seems to involve a
fairly spectacular neglect of some of its most typical and fundamental features to
imagine that politics could be conducted without regard to these facts: politics is
scarcely ever simply about doing the right thing, even when we think that there is
something that answers to this description and we know what it is. Moreover, this
is to ignore entirely yet another aspect of politics the motivations of politicians.
For, it is surely na ve in the extreme to think that they are or ever could be motivated solely by the desire to promote justice or to do good, even as they understand
such ideas. Although I am sure that most politicians in democracies are motivated
in part by some notion of public service, like pretty much everyone else they also
have to make a living and the majority will also want to make careers for themselves and be successful. Thinking about how politics should be conducted also
needs to include thinking about these kinds of issues.
I am not of course suggesting that liberal moralists are exactly unaware of the
foregoing; the point is, though, that little, if any, of it appears to enter their political
theorizing in any serious way. In fairness, however, there is a general question
lurking in these comments that confronts any political theory; and not just liberal
moralism. This is: how much is it legitimate to idealize out of politics for the
purposes of theoretical understanding? Any political theory will have to make
some simplifying assumptions and exclude some of the complexity and minutiae
of political life, if one aspires to say anything at all general about it. Moreover, it is
hard to think of how any compelling argument could be advanced to the eect that
there is only one right level of idealization in political theory.9 This is partly
because the appropriate idealization will depend upon the theoretical enquiry at
hand, but also because there is no reason to think that even in relation to any
specic theoretical question only one convincing answer is possible. Yet, conceding
all this, there must surely be limits to the process of idealization, if it is still to be
recognizable as an idealization of politics at all. In fact, liberal moralists typically
reject some radical idealizations of human nature such as the idea that all human
beings are capable of innite altruism as unrealistic. But, for the realist, they do
not go anything like far enough in this regard. Any idealization that systematically erases what we think of as key features of political life takes the process
of idealization too far; and the argument of realists is that this is what liberal
moralism does.

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Before leaving this line of criticism, one probable objection to it should also
briey be noted. This is that I have uncritically assumed the centrality of current
features of politics in societies like our own, and that this is both essentialist and
conservative. This objection merits a fuller reply than is given here, but there are
three principal lines of response. First, and most minimally, even if it is granted
that this is an overly narrow account of politics, I do not think that it can plausibly
be denied that whatever else one also wants to include within the political, it must
if we want to say anything relevant to politics in our world at least include the
kinds of concerns about the role of political power and such like discussed earlier.
And, ultimately, this is all that need be claimed in support of the present argument.
Second, it seems to me that if, say, power, was not at the heart of politics in the
manner that the earlier account takes it to be, then our understanding of politics
would indeed be radically dierent from what it is; but so dierent that it would be
hard to think of it as politics at all. What, for instance, could it mean to say that it
is just a mistake to think that the winning of power necessarily lies at the heart of
politics? Thus, although the specic institutional contexts in which politics can take
place do vary immensely, I am willing enough to brave the charge of essentialism to
say that phenomena like the importance of gaining and maintaining political power
are integral to politics in any circumstances that we can plausibly imagine. Finally,
though, the requirement of descriptive adequacy should not be taken to imply that
political theory must limit itself only to description. As Glen Newey aptly remarks:
To say that political philosophy should address the nature of political practice is not
to condemn the discipline to unambitious descriptivism. It is, however, to engage with
the phenomena of politics as they are. One role for political philosophy is precisely to
expose tacit thinking about the nature and limits of the political, and understand how
these habits of thought pervade both academic and lay thinking about the subject.10

The motive behind the charge of descriptive inadequacy is not, therefore, that we
have uncritically to embrace every aspect of the world as it is, but that whatever we
think of it, we rst have to acknowledge it for what it is, seek in general terms to
understand why it is so, and also accept that it is only ever to a limited extent directly
malleable in accordance with the aspirations and intentions of human beings.11
The second line of argument against moralistic liberalism is concerned with its
normative irrelevance, and what is perceived to be its utopianism and practical
na vete. In part this, too, can be seen as a function of its descriptive inadequacy,
but the point is worth exploring independently. Here the complaint is that, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, liberal moralism can provide us with little
practical guidance about how we should act in the real world. Because the idealizing assumptions of liberal moralism leave it at some considerable remove from
the world as it is (and this should not be taken to imply a na ve positivist conception of reality), its bearing on how we should act, even were one to accept the
validity of its normative principles, is deeply problematic. Again, there are several
aspects of this line of complaint, but I shall mention only a couple.

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European Journal of Political Theory 9(4)

For example, consider the role that the idea of strict compliance plays in
Rawlss theory of justice. Rawls tells us that in his theory of justice everyone is
presumed to act justly and to do his part in upholding just institutions.12 However,
to ask the question: What would be just assuming that everyone acted justly? is, it
can be objected, not really to ask a political question at all; or at least not to ask
one with any practical import. For, whatever the conditions of politics are, they do
not include (and presumably never will) anything close to those of strict compliance. Rawls views strict compliance as entirely consistent with his idea of political
philosophy as realistically utopian: that is probing the limits of practicable political
possibility.13 However, to realist critics this is more likely to appear plain, unqualied utopianism, well beyond anything that is a practicable political possibility.
One of the facts that politics has to deal with is that, even if Rawlss principles of
justice are the correct ones (whatever exactly that means) there is not the slightest
chance that everyone will in fact agree on them or accept their normative validity.
Nor will those who do endorse them at a very high level of abstraction necessarily
interpret principles in a similar way. And even those who do agree at the level of
practical interpretation will not always act on the principles. In all these respects,
assuming strict compliance renders the practical applicability of Rawlss theory
nugatory.
I take Mark Philp to be making a related point when he remarks that we can
imagine a just liberal state but we can never achieve it, which likewise suggests that
the issue for us will always be about what to do under non-ideal conditions.14
About the latter, in my view, he is certainly right; but I would be inclined to go
further and doubt that we can even imagine a wholly just liberal state. For instance,
few people are persuaded by Rawlss dierence principle as the basis of a just
distribution of economic and other major social goods, but not necessarily because
they have a clear and cogent alternative. Rather, the pull that contrasting, and
often conicting, claims of welfare, need, opportunity and desert (Rawls rejects
desert) have for many of us simply do not admit of tidy resolution. Nor is there any
good reason to think that they should do. For instance, if there is any truth to
value-pluralism, it will not necessarily be possible harmoniously to reconcile all the
legitimate conicting values in play in complex societies like our own.15 Nor is
there any reason to think that in practice seeking to remedy one injustice may not
create or exacerbate another. But, equally importantly, for many of us what is ideal
often varies according to context: how wealthy a society is; its basic culture and
values; what social, economic and other challenges it faces; the external context in
which a society has to operate; and much else besides. Thus, although I take myself
(perhaps mistakenly) to be above averagely reective about such matters, I cannot
say what I think a just society per se would look like, although I can with some
condence identify at least a few features that (in my view) would be absent from
any just society. It is simply not the case, as Rawls and others mistakenly claim,
that we need to have an idea of a just society to be able to identify any particular
injustices: indeed, quite the reverse, it is invariably considerably easier to identify
the latter than it is the former.16

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437

One of the most fundamental and enduring lacunae in liberal moralist theorizing, and this is the second point about its relationship with political practice, is its
lack of any remotely plausible account of political agency. For, how are the principles that it advocates to be realized? It is important not to misunderstand this
question: It is not asking for what might be called a detailed implementation
strategy or practical blueprint. The sometimes irritated response that liberal moralists are prone to give that this is not the business of normative political theory
would be entirely appropriate if this is what was meant. Rather, the point is that
eecting political change is itself, through and through, a political matter: politics is
not simply (or at all?) something that takes place once we have created a just
society. Thus, one might reasonably expect a political theory to have something
to say about this question. But liberal moralism is typically either silent on such
matters, utterly na ve about them, or eectively seems to require its political principles to be already operative as a condition for realizing them. Surely, it is not
unreasonable to expect a normative political theory to have something relevant to
say about a process of transition by which we get from where we are to where we
supposedly ought to be. And this is especially pressing if one takes the view
supported pretty conclusively by the whole of human experience that in such a
matter as this one will never arrive at where one ought to be, because we are always
in transition: there is no terminus, no nal destination, in politics.
Much more can and has been said, both by way of developing the realist critique of liberal moralism and in response to it; and I shall return to some of the
more sceptical questions that can be asked of it in the nal section. However,
my principal purpose in focusing on the particular criticisms that I have is to
provide a backdrop or context for a more constructive response to the realist
critique. This takes the form of suggesting how it might be possible to develop a
political theory which takes that critique seriously and tries to incorporate at least
some of its more telling insights. For it is ultimately incumbent on those who
broadly subscribe to these criticisms of liberal moralism to say something explicitly
about what such a realist, or at least a more realistic, political theory might be. It is
with this in mind, therefore, that I want to say something about the idea of a
political theory of modus vivendi. I tentatively propose this as one possible (but
certainly not the only) way of trying to think about politics both theoretically and
realistically.

A political theory of modus vivendi

One of the principal motivations behind the modus vivendi approach is better to
capture at least some of those aspects of the political that the realist critique argues
liberal moralism neglects. Thus, a central feature of such a political theory is the
seriousness with which it takes the non-ideal, mundane and quotidian character of
politics. Again, though, it will only be possible to lightly sketch some of the key
features of what I understand by a political theory of modus vivendi.17
Furthermore, as I acknowledge more fully in the nal section, this account is not

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European Journal of Political Theory 9(4)

without its problematic aspects; and certainly more work needs to be done on the
theory before any potential it may have can be properly assessed.
Basically, as I understand it, the political theory of modus vivendi has two
constitutive components. First, what might be thought of as its content is given
by an ongoing concern with the conditions of peace and security, by which is meant
primarily the avoidance of serious civil disruption and the maintenance of a level of
social order that is at least sucient to enable the parties subject to it to live
minimally worthwhile lives. What this requires should be interpreted in fairly
modest terms, and it does not amount to anything like, for example, the equal
right or opportunity for everyone to realize as fully as possible their own conception of the good. In particular, it does not imply that political arrangements must
meet any preconceived, philosophically favoured standards of fairness or justice.
On pretty much every contemporary account of justice we have never had a just
state, or one that even comes close; and human history and experience should
surely lead us to believe that we never will. Rather, modus vivendi is about seeking
to avoid the kinds of evils that render practically impossible any worthwhile life,
and is much closer in its motives and outlook to what Judith Shklar, in her wonderfully evocative phrase, called the liberalism of fear than it is to the aspirations
of liberal moralism.18 However, it should perhaps also be noted that there is no
guarantee either, unless one actually denes liberalism in such terms, that a modus
vivendi will always issue in an outcome that would generally be regarded as liberal:
in this respect, at least, liberal suspicions of it are justied, as a modus vivendi
could be struck on terms that might not conform to (any plausible version of)
liberal principles.
The special place of the goods of peace and security in the political process does
not mean that for everyone these will always and everywhere be the supreme good,
necessarily overriding all other goods. People can, and sometimes will, have goals
that they set above such goods. If what they perceive to be their fundamental
interests, for instance, conict with the only conditions on which others are prepared to make a modus vivendi available then they will be unlikely to accept any
such oer. Furthermore, people will certainly have other aims as well as securing a
stable and peaceful settlement. Thus, the account of modus vivendi does not imply
that peace and security exhaust political concerns (and necessarily so), but they do
have a special place as peculiarly fundamental goods of politics. And they have at
least instrumental value to almost everyone, as they are an essential precondition
for the achievement of almost any other goods.19 That is why, in pursuing through
political means whatever other aims or objectives we may have, we will also generally have very good reasons to seek to avoid levels of disruption and violence that
are a serious threat to the existence of a tolerably stable and secure political order.
The second integral component of a modus vivendi relates to what can be
thought of as its form, which has to be, in some sense, broadly consensual.
However, the term consensual needs to be treated with considerable care, for it
does not in this context mean substantive agreement on principles or values, but
simply a kind of shared willingness to acknowledge the legitimacy of some

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439

particular set of political arrangements. To count as a modus vivendi an arrangement has to be broadly acceptable or agreeable to those who are party to it, even
if only reluctantly and for diverse reasons. A peaceful situation preserved entirely
through suppression or tyranny, or at the extreme by the exclusion or even elimination of those who do not accept it, is not a modus vivendi. Bernard Williams
makes a similar point, if in a slightly dierent way, when he writes that:
The situation of one lot of people terrorizing another lot of people is not per se a
political situation: it is, rather, the situation which the existence of the political is in
the rst place supposed to alleviate (replace). If the power of one lot of people over
another is to represent a solution to the rst political question, and not itself be part of
the problem, something has to be said to explain (to the less empowered, to concerned
bystanders, to children being educated in this structure, etc.) what the dierence is
between the solution and the problem, and that cannot simply be an account of
successful domination.20

The point, as I understand it, is that for something to count as a political settlement, or in my terms a modus vivendi, it has to possess some quality of legitimacy
for those subject to it. The tricky issue here, however, is that, if the theory is to
remain true to the realist spirit, a modus vivendi cannot require as its condition any
of the more demanding versions of the principle of liberal legitimacy, which entail
that the exercise of political power must be justied to each and every individual
over whom it is exercised in terms that cannot reasonably be rejected.21
What is essential to a modus vivendi is that arrangements are broadly accepted
by those subject to them. So long as such acceptance itself is not the product of
clear, wilful, systematic and comprehensive deception by those with political
power, then the reasons why it is accepted can be many and various, and do not
really matter as regards the legitimacy of the settlement. The fact that a modus
vivendi requires acceptance by the parties to it, though, does mean that very serious
and persistent injustices should be less likely; or, strictly speaking, that what people
believe to be very serious injustices are less likely. This is because people will generally not be willing to accept arrangements that seriously threaten their fundamental interests or most deeply cherished beliefs. Peace and security are only good
for everyone if everyone is better o with than without them. It is true that this sets
the standard quite low, but it is certainly possible for states to fail to meet it.
Crucially, though, what is found acceptable is always a contingent and circumstantial matter and something that has to be settled by those involved; there is no good
reason to think that the appropriate content of any modus vivendi can be determined in advance, for example by political theorists, of the workings of the political
process itself.
It is important to emphasize that, on the account presented here, a modus
vivendi can be arrived at by drawing on whatever resources moral, intellectual,
cultural, pragmatic, etc., as well as self-interest are available in helping the parties
to reach it. A modus vivendi is not therefore to be understood, as Rawls does,

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European Journal of Political Theory 9(4)

simply as a balance of political forces.22 A balance of political forces is certainly not

excluded, and is often likely to play some part, but (other than to make it seem less
attractive) there is no reason to limit the idea of modus vivendi in this way.
A modus vivendi is a practical accommodation that can be built around any
number of factors and be accepted for a variety of reasons by those who are parties
to it. Those reasons often will include some measure of self-interest, but may also
include more general prudential considerations and whatever moral principles and
other values can be eectively mobilized in support of a particular political settlement. This is not, it should be emphasized, to reintroduce liberal principles or an
assumed substantive moral consensus through the back door. Rather, it is only to
recognize that typically people do in fact share some moral commitments or principles, along with other values, and that this overlap can be quite extensive, if often
vague and indeterminate. Also, even where people do not have the same reasons,
they may have their own moral, or other, reasons for acting in ways conducive to a
modus vivendi. It cannot be stressed often enough that the idea of modus vivendi is
in principle compatible with many dierent practical instantiations, including
some that may not be liberal. So long as a political settlement nds a way of
preserving political order that is broadly acceptable to those subject to it, then it
meets the conditions for a modus vivendi. All of this makes a political theory
of modus vivendi both richer and messier than liberal moralism. It also raises
questions about how far the idea of a modus vivendi can be theorized in general
terms, and in so far as it can what kind of theoretical understanding is most
appropriate.
Finally, one further clarication should be made at this point. Talk of political
settlements and such like may give rise to the misleading impression about the
nature and status of a modus vivendi. It is true, and important, that if political
stability is to last for any length of time, then a modus vivendi will often need to
become enshrined in institutions, legislation and convention; and sometimes even
entrenched in a constitution. Indeed, it would be unsustainable for everything to be
continually renegotiated in a non-stop round of one new modus vivendi after
another. But, on the other hand, political order and security is never a denitive,
once and for all, done deal: a modus vivendi is always an ongoing achievement, and
to some degree potentially precarious and susceptible to being undermined by any
of the innite variety of lifes contingencies. In good times many settlements can for
practical purposes be taken as read and may be uncontested for long periods of
time; but times are never good for everything new controversies emerge that have
to be dealt with and seem never to last forever for anything. Sometimes this can
be just a matter of tinkering with existing arrangements, which is mostly the stu of
day-to-day politics. However, there will also be times when more fundamental or
radical change will be the only way in which a failing modus vivendi can be
repaired or a new one established. There is a sense, therefore, in which a modus
vivendi, while not needing to be constantly renegotiated, must be continuously
rearmed in practice, its legitimacy eectively reasserted, if only implicitly by
remaining unchallenged. A modus vivendi exists only so long as the parties to it

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441

continue to accept it; when that ceases to be so, either renegotiation or coercion
are pretty much the only options. This is not, though, because a modus vivendi is
especially unstable, as its critics allege, but because such instability, if that is what
one wants to call it, is at the heart of politics; transience is a part of the human
condition that not even a supposedly ideally just constitution can reasonably hope
to allay.
There are, I suggest, a number of reasons why the idea of a political theory of
modus vivendi should nd favour with those sympathetic to the realist critique of
liberal moralism. First, and most obviously, because it seems that something like
the process it characterizes is going on in politics most of the time, at least when we
are not dealing with brute coercion. Negotiation, bargaining, compromise, persuasion, a measure of give and take, cobbling together policies that may be eective
but whose intellectual coherence is doubtful, strategies of avoidance, exploiting
ambiguity, and so on, are the stu of most normal politics, and they can all
help to facilitate a viable modus vivendi. We may, at times, wish that it were not
like this, and of course it could, sometimes at least, be a little less grubby than it
often is; but it is also worth reminding ourselves that in fact this is what politics
looks like at something close to its best, under generally favourable conditions.
In less favourable conditions, experience tells us that the tendency is for politics to
be more mendacious, unscrupulous and violent. Moreover, this is not, I want to
insist, to manifest cynicism or hopeless pessimism about politics, but to acknowledge that it is hard to see realistically how it can be very much better, taking into
account the circumstances that make politics necessary in the rst place. Politics is
not an area which is well served by us to giving free rein to our fantasies, even
(or perhaps especially) if they are apparently benign. We might then see this
view not as displaying cynicism or defeatism about politics, but instead seeing it
as something for which we have reason to be grateful a cause, perhaps, for
celebration, or at least for relief, rather than for regret or despair.
Further, this account of modus vivendi avoids one common misunderstanding
of what a realist political theory must be like, which does take the view that I have
just outlined a step too far. This conception, common but far from limited to
theories of international relations, makes realism something close to the mirror
image of liberal moralism: whereas the latter presents politics as (ideally) all about
principle and morality, the former sees it as solely about power and interest. This
view, however, is scarcely more realistic than liberal moralism, being equally onesided.23 Moreover, it can lead into a kind of potentially dangerous, macho political
posturing, in which the seductiveness of the romance of realism easily leads to the
valorization of political brutality and amoralism. For it is almost as misleading to
think that politics can only be about the ruthless and single-minded pursuit of selfinterest as it is to think that it can be governed exclusively by moral high-mindedness. Ideals, in the form of goals or political aspirations, and moral principles
and conventions that set limits to what we are willing to do in pursuit of our
interests, play an important part in political life, and not just as a smokescreen
for baser motivations (although, naturally, they can sometimes be that).

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This conception of modus vivendi can also give due place to the fact that much
of politics concerns modest, mostly practical disagreements about means, timing or
priorities rather than being about conicts of fundamental values or an existential
struggle between friend and enemy. False realism, as we might call it, is inclined to
be dazzled by politics as melodrama: it sometimes is that, of course, and it would be
quite wrong to underplay the seriousness of what can be at stake. However, when
things are going well, much of politics is about fairly routine matters and closer to
bureaucratic tedium than the more lurid scenarios of agonism. While understandable that political theorists tend to become overexcited by the latter, a focus only
on apparently intractable conicts risks distorting our understanding of politics.
Indeed, for the politics of modus vivendi to ourish it is important that a large
number of issues that fall within the purview of politics are not seen to be matters
of life and death; that they are in some way or other, and sometimes routinely,
negotiable. Having said that, however, what issues are perceived to be matters of
life and death will be contingent on many other factors than just the importance of
the issue itself. A genuinely realistic political theory, therefore, will be sensitive to
how principle, prudence and self-interest, means and ends, reason and emotion, are
typically bound together in politics in a potentially inexhaustible variety of complex, confusing and unpredictable ways, always partly dependent on circumstance
and context. While politics at its most troubling is indeed unavoidably about matters that concern our most fundamental beliefs and interests, it is important
that this need not always the case, and that there can be a more placid and
routine politics.
Inevitably, this is no more than the briefest indication of some features of the
lines along which a political theory of modus vivendi might be developed. It would,
moreover, be disingenuous on my part to suggest that it is only limitations of time
and space that stand in the way of a fuller and fully convincing presentation of such
a theory. I shall conclude, therefore, by identifying a number of questions and
diculties that confront the project of articulating a political theory of modus
vivendi; at least some of which in one way or another may beset any attempt to
construct a realist project in political theory.

Some difficulties with modus vivendi and a realist

political agenda
In discussing some of the diculties that a political theory of modus vivendi faces
I shall focus on four broad and overlapping areas of concern, although once again
these are selective and represent a far from complete account of all of the issues that
could be raised. The rst set of diculties relates to specifying the conditions that
have to be met for a situation properly to be characterized as being a modus
vivendi. As was argued earlier, it cannot be the case that just any relatively peaceful
situation, however coercively maintained, counts as a modus vivendi. At the
extreme, by, say, securing peace through eliminating minority groups who disagree,
the outcome would be closer to genocide than that of a modus vivendi. The idea of

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a modus vivendi (at least as it is understood here) carries with it the sense that the
arrangements are to some extent accepted as legitimate by the various parties to it,
even if that acceptance is, as it often will be, to varying degrees reluctant, grudging
and qualied. But quite what is to count as acceptance, in the relevant sense, is less
easy to specify.
The idea of legitimacy is crucial here because it allows vital space for the
acknowledgement of political authority without necessarily approving of what is
done with it: we can accept the legitimacy of a law, policy or institution even
though we believe it to be wrong or mistaken. What this amounts to, I suggest,
is something like: we are willing to work within what are generally taken to be the
legitimate channels of political expression within our society.24 Such an understanding would relativize acceptance in an attractive way, and could, therefore,
help to solve one important aspect of this problem. But it still leaves unanswered
other important questions; not least the question of how to distinguish genuine
from coerced acceptance. This is a particular problem for a theory such as that
of modus vivendi which, because it aims to be realistic and thus dispenses with
idealizing assumptions about free and equal individuals, does not exclude
all inequalities of power from the conditions of acceptance. It is not that we
should hope to nd a simple test or a set of necessary and sucient conditions
for political legitimacy, but rather more guidance than has so far been oered
seems to be needed.
For instance, a particular diculty in this context is providing an answer to the
question of how extensive acceptance has to be, an issue that was hinted at earlier. It
would seem to push us away from any sense of political realism to allow that each
and every individual has an eective veto over any potential modus vivendi.
Undoubtedly, if we require unanimity for modus vivendi then it will be as rare
as an ideal liberal state. One possibility here is that there simply has to be an exercise
of judgement about when arrangements have sucient support to count as a modus
vivendi. This would suggest some sort of threshold conception. Alternatively, we
may perhaps accept that there are simply conicting perspectives here that cannot be
reconciled. Thus, from the point of view of disaected individuals no modus vivendi
would obtain, for the straightforward reason that they do not accept it. But there is
no obvious reason why that perspective should be authoritative. From the perspective of the state, from that of fellow citizens or from a third-person perspective it may
be sucient to claim that there is a viable or legitimate modus vivendi if uncoerced
acceptance is widespread and covers the majority in the groups who are party to it.
That is, we are left with contested claims over whether a modus vivendi has been
achieved. This will certainly not be a happy solution for those who think that political theory should be in a position to denitively settle such questions. However, this
may be one of many contexts in which being realistic requires that we simply
acknowledge that there are dierences of perspective that cannot be adjudicated
from some higher, authoritative vantage point: political theory can only tell it as it
is, mapping rather than seeking to adjudicate rival perspectives. But, as is no doubt
apparent, I do not feel condent in rmly settling on any of the ways in which

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this thorny issue could be addressed, as none seem to be without a signicant

downside.
A second issue about the nature of a modus vivendi concerns the meaning of
peace and security and their precise role in the political process. Spelling out in a
general way what is involved in peace and security may not be unduly troubling in
some respects, but fully articulating their role or status in the theory is rather trickier.
I do not think that we have to be too worried by the charge, sometimes advanced,
that modus vivendi involves to attributing to peace and security the status of supergoods or transcendent values.25 As argued earlier, that seems to me a mistake, for
there is nothing in the theory that implies that they must always or of necessity
outweigh all other goods. For all that most people have very strong reasons for
regarding them as basic goods of considerable weight by comparison with other
goods, there is nothing that compels people never to claim that there is another
good that they value more highly; for example, the salvation of their soul. Rather,
the problem, as I see it, is that peace and security are matters of degree, and clearly
the aim in politics is not necessarily, nor indeed usually, to maximize peace and
security, even if it is generally also to ensure that some unspecied level of stable
social order is maintained. It will often be thought appropriate, therefore, to trade o
some amount of security against other values, and people will often disagree in how
they think that calculation is to be made. This is a further reason why it is wrong to
think of peace and security as some kind of supergoods. It has to be conceded that
societies and people within them can and often have ourished in contexts exhibiting
quite high levels of social disorder and some signicant measure of violence, so
exactly how the value of peace and security is to be cashed out is unclear. Thus,
there are at least two broad questions here: the rst concerns the indeterminacy of
the level of peace and security that constitutes a basic minimum, while the second is
about trying to specify more precisely how peace and security relate to other values,
although with respect to the latter we should certainly not expect the result to be
some algorithm or xed hierarchy of values.
Both the issues discussed so far are also intimately bound up with a third: this is
the question of normativity. How far, in which ways and on what basis is a political
theory of modus vivendi still normative? Here, it is possible to be pulled in diering
directions. Marx famously remarked that, while philosophy has only interpreted
the world, the point should be to change it.26 However, it is far from obvious why
interpreting the world is not an entirely apt aspiration for political theory. But,
even if we do understand political theory as in some sense primarily interpretative,
this does not mean that it lacks any normativity. And the idea that political theory
could be entirely value-free and also in any way illuminating does not seem to
have much plausibility. For example, the very characterization of a modus vivendi
as distinct from the strictly coercive seems unavoidably to entail some kind of
normative judgement in determining what is to count as coercive; and more generally many of the central concepts of politics are necessarily permeated by normativity, including the idea of legitimacy. Thus, in so far as normative judgements
are inescapable, it is also hard to avoid questions about their source and validity.

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Moreover, this is not even to begin to address the issue of whether a political
theory of modus vivendi is or should aspire to be more directly prescriptive, rather
than just normatively inected in various ways. After all, one complaint about
liberal moralism is that it is too utopian and cannot oer us any practically
useful guidance. Or is the objection, rather, that liberal moralism purports to
oer practical political guidance without actually doing so, and that the correct
response is to give up the aspiration to oer such practical guidance. The political
theory of modus vivendi would seem to be more in line with this second reading, in
that it does not aim to provide much by way of practical guidance. However, as will
be apparent from the tentative and inconclusive nature of these remarks, this seems
to me to be an area that remains in need of much more work. All I will say is that if
one does see the tasks of political theory as primarily interpretative, and one concedes that this does have (as I believe it must) an ineliminable normative dimension,
this is not the same as saying that the purpose of political theory is prescriptive.
But, of course, this still does not settle whether or not a realist political theory
should aim to be prescriptive.
Following from this discussion of normativity there is, nally, an issue that
confronts all attempts to develop a more realist political theory: what exactly is
it that a realist political theory should be doing? In one respect this is about identifying an agenda for a realist political theory. What kinds of question or topics
should such a political theory be concerned with? Here, it is plausible to suggest
that a realist political theory might be more interested in questions about such
important matters as political judgement, leadership, representation, political
responsibility, the understanding of what is politically possible, the role of contingency in politics and a plethora of other issues that have been largely neglected by
liberal moralists because of their obsession with articulating and justifying normative principles. In another respect, though, the question is also about what it means
to theorize in a realistic way, and how its success or failure is to be assessed. This is
an especially pressing concern for realists given that they are inclined to want to
include in such theorizing something of the circumstantial, ambiguous and generally messy character of political life.
But there is also a still deeper worry here. Let me initially approach this indirectly. The strength and attraction of a realist approach seems at least in part to be
parasitic on what it is not: it is not, most conspicuously, liberal moralism. But how
far is the very idea of a realistic political theory actually dependent on the other of
liberal moralism? It is, for instance, not too hard to understand what is meant by a
realistic political theory if one thinks in terms of reforming or revising liberal
moralism; of trying to bring it a bit closer to politics as it is experienced and
practised. However, is that ultimately all that the realist project in political
theory is about? Or, is it altogether more ambitious, aiming at a very signicantly
dierent kind of political theory? If the latter, then it may be less clear whether this
approach can, so to speak, stand entirely on its own feet. In particular, there seem
to be at least two opposing dangers that threaten it. The rst is of lapsing into
sociology or history. Not, of course, that there is anything wrong with either of

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these approaches to understanding politics, and a greater sensitivity to both is what

a realist political theory would anyway recommend. It is something dierent,
though, if they come not only to inform it, but eectively to displace it. The
other danger is of surreptitiously backsliding into the kind of moralism that the
realist reaction sought to avoid. It is not an uncommon experience Williamss
discussion of the basic legitimation demand is an interesting case in point27 to
feel that what has begun as a serious challenge to liberal moralism turns out to be
in danger of becoming entangled in precisely the kind of idealizing assumptions
that were the initial source of concern. And while, as was indicated earlier for
instance in the discussion of the relationship between acceptance and legitimacy a
political theory of modus vivendi has to be on guard against this tendency, so does
any realist political theory if it is to stay true to itself.
Here, we no doubt have to return to the realist critique and to the dierences
between the realist critics. As remarked earlier, they are not all equally motivated
by the same concerns, and once we focus on reconstruction rather than critique
the dierences may turn into tensions and pull in quite dierent directions. It is
not hard to see how this could play out, as has already been hinted at, in terms
of dierent attitudes towards the role of normative prescription within a realist political theory. Furthermore, notwithstanding that I have rather uncritically availed
myself of it throughout this discussion, political reality is hardly an entirely straightforward or incontestable idea. Relying on a commonplace understanding of politics is
not illicit indeed, I would argue that there is no better place to begin but this does
not mean that, at least to some degree, it cannot be called into question. Nor do we do
all share a single sense of what is in general politically possible. A pertinent rebuke to
realists is to point out that many things that were once thought politically impossible
have subsequently come about. So, in conclusion, it would appear that if what we
want is a genuinely independent or distinctive realist political theory, we are still
some way from having a clear understanding of exactly what that would amount to.
Notes
An earlier version of this paper was read at the conference, Should Political Theory Get Real?,
held at the University of Birmingham in May 2009. I have benefitted considerably from
the discussion it received on that occasion and from the helpful comments of Glen Newey.
1. Among the more significant of such critiques are the following. John Dunn (1985)
Rethinking Modern Political Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; John
Gray (2000) Two Faces of Liberalism. Cambridge: Polity Press; Glen Newey (2001) After
Politics: The Rejection of Politics in Contemporary Liberal Philosophy. Houndmills,
Basingstoke: Palgrave; Bernard Williams (2005) In the Beginning was the Deed, ch. 1.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press; and Raymond Geuss (2008) Philosophy and
Real Politics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. For a more sceptical evaluation of
the realist critique see C. A. J. Coady (2008) Messy Morality: The Challenge of Politics.
Oxford: Oxford University Press. For a robust defence of liberal theory see Paul Kelly
(2005) Liberalism, ch. 6. Cambridge: Polity Press.

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2. William Galston, Realism in Political Theory, in this volume. As I shall remark later,
the fact that the realist critique is reactive in this way gives rise to some important
questions about it.
3. Bonnie Honig (1993) Political Theory and the Displacement of Politics. Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press.
4. See, for instance, Thomas Dumm (1999) A Politics of the Ordinary. New York: New
York University Press.
5. This is perhaps an appropriate point to remark that, notwithstanding the sometimes
considerable exasperation with it that is expressed in what follows, I would not want to
be seen as rejecting liberal moralism in toto. There is much to be said in favour of the
rigour and honesty with which many defenders of liberal moralism set out their arguments, and in terms of the political values that it supports I am broadly sympathetic to
their views.
6. Newey (n. 1), p. 25.
7. See, for instance, Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson (1996) Democracy and
Disagreement. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
8. It is no accident that liberal moralists often seem to prefer to leave decisions about basic
questions of justice in the hands of judges rather than politicians.
9. For a robust defence of the claim that fundamental normative principles are entirely
fact-insensitive, see Gerald A. Cohen (2003) Facts and Principles, Philosophy and
Public Affairs 31: 330.
10. Newey (n. 1), p. 28.
11. Of course, I do not mean to imply that the social world is totally resistant to our efforts
to shape it, but nor is it putty in our hands: it is politically important to recognize that
the world does not mechanically respond to our intentions, and there are always limits
to what can be changed in particular circumstances at a particular time.
12. John Rawls (1999) A Theory of Justice, rev. edn, p. 8. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
13. John Rawls (2001) Justice as Fairness: A Restatement, p. 4. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
14. Mark Philp (2007) Political Conduct. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
15. See e.g. Joseph Raz (1986) The Morality of Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press
and John Gray. John Gray (2000) Two Faces of Liberalism. Cambridge: Polity Press.
16. I have argued more fully for this claim in John Horton (2005) A Qualified Defence of
Oakeshotts Politics of Scepticism, European Journal of Political Theory 4: 2336.
17. I have tried to begin developing this idea of a political theory of modus vivendi in John
Horton (2007) John Gray and the Political Theory of Modus Vivendi, in John Horton
and Glen Newey (eds) The Political Theory of John Gray, pp. 4358. London: Routledge
and (2010) Modus Vivendi and Religious Accommodation in Monica Mookherjee
(ed.) Toleration and Recognition in the Age of Religious Pluralism. Dordrecht: Springer.
18. Judith Shklar (1989) The Liberalism of Fear, in N. Rosenblum (ed.) Liberalism and the
Moral Life, pp. 2138. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Also highly relevant
is: Patrick Neal (1997) Liberalism and its Discontents, ch. 9. London: Macmillan.
19. As so often, terms like almost and nearly all have to be used to allow for highly
exceptional circumstances. This should not, though, be a cause for embarrassment, as in
politics we usually dealing with generalities rather than universals: it is part of the
messiness of a realist political theory.
20. Williams (n. 1), p. 5.

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21. By the far the most sophisticated account of the idea of reasons that cannot be reasonably rejected is to be found in Thomas Scanlon (1999) What We Owe to Each Other.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
22. John Rawls (1993) Political Liberalism, pp. 1479. New York: Columbia University
Press.
23. In fairness, it is perhaps a little more plausible as an account of international relations
than it is of domestic politics.
24. I use the term legitimate rather than legal advisedly. There may be forms of protest,
e.g. civil disobedience, which while strictly illegal are widely acknowledged, at least in
some circumstances in some societies, to have political legitimacy.
25. See George Crowder (2002) Liberalism and Value Pluralism, pp. 1213. London:
Continuum.
26. Karl Marx (1977) Theses on Feuerbach XI, in Karl Marx: Selected Writings, ed. D.
McClellan. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
27. Williams (n. 1). I also think that somewhat similar problems afflict Richard Bellamys
interesting attempt to develop a political theory of compromise: see Richard Bellamy
(1999) Liberalism and Pluralism: Towards a Politics of Compromise. London: Routledge.