Value, Conflict, and Order Berlin, Hampshire, Williams, and the Realist Revival in Political Theory
by Edward Hall
University of Chicago Press, 2020
Cloth: 978-0-226-71828-6 | Paper: 978-0-226-71831-6 | Electronic: 978-0-226-71845-3
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226718453.001.0001
ABOUT THIS BOOKAUTHOR BIOGRAPHYREVIEWSTABLE OF CONTENTS

ABOUT THIS BOOK

Is the purpose of political philosophy to articulate the moral values that political regimes would realize in a virtually perfect world and show what that implies for the way we should behave toward one another? That model of political philosophy, driven by an effort to draw a picture of an ideal political society, is familiar from the approach of John Rawls and others. Or is political philosophy more useful if it takes the world as it is, acknowledging the existence of various morally non-ideal political realities, and asks how people can live together nonetheless?

The latter approach is advocated by “realist” thinkers in contemporary political philosophy. In Value, Conflict, and Order, Edward Hall builds on the work of Isaiah Berlin, Stuart Hampshire, and Bernard Williams in order to establish a political realist’s theory of politics for the twenty-first century. The realist approach, Hall argues, helps us make sense of the nature of moral and political conflict, the ethics of compromising with adversaries and opponents, and the character of political legitimacy. In an era when democratic political systems all over the world are riven by conflict over values and interests, Hall’s conception is bracing and timely.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Edward Hall is a lecturer in political theory at the University of Sheffield.

REVIEWS

“Hall offers a lucid and wide-ranging account of three leading philosophers who provided the impetus for the realist movement in contemporary political philosophy. He argues that the realism they sparked represents not only a negative critique of the dominant Rawlsian paradigm, as others have claimed, but also the foundation for an affirmative alternative to it.”
— William A. Galston, Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution

“Over the last fifteen years, the revival of political realism has produced a sharp methodological critique of ‘ethics-first’ theorizing. But that is all this revival has produced so far. Can political realism be grounded on firm philosophical foundations? Can it offer a substantive alternative to the moralisms it criticizes? Hall’s deep and challenging book gives us grounds for optimism on both fronts. Through a sympathetic but clear-eyed reading of Isaiah Berlin, Stuart Hampshire, and Bernard Williams, Hall shows us the promise and limits of a realist ethics and politics. What emerges is a compelling vision of skepticism without despair, disenchantment without nihilism, and humility without paralysis. This book is a terrific achievement.”
— Alison McQueen, Stanford University

"...Hall has written a terrific book on the realist revival in political theory, one that will establish him as one of the leading ‘new political realists’. It is, quite simply Hall’s analytical brilliance, paired with admirable lucidity and creativity, that allows him to develop critical – but remarkably fair – accounts of Berlin, Hampshire, and Williams, and, ultimately, to make a major contribution to the realist revival in political theory."
— Contemporary Political Theory

"By showing how much potential still lies within [the] liberal strand of realism and how much more it can actually tell us about politics than a statusquoist fear of disorder and tyranny, as well as how we can remain modest in our expectations about what we should get from a realist political theory, Hall does a great service both to realism in general and to its liberal strand in particular. His book does not conclude but fosters discussion about these issues, and that is why I am confident that it will come up in every serious conversation about realism, and for good reason."
— European Journal of Political Theory

"Berlin, Hampshire, and Williams's 'political realism' offers neither the certainty of systematic morality or political science, nor a guarantee of political success. There is little consolation in this philosophy - save perhaps the reassurance, for humanists who cannot brig themselves to be utopians or cynics, that their doubts and anxieties are valid. There is, however, considerable intellectual illumination to be derived from accompanying Hall on his journey through the ideas of these idiosyncratic, imperfect, but wise thinkers."
— The Review of Politics

"Values, Conflict, and Order not only recovers a tradition in political thought that has been neglected but revives it in a way that directly engages in how political theory is done and how we should think about politics…It should be read by those who aspire for politics to be something other than what it perhaps is."

— VoegelinView

"In his highly accessible and rewarding new book, Edward Hall... addresses some of the essential themes of political realism (such as the untidy nature of political affairs) and some of the challenges it faces (for example, how realists can affirm pluralism without falling into relativism). This makes it required reading for those engaged with realism in political theory and a good starting point for everyone interested in the realist way of thinking about politics."
— LSE Review of Books

"Value, Conflict, and Order is an admirable book, one that those interested in the revival of realist political theory ought to read. I suspect it will become required reading for those interested in Williams’s political theory, as well as those interested in twentieth-century British political theory."
— Ethics

"Edward Hall’s Value, Conflict and Order: Berlin, Hampshire, Williams, and the Realist Revival in Political Theory is a major contribution to this ongoing conversation about the meaning and value of realism in political theory. It stands out for its nuanced treatment of the ideas of these three post-war British philosophers, whose writings have helped to inspire the recent realist turn. Hall skilfully weaves together detailed interpretive work with his own critical interventions in the realist-moralist exchange."
— Journal of Social and Political Philosophy

"Edward Hall’s Value, Conflict, and Order is a contribution to the 'realist revival' in political theory that has taken place in recent years."
— George Crowder, Society

TABLE OF CONTENTS

- Edward Hall
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226718453.003.0001
[political realism;political moralism;Isaiah Berlin;Stuart Hampshire;Bernard Williams;value pluralism]
In the introduction, I set out the central issues at stake in the debate between realists and moralists in contemporary political theory and situate the work of Isaiah Berlin, Stuart Hampshire, and Bernard Williams in these debates. In so doing, I touch on Berlin’s, Hampshire’s, and Williams’s shared concerns in moral and political philosophy, and explain why their work is in tension with the articulation with the ethics-first approach in political theory. I then detail the central argument of the work, and offer a brief summary of the central arguments of the chapters that follow. (pages 1 - 18)
This chapter is available at:
    https://academic.oup.com/chica...

- Edward Hall
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226718453.003.0002
[Isaiah Berlin;value pluralism;monism;moral relativism]
Value pluralism is generally considered to be Isaiah Berlin’s master idea. However, Berlin refrains from offering a systematic account of value pluralism. In this chapter, I reconstruct his scattered remarks and arguments by focusing on the ways in which value pluralism can be distinguished from moral relativism. This has two benefits. First, it elucidates many significant features of Berlin’s thought that are still underappreciated at present. Second, it undermines the common refrain that political realists must endorse some version of moral relativism. The argument of this chapter shows that this line of criticism is inapt when directed at realists of a value pluralist stripe provided they follow Berlin in endorsing some account of the minimum conception of natural law. (pages 21 - 45)
This chapter is available at:
    https://academic.oup.com/chica...

- Edward Hall
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226718453.003.0003
[Isaiah Berlin;value pluralism;political judgment;liberty;liberalism;ideal theory;utopianism]
In this chapter, I explore the upshots of Berlin’s value pluralism for political theory, illustrating why Berlin’s value pluralism can be taken to repudiate the idea that political theory is a kind of applied moral philosophy (in contrast to some of Berlin’s own statements). Most centrally, I argue that, in a number of ways, value pluralism problematizes a claim at the heart of Rawlsian, and much post-Rawlsian, political philosophy: that the first task of political theory is to articulate an ideal theory of political society before asking, in a second step, how our political institutions should be ordered, or political agents should act, by reference to this ideal. To make this case, I address a number of distinct elements of Berlin’s thought including his distinction between negative and positive conceptions of liberty, anti-utopianism, and account of political judgement. I also ask how value pluralists can endorse substantive political commitments. (pages 46 - 68)
This chapter is available at:
    https://academic.oup.com/chica...

- Edward Hall
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226718453.003.0004
[Stuart Hampshire;morality;conflict;value pluralism;agonism]
Political realists stress that we must not shy away from the agonistic elements of politics, but many realists simply see conflict as an empirical fact of moral and political life that we must accept, the basis of which they often do not explain.This chapter examines the ways that Stuart Hampshire’s work in moral philosophy gives voice to set of underlying philosophical commitments that might ground a realist endorsement of an agonistic vision of ethics and politics.I show that Hampshire’s work repays attention because it suggests thatmoral and political conflict is nota brute fact that mustchastenorconstrainthe normative aims of any self-styled, realistic moral or political theory, but that, within certain bounds, conflict is a sign of the healthy operation of human thought and the moral imagination. In this sense, Hampshire suggests that understanding the sources and nature ofconflictplays aconstructiverole in helping us to think realistically about morality and the ethical demands of politics. (pages 71 - 89)
This chapter is available at:
    https://academic.oup.com/chica...

- Edward Hall
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226718453.003.0005
[Stuart Hampshire;procedural justice;conflict;compromise]
In this chapter, I address the question of how, if conflict is both a fact of morality and politics and (at least in some forms) healthy, we can hope to generate acceptable political settlements that preserve the civil goods of political order and earn the acquiescence of subjects. To do so, I scrutinize Hampshire's accountof basic procedural justice. Despite the concerns I raise about the overall adequacy of Hampshire’s argument, I argue that Hampshire’s political thought powerfully suggests that the central task of political institutions is to secure the acquiescence of different groups and subjects by generating acceptable settlements between conflicting claims. In so doing, his work upsets the view of morality and politics which encourage us to see compromise, bargaining, and negotiation on matters of principle with disdain and suspicion. (pages 90 - 114)
This chapter is available at:
    https://academic.oup.com/chica...

- Edward Hall
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226718453.003.0006
[Bernard Williams;ethics;morality;skepticism;confidence;contingency]
In this chapter, I focus on Bernard Williams’sskepticismabout finding an objective grounding for ethics and explore the implications this scepticismhasfor his understanding of the point and purpose of philosophical reflection. Following this, I examine how he thought we could go on, avoiding moral and political paralysis, even when we accept that we cannot ground our moral and political commitments by appeal to some external, objective standard. This question is central to the recent literature on realism and moralism in political theory as the realist critiques of political moralism can lead one to scepticism about our capacity to reach any claims about what individuals or polities ought to do. In this chapter, I illustrate how Williams’s work in moral philosophy sketches a way in which this conclusion can be resisted. (pages 117 - 138)
This chapter is available at:
    https://academic.oup.com/chica...

- Edward Hall
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226718453.003.0007
[Bernard Williams;political realism;legitimacy;liberalism of fear;critical theory principle]
One might be tempted to think that Williams’s skepticism about philosophical ethics vitiates the attempt to articulate any robust standards of political evaluation. This would be a mistake. Although Williams believes that normative political judgement cannot take the form of applying a set of antecedent moral theory to the political sphere, he develops a realist conception of legitimacy that survives his critique of morality and which he claims enables us to distinguish between better and worse regimes on distinctively political grounds. In this chapter, I articulate and defend this conception of legitimacy before explaining how this way of approaching questions of political value enables Williams to offer adefenceof Judith Shklar’s liberalism of fear. I conclude by focusing on Williams’s formulation of a critical theory test, arguing that while it can help us to impugn some such orders, in the final instance, it has less critical potential than Williams suggests. (pages 139 - 166)
This chapter is available at:
    https://academic.oup.com/chica...

- Edward Hall
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226718453.003.0008
[political realism;political moralism;Isaiah Berlin;Stuart Hampshire;Bernard Williams;liberalism]
In the conclusion, I draw out the wider implications that my examination of the work of Berlin, Hampshire, and Williams has for the debates about realism and moralism in contemporary political theory. First, I address three shortcomings and limitations of the body of work that I have focused on which those who are attracted to the central elements of Berlin’s, Hampshire’s, and Williams’s thought need to address going forward. Second, I argue that their work helps to illustrate the errors inherent in the view—endorsed by some realists and assumed by most of their moralist critics—that political realism requires us to assess politics in a way that is fully autonomous of moral or ethical considerations. Rather, I argue that Berlin, Hampshire, and Williams help us torealizethat realists need to think realistically about what kinds of ethical claims about politics it makes sense for us to endorse in a disenchanted world. Finally, I explain how my reading of Berlin, Hampshire, and Williams undermines the common refrain that the contemporary realist current is solely negative or critical in orientation. (pages 167 - 176)
This chapter is available at:
    https://academic.oup.com/chica...