THE INEVITABILITY OF POLITICAL METAPHYSICS

ABSTRACT
The purpose here is to examine the nature and extent of the metaphysical element in normative
political theory, the central contention being that all such theory is a kind of metaphysics. It will be
suggested first of all that, despite appearances, the crucial metaphysical element underpinning both
theological and rationalist theories is in fact the same. Secondly it will be argued that the normally
assumed distinction between metaphysical foundations and the non-metaphysical theory that rests
upon it is unsustainable, and that the metaphysical element pervades the whole of such theories. The
main thinkers discussed are Marx and Rawls. Thirdly it will be argued that the distinction between
'ideological' and 'philosophical' theories is a largely spurious one and that a unifying notion of
political metaphysics could replace both. Finally, it will be argued that since normative thought is
inescapable in modern politics, then so too is political metaphysics.
Throughout the history of western political thought, metaphysics has had a recognised role in
providing foundations upon which a great many normative or ideological theories rest. What will be
argued here, however, is that metaphysics is not merely a foundational element in many normative
theories but an essential and pervasive element of all such theories: indeed, to such an extent that
normative theory as such can be properly understood as a form of metaphysics. It will be further
argued that, since politics necessarily involves a normative or ideological dimension, political
metaphysics must be a necessary part of political life.

Religion, nature and human nature

What then is metaphysics? This is a complex and controversial issue within philosophy.(n1) But for
present purposes it is sufficient to take a straightforward and literal view, which is that metaphysics
is simply that which is beyond physics. In other words, factual claims about the nature of reality
that cannot in principle be investigated or tested by physical science. Remote from our experience
as this may sound, metaphysics does in fact touch us closely. Metaphysical assumptions frame our
everyday thinking, while the way we live our lives is coloured by a variety of metaphysical beliefs
from the existence of god to the nature of the self. The archetypal form of metaphysical belief is
religion. Here life is encompassed by some notion of the divine, usually divine beings, gods or god,
often benign, although not necessarily so. Such beliefs have, of course, profoundly shaped the
normative political tradition.
But although a concept of the divine differentiates the religious from other kinds of thought, it does
not wholly define religion. Religion is more than just a theory about what exists, of different levels
of existence. It is a way of life, a life lived in relation to the spiritual. The conferring of spiritual and
therefore metaphysical status upon the world, or aspects of it, is at the same time a conferring of
ethical significance. Religions moralise reality. They infuse the world with values, but insist upon
their objectivity, independent of human consciousness. Good and evil are seen as forces in the
world with presence and power.
Science can no more investigate the objective existence of values than it can entities like gods or
souls, so that while religion's status as metaphysical belief is primarily a matter of the positing of
spiritual entities, it is also metaphysical by virtue of its objectification of values; making them part
of external reality. Most philosophers would now insist that values cannot be independent of us in
this way, that they are what we bring to reality. Values are entirely separate from facts, are what we
bring to facts. There is no argument that unambiguously shows one can be derived from the other.
Most instances of the attempt are demonstrably false, as Hume asserted a long time ago. However,
religions not only violate this principle, it is their nature to do so. Religious understanding as such

confers ethical significance on objective reality by theoretically fusing together the realms of fact
and value. These realms of fact and value can be united and joined, and one made to entail the other,
at a metaphysical level where the fusion can be sustained by faith. Thus, in Judaism, Christianity
and Islam, God just does not happen to be good, God literally is goodness; God and goodness are
defined in terms of each other. For the believer, 'God is good' is not a simple evaluative statement,
but is a factual statement that describes God's essence. It is a statement of necessary truth against
which other statements about God and the world may be tested.
The process of fusing fact and value is a very simple one. It boils down to no more than a question
of definition. The world of fact is defined in terms of the world of value: at its simplest God, or
some equivalent, is defined as good, the Devil is defined as evil. This fusion of fact and value is
perhaps most explicit in the semi-religious vision of Plato, where ultimate reality is constituted by
the world of the Forms. These are arranged in a great hierarchy that culminates in the Form of the
Good, which, we are told, causes, infuses and animates all the rest. And just as all empirically
observable dogs, as part of their substance, partake in the Form of the Dog, so all good things
partake of the Form of the Good. In The Republic this is not argued for, but merely asserted by the
character of Socrates.(n2) Nevertheless, merely by this process of describing reality in a certain
way, values are embodied in the world and made part of the constitution of reality.
Because no scientific procedure can establish what is ethically good or bad we very properly
exclude values from science. Any theory that makes the morally good and bad, right and wrong,
superior and inferior, part of its conception of objective reality in a systematic way is necessarily a
metaphysics. What is being suggested here is that this necessarily embraces the whole of normative
political theory.
In considering in more detail the relationship between religion and political thought, it is
particularly appropriate to look at the work of John Locke, since he stands at the head of a number
of intellectual traditions that are of particular significance for the wider question we are examining.
He is the most important founding figure of the liberal tradition, and of natural and human rights
theory. Furthermore, he is the founder of the tradition of modern philosophical empiricism, which
asserts the authority of the evidence of the senses in all epistemological matters, elevating science
as the archetypal form of knowledge. It is a view that is the very antithesis of, and a chief source of
criticism of, all metaphysical thought.(n3)
Despite Locke's stature in respect of these different traditions, they do in fact conflict. It is notorious
that there is a chasm in his thinking between his epistemology on the one hand, and his ethical and
political thought on the other. Locke insists that all knowledge must come from the senses and he is
particularly scornful of any notion of innate ideas. Yet in his Two Treatises of Government he
informs us that the Natural Law is (using Cicero's words) 'plain ... writ in the Hearts of all
Mankind'.(n4) We cannot empirically demonstrate that anyone has God-given rights of any kind. It
is a purely metaphysical notion about the ultimate nature of human nature. Humanity is constituted
in such and such a way and no science, physical or otherwise, can demonstrate or deny this. We thus
have a metaphysical notion of humanity set in a metaphysical notion of Nature. The natural world is
God's creation for mankind, which is a traditional enough Christian view, but the new dimension
Locke introduces is the notion of property, which is central to his political ideas. He makes the right
to property a God-given part of human nature, such that governments who respect that right are
deemed good, and those that do not are deemed tyrannous and lose their right to rule. What is good
and bad and right and wrong, both personally and politically, are thus derived from the very nature
of reality.
Locke's notion of Natural Law is a religious one. The central question here is whether this transition
from fact to value, from description to prescription, remains possible for non-religious conceptions
of politics, within normative theories that are not obviously metaphysical at all. Put another way, is
the process of making values objective, part of the natural order of things, equally characteristic of
normative political theories that have no religious affiliation, and if so how is that possible?

The critical concept is human nature. We have seen how Locke developed a version of Natural Law
where the individual is endowed with natural rights, from which political prescriptions can be
deduced. This is a moralised conception of human nature, and equivalent conceptions can be found
in all normative theories, whether they have religious connections or not. Human beings are seen as
essentially free or equal, or determined by race or nation or sex, or their relation to nature, or some
other ethically significant relation. These values being central to human nature, it is only possible
for human beings to flourish if they live in a society where there is freedom, or equality, or where
the nation is free or the master race dominant, or where there is a true balance with nature, or
otherwise embodies whatever values are central to a given ideology. This moral outlook, that
intimately links values with human nature and the good society, pervades the whole of any
normative theory. Such moralised conceptions of human nature are necessarily metaphysical. No
science could determine that people need freedom in order to flourish or that humanity can only
fulfil its destiny if all are equal or if a certain racial ordering is observed; nor can it establish what
kind of society embodies the good for mankind.
However, the metaphysics does not end at this foundational level, but extends through the whole of
any ideological/normative theory. To illustrate this it is useful to look at Marx, whose theory is at
the opposite pole from Locke's religious one.
Marx was a militant atheist and materialist, and claimed his theory to be thoroughly scientific. He
was adamant that the end of capitalism and the coming of communism was not a moral ideal to be
striven for but an historical necessity, that could be demonstrated by scientific reasoning with no
moral content.(n5) Nonetheless, Marx does have a moralised and therefore metaphysical conception
of human nature that pervades his whole theory.
Marx's materialism and dialectic are both metaphysical ideas, but that does not concern us here.
More importantly, he had a conception of humanity as essentially creative; who through its labour
creates its own world, yet which throughout recorded history has been denied the true
acknowledgement and enjoyment of that world through class division and associated exploitation.
The result is that mankind is alienated. That is, mankind is possessed of a divided and estranged
psyche, such that individuals are alienated from the world, from others and from themselves.(n6)
This is plainly an evil, for to be alienated is to be degraded and dehumanised, and denied full
development as a human being.
Furthermore, this is clearly no psychological theory that could be subject to observation and test.
There are no measurable symptoms, not even unhappiness. A Victorian factory worker could be as
happy as a lark, but for a Marxist he is alienated none-the-less. This worker, employed by a
capitalist, is ipso facto degraded, exploited and dehumanised. Human beings are only free and
fulfilled when master of their own labour, and fulfilling their true nature. This 'true nature' is a
moral concept and mankind is thus defined in such a way that good and bad are built into it. It is,
therefore, a metaphysical conception of humanity, no less than the conception that each individual
has God-given natural rights. It is a conception that claims to refer to a deeper reality, one that lies
behind those mere appearances to which empirical investigation is confined.
Marx thus posits an essential human psyche, which is just as mysterious and empirically
inaccessible as the Christian soul, yet which is also the mainspring of life. Just as in Augustinian
theology the soul is tainted and distorted by sin, so the Marxian psyche is tainted and distorted by
exploitation. And just as there is a pre-ordained fall and redemption, so in Marx there is an
historical drama, to be played out in which the psyche is systematically disassembled and
fragmented, only to be reassembled, reconstructed and restored to wholeness at a higher, and selfunderstanding level of existence, when the historical process has been completed. Goodness lies in
the telos, in humanity's restored and self-conscious wholeness; whatever prevents that outcome
(prevents progress) is an evil, even if a necessary evil. The standard is Nature, just as in Natural
Law, but it is an Aristotelian version of Nature, out of Hegel.(n7) Nature is good and goodness is
being true to one's nature: that is, that which it is in one's nature to become, a fully integrated human

being, living in creative harmony with fellow human beings in the world. Marx deals here in
processes and states of affairs behind empirical reality that cannot be discerned without the aid of
the theory, which is of necessity both metaphysical and ethical.
Thus, in common with other normative theories, Marxism has an ethical/ metaphysical foundation.
But what is being argued for here is the much stronger claim that normative political theory is
systematically and necessarily metaphysical; that indeed normative political theory is a species of
metaphysics. This is so in the sense that its metaphysical element pervades and determines the
whole nature of a normative theory, and that in consequence we can designate any such theory,
whether it be 'philosophical' or 'ideological', as a political metaphysics.

The language and structure of normative theory

All normative political theories have some kind of theoretical structure which purports to tell us
how the human world is, explains how it came to be in its present condition and what its potential is
for the future. In the course of constructing such a theory, as in the construction of scientific
theories, there is a necessary development of vocabulary. To create a coherent theory concepts have
to be defined, and they must be defined in terms of each other to ensure a consistent and
interconnected system of meaning. It is during this process that in a normative political theory the
ethical content is diffused throughout the structure. First of all, terms with an obvious moral content
are used, such as alienation, exploitation and tyranny, as well as particular versions of justice,
freedom, progress and others. These are then used to define other terms that in ordinary usage do
not have a moral content, but are given one by this process.
In Marxism, for example, terms such as 'capitalism', 'state', 'class' and 'ideology' are defined in such
a way as to have a moral content conferred upon them, and which relates to the moralised
conception of human nature already discussed. Consequently, when a Marxist uses the term
'capitalism' it necessarily embodies the moral notions of exploitation and dehumanisation, which it
does not have in normal uses of the term. All the central concepts of a theory carry a similar moral
charge, either oven or concealed. In this way any number of descriptions and explanations are
possible that appear to be objectively factual and explanatory but which are compromised by their
moral content. And since they picture a reality with values built into it, it must be a metaphysical
picture.
On a Marxian view, the workings of capitalism are based upon the notion of surplus value, where
workers are deprived of most of the wealth they create through their labour by owners who
(according to the theory) contribute nothing to the productive process and are merely parasitic upon
it. Workers, therefore, are necessarily exploited, and so Marx's labour theory of value has a moral
charge that, for example, Ricardo's does not have.(n8) Consequently, for Marxists the capitalist
system is inherently bad, exploitative and dehumanising by definition. The theory defines it as an
instrument of class oppression that deprives those it oppresses of the chance of development as full
human beings. It does not just happen to do this; it is an essential part of the theory that it must do
it. Thus, here too we find the process of embodying values in reality, weaving them into the fabric
of what exists, which we have suggested is the mark of a metaphysical dimension.
It is not just that capitalism is evaluated in a certain way, the theory is about how the world works.
Capitalism is an evil system that has certain inevitable and necessary consequences for society and
individuals: it of necessity generates alienation, which is a degrading and dehumanising condition.
These consequences may be impossible to discern by empirical means. We may have a capitalism
that seems to produce happy, contented and flourishing workers; but Marxism insists that there is a
deeper hidden reality, beyond the reach of empirical science, where the real truth, the necessary and
inevitable truth, is the opposite of what appears.
The Marxist conceptions of the state and ideology are further examples of this process of conferring
ethical status upon otherwise non-ethical concepts. Within Marxist theory the state is defined as an

instrument of class oppression.(n9) The Marxist has, therefore, a moralised concept of the state, and
one that has been endowed with attributes and effects that no empirical test could show or measure.
Similarly, ideology is a part of the system, with its mechanisms of oppression, that is alienating and
dehumanising in ways that are necessarily so, whatever the empirical evidence.(n10) They both
have their part to play, like capitalism, in generating alienation, that we have noted earlier is a
metaphysical condition, and because of this achieve metaphysical status themselves. Thus, through
the process of defining non-moral entities--like capitalism, ideology, the state and others--in moral
terms, the particular moral vision that an ideology has is carded in all its characteristic concepts, and
by this process infused into all the elements of an ideology's structure. All the descriptive and
explanatory statements carry the moral-metaphysical charge, creating a picture of the world that
cannot be investigated but only sustained by belief. The whole structure is a metaphysical one, since
all its elements have values built into their nature and all are involved in processes beyond the
means of science to verify or measure or test.
Much the same is true of any normative political theory. In any such theory its conception of human
nature is both the key structural element and the central bearer of values.(n11) Each normative
theory, or version of an ideology within an ideological tradition, has its own moralised conception
of humanity, which is conceived of as being by nature competitive or co-operative, determined by
race or class or nationality, or in need of order and hierarchy, or enlightenment or freedom or
equality or democracy, or whatever it might be. These values, thus embodied in human nature,
become in turn the basis of the ideal society or way of life in which mankind, given its essential
nature, will flourish. This picture of essential humanity and its ideal circumstances then becomes
the basis for evaluating the present world, which usually falls short of the ideal. It helps to explain
how the present world came about and underlies the prescriptions for turning the present into the
ideal.(n12)
At the same time any normative theory generates a vocabulary of words and phrases which carry
the values of the theory, and this too centres on the basic conception of human nature. In the various
shades of Green theory, for example,(n13) there is a common general conception of being 'in
harmony with nature' behind which there is a whole array of metaphysical theories of humanity
about what is our proper relationship with the natural world and how we can be at odds with nature.
This in turn implies a theory of history about how a natural harmony has been lost and can be
restored, which is in turn the basis of an ethics where whatever is 'in harmony with nature' is good
and what is 'out of harmony with nature', is necessarily bad.
In most cases it is necessary merely to point to a notion of human nature in a political theory,
whether implicit or explicit, for its ethical-metaphysical content to be apparent. This is true even of
theories that appear to abjure metaphysics and the whole apparatus of theories of human nature and
history, if they are nonetheless normative. An obvious recent example is postmodern theory, which
purports to condemn metaphysical theories about human nature and the course of history
(metanarratives) as 'totalising' and oppressive. But leading theorists still have a 'world view', with a
conception of human nature and of history clearly implicit. They still picture human beings as in
need of freedom equality and democracy in order to flourish, even if this does require different
versions of these than prevailing normative theory allows.(n14) Indeed, postmodern theory has
many of the characteristics of a classic normative political theory.
There are, however, other theories that are more difficult to analyse in these terms. Undoubtedly the
most difficult of all in this respect is recent theorising by liberal philosophers. The most challenging
of these, as well as the most distinguished, is John Rawls. In the first place, insofar as there is a
distinction to be drawn between 'ideological' and 'philosophical' normative political theory,(n15)
Rawls would be the most obvious exemplification of the pure philosopher. He strives to avoid much
of the kind of reasoning that has so far been characterised as ideological, and aspires to a moral and
political neutrality, or at least open-mindedness, that ideology is not supposed to possess.
Furthermore, he has also, especially in recent writings, set his face most determinedly against the
metaphysical. If any body of theory represents an obstacle to the present thesis that all normative

thought is metaphysical, then it is that of John Rawls.(n16) We need, therefore, to look at his ideas
in some detail.

Recent liberal theory

Recent philosophising in the liberal tradition presents a peculiarly difficult case for the theory being
offered here, and for reasons that are partly due to the development of twentieth century philosophy
in general, especially in the English-speaking world.
The rise of analytical philosophy in the early twentieth century was in sharp reaction to the
extravagantly metaphysical neo-Hegelianism that was in vogue in Britain and America at the time,
and a triumphant reassertion of the older empiricist tradition in British thought. Philosophers like
Russell and Moore poured scorn upon the fashionable metaphysics as empty wind, while the
Logical Positivists dismissed all metaphysics as strictly nonsense. The next dominant view,
Wittgenstein's ordinary language philosophy, also saw the whole metaphysical enterprise as
essentially wrong-headed, as arising from mere confusions of language to be dissolved away by
patient analysis.
Substantive moral philosophy was similarly under a cloud, when, especially under the attacks of
Logical Positivists, moral language was deemed to have no meaning beyond the expression of
personal feelings, with no possibility of moral statements being objectively true. Certainly there was
no question of there being any settlement by logical means of profound differences over morals. But
while this extreme view is no longer common, the view that it is not possible for philosophy to
prove one set of moral values superior to another is still widely held.
These developments helped to generate a widespread belief in the 1950s that normative political
philosophy was indeed dead. Time proved it to be merely dormant and it subsequently revived, but
did so with an added selfconsciousness. Metaphysical claims are avoided, theories of human nature
and the human good tend to be minimalist or 'thin', especially among those in the liberal
mainstream.
That mainstream runs in several channels, but is most obviously represented by John Rawls and
Robert Nozick, the leading exponents of the liberal philosophical tradition in the late twentieth
century. Neither discusses their conceptions of human nature, and their metaphysics is implicit
rather than explicit. In the case of Rawls's later writings any metaphysical content is firmly denied;
but it is there nonetheless.
In A Theory of Justice,(n17) Rawls makes no mention of essential human nature or ideal societies or
of metaphysical foundations for any substantive ethics. Instead he presents his conclusions as the
outcome of the non-moral, self-interested choices of ordinary rational people. An imaginary group
of them are asked to design a society in which their interests will be protected, but the task is set up
in a such a way as to prevent them knowing what their interests are going to be. In consequence
they sensibly choose a society where the best interests of everyone will be served to the maximum
degree, so whatever may be their situation in the new society they will benefit, even if they end up
at the bottom of the social heap. Based as it is, or appears to be, on non-moral, self-interested
considerations, it certainly seems to have little to do with the model of normative theorising
suggested earlier, with its metaphysical view of human nature and an ideal society deduced from it.
But this is misleading. Rawls's procedure disguises how traditional his theory is, for behind the
seeming common sense and unobjectionable rationality there is a conception of essential human
nature at work and one from which an ideal society is drawn.
Rawls's ideal society is of course that which his people in the 'original position' (the 'contractees', as
Rawls-calls them) choose. It is a society that has the greatest degree of equality that is compatible
with greatest liberty. Liberty, however, comes first, since it is presumed that everyone's first priority
will be the freedom to pursue his or her own individual sense of the good. All else, it seems, is
secondary. It is not a morally neutral society that the contractees elect to join, but a form of liberal

society, one that embodies liberal values, and which, in traditional liberal manner, is portrayed as
the rational and therefore morally good society.(n18) But as many commentators have suggested,
(n19) this is an election that has been rigged. It is a thought experiment with a guaranteed outcome
(as were notions of the state of nature that it replaced). No doubt if Hobbes had used the device the
people in the original position would have been preoccupied, not with freedom, but with
guaranteeing personal security. A medieval theorist would perhaps have seen access to God's truth
as the overriding priority; while if Edmund Burke could have been persuaded to participate in so
abstract an exercise, his contractees would no doubt have stressed the need for an established social
hierarchy of property and independence.
In each case the people in the original position would be archetypal human beings, indeed
manifestations of the conception of human nature the particular theorist operates with. And so it is
with Rawls. Stripped as they are of all individuality, of time and of place, and of any psychological
or social particularity, they could hardly be otherwise. These contractees are not ordinary people
suffering from amnesia and obliged to play strange games, for they are not real people at all. They
are abstract theoretical constructs, pure unencumbered individuals, only interested in their own
projects. They are selfish, rational and free of all ties of country and community and family and
generation; ties that not only bind us to our fellows, but which, as communitarians and others would
maintain,(n20) make us individual human beings. In a way these contractees are manifestations of
the ideal that liberals have always argued for: liberated individuals, unburdened by tradition or
social pressure or any other kind of social or political authority or power, and so totally free to
choose.
The contractees are classic liberal individuals. They are, in Locke's phrase, 'by Nature, all free,
equal and independent',(n21) and are capable of choosing their own way of life and intent upon
securing the freedom to do so. Their overwhelming priority is to have the freedom to live the kind
of life they want. And as rational, morally autonomous individuals they have an absolute moral
right to personal freedom. Rawls does not speak openly of natural rights, but in a footnote in A
Theory of Justice, he obliquely acknowledges that: 'justice as fairness has the characteristic marks
of a natural rights theory'.(n22)
In having his contractees choose a morally good society while pursuing their own self-interest,
Rawls appears to derive moral conclusions from non-moral premises. But his elegant leap across the
is-ought gap is an illusion, albeit a subtle one. As in all such leaps, the trick lies in operating with a
conception of human nature that has moral values already built into it. Rawls does not own to an
explicit conception of human nature, but it is implicit in his characterisation of the contractees. It is
also clear from his discussion of Kant. He writes:
The original position may be viewed, then, as a procedural interpretation of Kant's conception of
autonomy and the categorical imperative. The principles regulative of the kingdom of ends are
those that would be chosen in this position, and the description of this situation enables us to
explain the sense in which acting from these principles expresses our nature as free and equal
rational persons.(n23)
That we are 'by Nature' all free, equal and rational, are 'troths' that Rawls clearly holds to be selfevident, but they are metaphysical truths. They represent a moralised conception of essential human
nature that can be believed but not tested.
From this conception it follows that unless we live in a society in which we can be free, equal and
rational, then our essential humanity is being denied, and we cannot fully develop as human beings.
Through choosing the good life for themselves individuals express their humanity and can achieve
their full moral stature. But in a coercive society, or one which denies the opportunity to choose,
that development is stunted. A good society that embodies freedom of choice equality and
rationality and one in which individuals can fulfil themselves according to their self-chosen destiny
is, in Aristotelian terms,(n24) a 'natural' society; and the one that denies individuals their choice is
an 'unnatural' one.(n25)

The picture of human beings only fulfilling their essential nature in a liberal society is a fairly
standard piece of liberal political metaphysics. Rawls could be said to be reworking Kant, who was
in turn reworking Rousseau's notion that unless we live according to laws we make ourselves, then
our humanity is denied and we are 'slaves'. There are many versions of it and Rawls develops one
more. However, as it stands (that is, before adding the social doctrine embodied in the 'difference
principle') we may call it Rawls's 'base-line metaphysical position'. Thus far Rawls is close to Kant.
However, Rawls's ideal society is not simply Kant's because since Kant's day we have experienced
the reality of exploitation in a modern industrial economy, where despite nominal freedom people
are not in reality free. Consequently in his most blatant (and arguably contradictory) piece of
election rigging, Rawls insists that his contractees, while deprived of any sense of who or what they
are or where they belong, be nonetheless given a sophisticated knowledge of economics and
psychology. As a result they do not opt for a laissez faire society (as Benthamite, or Nozickean,
contractees would have done), but one in which the free market is moderated by the difference
principle.
The result is not just a liberal society, embodying liberal values, but more specifically, the values of
revised social liberalism (or 'welfare liberalism') of the late nineteenth century. That is, a belief in
individual freedom, but with an awareness of the possibilities of exploitation and disabling
consequences of laissez faire. It is a belief in liberty modified by a belief in the necessity of
equality, or at least a degree of equality for all to have genuine opportunity to fulfil themselves.
Perhaps what distinguishes Rawls original position from a 'traditional' state of nature argument is
that his contractees are not outside time, but are moderns to the extent that Rawls allows them
certain sorts of knowledge about how modern societies work, and from which they might infer the
consequences of laissez faire. Rawls's ideal society is a social liberal utopia of a kind that might
have been thought up by some follower of Leonard Hobhouse or John Dewey.(n26)
We have then in Rawls a classic expression of liberal ideology that has a moralised and therefore
metaphysical view of human nature from which is ultimately deduced a form of social liberal
society in which humanity would flourish. As part of this overall picture is a morally charged
vocabulary with particular notions not only of freedom and justice and equality, but also processes,
entities and qualities, such as rationality, life plans, primary goods, human fights, and others, that all
play a role in the achievement of human flourishing.
Similar analyses are possible for Rawls's philosophical critics, who have different notions of human
nature, giving rise to differing notions of the ideal society. Robert Nozick, for example, has a view
of human nature and the ideal society that is more in line with the laissez faire liberal tradition. He
does not, however, resort to any device like the original position in order to establish his basic
moralised conception of human nature, but proceeds by straightforward assertion. In the opening
words of Anarchy, State and Utopia, human beings are simply declared to have absolute rights prior
to, and independent of, any society, and which no society can have any right to interfere with:
Individuals have rights, and there are things no person or group may do to them (without violating
their rights). So strong and so far reaching are these rights that they raise the question of what, if
anything, the state and its officials may do.(n27)
No attempt is made to justify this assertion, but upon it the whole structure of Nozick's normative
political theory rests.(n28)
Communitarian critics of both Rawls and Nozick in fact share many liberal values with them, but
they come with a very different view of human nature;(n29) one that is much more explicitly
metaphysical and has links with conservative and socialist, as well as liberal ideas. Communitarian
thinkers such as Charles Taylor and Alisdair MacIntyre have an essentially Hegelian notion of the
self that is only fulfilled through participation in the various dimensions of social life to which any
individual naturally belongs. Politics is a necessary area of self-realisation. The terms 'society' and
'the state' have very different moral connotations for the communitarian than they do for the

mainstream liberal.

Normative theory without metaphysics?

In A Theory of Justice, John Rawls is reticent and ambiguous about metaphysics, but in subsequent
writings he has become positively hostile. His 1985 paper entitled 'Justice as Fairness: Political not
Metaphysical'(n30) signalled his moving away from metaphysics altogether and the development of
a superthin theory. This is filled out in other articles and his book Political Liberalism.(n31) Rawls
himself, it must be said, denies that he has made a major departure, arguing that his ideas in A
Theory of Justice were never based on metaphysical foundations.(n32) But this is not the view of
most commentators, who see a decisive break and one that many see as unfortunate.(n33) Patrick
Neal points out that had people thought that he was not putting forward a traditional universalist
normative theory, Rawls would not have achieved the fame and celebrity that he has.(n34) It will be
assumed here that there is a clear break and that the analysis of the previous section stands.
What is Rawls's 'new' theory, and in what sense is it non-metaphysical? The old theory of justice as
fairness is still there and Rawls is still committed to it, but he recognises that it only one possible
version of what is now his central conception of 'political liberalism'.(n35) Political liberalism is
designed to be the basis of a modern democratic polity, not a universal model for all societies. In
addition, there are modifications and 'clarifications' designed to remove any prior dependence on
metaphysics, which he associates with ultimate beliefs and values, with universality and with
abstract conceptions of the self. In 'Justice as Fairness: Political not Metaphysical' he writes:
... no general moral conception can provide a publicly recognised basis for a conception of justice in
a modern democratic state ... such a conception must allow for a diversity of doctrines and the
plurality of conflicting, and indeed incommensurable, conceptions of the good affirmed by the
members of existing democratic societies ... the overarching, intuitive idea, to which other basic
intuitive ideas are systematically connected, is that of society as a fair system of cooperation
between free and equal persons. Justice as fairness starts from this idea as one of the basic intuitive
ideas which we take to be implicit in the public culture of a democratic society ... the conception of
citizens as free and equal persons, need not involve, so I believe, questions of philosophical
psychology or a metaphysical doctrine of the nature of the self.(n36)
Rawls believes that only in the absence of metaphysics can there be a necessary 'overlapping
consensus' on basic values, derived not from theory but from the liberal democratic tradition, that
can sustain a modern pluralist democracy. This must not be a mere modus vivendi among those who
only agree because they are not powerful enough to impose their views,(n37) since only a genuine
sharing of values can guarantee a unified and peaceful society.
Various objections might be made to the new Rawls. It could be argued, for example, that Rawls has
rendered his theory of justice entirely vacuous, by insisting that he is only interested in liberal
democratic societies where everyone is genuinely committed to liberal values, and where the
function of political theory is to help people to be more liberal. Furthermore, the reliance on
tradition for values and principles seems to render liberalism incapable of defending itself against
its enemies. Rawls cannot even defend his theory against other liberals. If traditional American
liberal values are the source of authority, then Nozick's free market approach would seem to be
more in keeping with that tradition than Rawls's `difference principle'. And there would hardly be
room for mutual tolerance and respect within an `overlapping consensus' if, as Kukathas and Pettit
suggest, from Nozick's point of view, Rawls's social liberalism is `inherently evil'.(n38) Finally, it
could be argued that Rawls gives up the pursuit of truth in favour of the pursuit of consensus, and
thus abandons serious political theory altogether.
A case can be made for all these charges, but however telling they may be they do not really affect
the main issue here. The view that all normative political theory is a kind of metaphysics would
seem to be demolished, and the argument that Rawls emasculates his own theory by excluding the

metaphysical does nothing to alter this. The crucial arguments here are, first of all, that Rawls's
liberalism is political because he has systematically excluded all metaphysical beliefs from it.
Secondly, in the main texts setting out his new position, Rawls insists on confining his arguments
and prescriptions to societies in the western liberal democratic tradition, and is not interested in
discussing other traditions. In these two ways Rawls avoids all universalist claims. It would seem to
follow from this that Rawls's view of persons as free and equal and rational, that is the foundation
of his theory of justice, is not a universalist claim about human beings as such. Justice as fairness,
and more generally the theory of political liberalism, are therefore devoid of metaphysical content.
However, these difficulties are only fatal if we take Rawls's dismissal of metaphysics at face value.
In the first place he identifies metaphysics with ultimate beliefs and values, but there is no necessity
to do this. There may be different levels of metaphysics. Liberals have long accepted that people of
many religions and none may share a metaphysical belief in a natural right to equality and freedom,
while differing in ultimate beliefs and values. Rawls's own conception of an `overlapping
consensus' is precisely a metaphysical consensus in that tradition.
Despite his denials, the conception of human beings embodied in the `overlapping consensus' is a
metaphysical one. It is a conception of human beings as by nature free and equal and rational and
possessed of fundamental rights, and as morally autonomous and capable of choosing how they live
(from which we can infer that what facilitates this choice is good and what hinders it is bad). A
`natural' and therefore morally good society is a liberal democracy in which all citizens are free and
equal; a society of co-operating individuals who recognise each other's fundamental rights, with
each having the opportunity to fulfil themselves. In other words, the overlapping consensus
embodies what we earlier labelled Rawls's `base-line metaphysical position'. All he is prepared to
put to the hazard of debate with others in a `reasonable pluralism' (effectively confined to other
liberals) is his social liberalism summed up in his `difference principle'.
It is his `base-line' conception of human nature with specific moral values built into it that Rawls
finds in the traditions of liberal democracies and American democracy in particular. But that it
derives from a particular tradition does not make it any the less metaphysical. Nevertheless its
metaphysical status would be lessened if it were merely one conception of humanness among other
equally valid ones. In much of Rawls's writings on political liberalism he insists that he is only
concerned with liberal democratic nations and his conception of the citizen is taken entirely from
the traditions of political practice and thought of such democracies. In `Justice as Fairness: Political
not Metaphysical', for example, he insists that he wishes to avoid claims to universal truth.(n39)
While in `Kantian Constructivism' he writes: `we are not trying to find a conception of justice that is
suitable for all societies regardless of their particular social or historical circumstances'.(n40) The
implication would seem to be here that other cultures would have their own, equally valid
conception of human nature embedded in their own traditions, towards which we need to show
tolerance. But this turns out not to be Rawls's view at all.
Rawls may have very little to say about other cultures, but his attitude is clear from his Amnesty
Lecture, `The Law of Peoples',(n41) in which he seeks to show how his own liberal theory of justice
can provide principles to underpin international law (p. 42). In addition, a `further aim is to set out
the bearing of political liberalism once a liberal political conception of justice is extended to the law
of peoples. In particular we ask: What form does the toleration of non-liberal societies take in this
case?' (ibid.) His answer is that non-liberal societies are to be tolerated provided they are `wellordered'. This means that these societies must be peaceful; must endorse and fully observe human
rights; have a representative system such that all sections of society can have their say; accept their
people's right to private property and to emigrate; and must observe religious toleration and allow
political dissent (pp. 43 & 62-3). As with domestic politics, Rawls's liberal toleration only extends
as far as those who are fully committed to liberal principles.
Societies that accept these principles but cannot implement them because of poor resources, must
be given help to bring them up to standard (p. 52-3), but societies who do not accept these

principles are `outlaw regimes' that are beyond the pale and not to be tolerated at all (p. 74). Rawls
believes that liberal societies are morally superior to non-liberal ones (p. 81), and while he does not
advocate forcing non-liberal ones into line (at least not the `well-ordered' ones), he nonetheless
hopes that liberal society will in due course embrace all humanity:
For the ideal conception of the society of peoples that well-ordered societies affirm directs that in
due course all societies must reach, or be assisted to, the condition that makes a well-ordered
society possible. (p. 76)
What is curious, not to say bewildering, about this lecture is Rawls's repeated insistence that what
he calls his `liberal law of peoples' (p. 75) is not specifically liberal or western and that it is
therefore `politically neutral' (pp. 68-9). The point of this strange assertion seems to be to maintain
the same manifest fiction of Political Liberalism, that his ideal society is independent of any
metaphysical view that would prevent everyone accepting it as the basis of society. He wants to
insist that it is not based on any `moral or metaphysical theory' (pp. 68-9). But again this is
manifestly not the case. There lies behind his notion of the law of peoples, just as behind his
political liberalism and his A Theory of Justice, a conception of a society of autonomous individuals
who are, in Locke's words, `by Nature free, equal and independent' and thereby have the fight to
choose how they shall live according to their own rational life-plans. Furthermore, it is clear that for
Rawls the notion of the free, equal and rational citizen, able to pursue his or her own life plans and
believe what they like, is a universal moral absolute. Regimes that deny this to their people are
irrational and morally wrong. That they may have their own very different traditions with their own
conception of human nature is entirely ignored. We must, therefore, conclude that Rawls has a
universal conception of the good society derived from a particular moralised conception of human
nature, and as such is as much a political metaphysics as can be found in any other ideological
theory.

Political metaphysics and a coherent world

The centrality of metaphysical conceptions of human nature, and the value-content of its
descriptions and explanations of the world, makes any comprehensive normative political theory a
metaphysical one. This is true of those theories thought to be `philosophical' as much as those
deemed `ideological'. The distinction is largely a spurious one. No doubt some thinkers are more
rigorous than others, but there is no basic difference of structure or logic. This is not to say that
`philosophical' and `ideological' should be interchangeable terms in this context. Ultimately,
philosophy cannot demonstrate that one set of values is superior to another, and this undermines any
claim to the superiority of the philosophical over the ideological in this respect.(n42) It is `ideology'
and `normative political theory' that are synonymous; a separate category of `philosophical
normative political theory' is strictly speaking unnecessary and misleading. However, one problem
with subsuming `philosophical' normative theory under the category of `ideology' is that the term
`ideology' carries so much historical and pejorative baggage as to need replacement by some more
neutral term. `Political metaphysics' is one possibility. `Ideology', `normative political theory', and
`political metaphysics' will be used interchangeably hereafter.
Ideology is a form of ethical understanding. Individual ideologies offer their own moralised
accounts of the world that in principle, precisely because of their moral content, cannot be verified
or falsified. The concepts and language they use to describe and explain reality generate entities and
processes and states of affairs possessed of moral qualities that by that very fact cannot be said to
exist. Less exotic than souls or angels, they are nonetheless metaphysical. Obvious examples
include the Aryan race, alienated man, natural rights, being in harmony with nature, patriarchy, selfrealisation, and so on. Rival beliefs with rival values generate rival accounts of the world that are
(again because of their moral content, however subtly woven into seemingly objective descriptions
and explanations) necessarily incommensurable; their rival claims to truth cannot be settled by any
appeal to fact or logic. Consequently, ideological descriptions only describe, explanations only

explain, and imperatives are only binding for those who are prepared to have faith. They have no
hold on anybody else.
Today we seem to have little difficulty in accepting that philosophy cannot decide which religion is
true or false, or whether Islamic values are superior to Christian. This is no doubt because religion
is less important to us than it once was. We find it more difficult to accept that philosophy cannot
prove one ideology, or set of ideological values, true and another false, because our political beliefs
touch us closely, possibly because they are bound up with our sense of identity.
Ideology comes within the broader category of ethical metaphysical thought, which embraces other
kinds of theory, such as religion and myth, that have origins far older than anything recognisable as
self-conscious political theory. Thus, whatever the problems it may have as a form of thought, the
impulse to create theories of this kind is a persistent one, which suggests that it does answer to some
enduring human need. As F. H. Bradley, the great Victorian metaphysician, observed:
Metaphysics is the finding of bad reasons for what we believe upon instinct, but to find these
reasons is no less an instinct.(n43)
Whatever the truth of this remark in respect of metaphysics in general, it certainly seems so in
respect of the ethical kind we have been discussing. Here, in addition to the simple impulse to
know, is the impulse to make moral sense of the world and thereby to establish certainty and
direction in our practical lives. It is a response to the need to believe that our values and ideals have
solid foundations, that they are not something that we bring to reality but something that is a
discernible part of that reality, and that they provide an answer to the doubts and problems that beset
us.
What in effect we do is to project our values upon the universe in such a way that the universe
appears to reflect our values back to us as though they were part of its own substance. The obvious
model here is Natural Law, although it is true of any moralised conception of human nature. This
process of projecting our values on the world to produce a moralised world is necessarily a process
of positing a metaphysical reality with properties beyond the power of science to discern. In religion
we look to the supernatural and define our own natures in relation to it. And so, in its own way, does
normative political theory, which also looks to metaphysical realities: moralised versions of human
nature, physical nature, history, reason, the nation, the people, the race, the proletariat, or whichever
are the constructs of any particular political metaphysics.

Political metaphysics and practical politics

What, then, is the relationship between political metaphysics, as here analysed, and political
practice? Political metaphysics, or ideology, is about how we should best live together to solve our
social ills; about pointing the path to our collective salvation, and creating the optimal conditions
for human flourishing; in plain terms, an ideal society. Such an ideal can be posited by assuming
that reality in general is so constructed, and in particular that humanity is so constructed, that only
one form of political order is capable of achieving these things (even when the ideal is a
fragmented, kaleidoscopic variety or a multicultural society), and therefore is peculiarly appropriate
to the human condition, while other forms are not. All the ills of the social world can therefore be
seen as arising from the fact that there is a mismatch between the politics we have and the way
reality is constructed. We can cure our ills by adjusting the one to the other, society to human
nature. And the beginnings of wisdom lie in a true understanding of this necessity, which it is the
purpose of the theory to disclose.
An ethical-metaphysical political theory is, therefore, a call to action to create (or preserve) the
ideal society or way of life, and as such it offers a complete guide to deliberation. It provides the
`facts' of our present situation, tells us what to aim for and how it can be achieved; it locates us in
the world, reveals to us our political identity, and gives direction and purpose to our lives. The
world as presented in a political metaphysics is a world where values are embodied in its very

fabric; and where, as a consequence, facts and values form a continuum. The assumption always is
that if only people would understand their human situation truly, then what they ought to do and
how they ought to live would also become clear to them.
However, rival ideologies are incommensurable and the consequence of this is the clash of
ideologies that is such a striking feature of modern politics. The obvious question then arises as to
whether we need theories of this kind, at least in political life. They clearly have attractions and
uses, but they also have their considerable drawbacks. That being so, how essential are they to
practical politics?
It might be argued that much of practical politics seems to be independent of political doctrines.
There are wars and natural disasters and other tribulations of the body politic, which have little to
do with ideal societies, and where what is to be achieved is the same for politicians of whatever
persuasion. There is, in other words, much with which pragmatic politicians may occupy
themselves without pursuing dreams and fancies conjured up by ideologists. There is some truth in
this. In dealing with a war or natural disaster, the objectives are clear and common to all: it is to win
the victory or limit the death and destruction. On the other hand, in normal, non-crisis politics it is
merely naive to think that all decent honourable politicians will do the same things irrespective of
ideology.
More importantly, government is more than just some kind of 999 emergency service, and what is
best is somewhat more than `what e'er is best administered'. Politicians desire to do what is best, but
determining what is best (even at the lowest level of ordering of priorities) involves values, and it is
only an impoverished notion of politics that is purely pragmatic, in which values are not embraced.
In the present word we cannot simply take political values for granted, since, for good or ill, there is
conflict and competition in this area. Values need to be made clear and to be justified. And this is
the primary role of ideology.
In deliberating, there are two considerations to be taken into account in respect of any policy: will it
work? and is it fight? Ideologies usually offer, at least in broad terms, answers to both of these
questions. For example: let loose the free market and all our problems will be solved and it is
morally right; or alternatively, eliminate capitalism and we will solve all our problems and it is
morally right. But it is undoubtedly the ethical dimension that is the more important. We need
values to live by, and we need ethical-metaphysical beliefs of some kind to provide them and give
them substance. At least, we do in present society, which can no longer survive by relying on doing
things the way they have always been done. We need religious or ideological theories to give them
their necessary certainty by showing how they are part of reality and independent of our will.
A world without ideologies would, in effect, be a world without values; at least without values that
impinge upon politics.(n44) And this means a governing of society where questions of justice and
right do not arise. Such a politics might be logically possible, but not practically so. We need
ideology because we need values, and even though ideological thought is a faulty mode of thinking
and demonstrably so, there is no viable alternative. We must act in a universe that makes moral
sense to us, where some things are right and some wrong. This is not a universe that can change
every day, or one where everyone can have a different morality. There must be some fixity, some
principle and some commonality. We need to act upon the basis of a conception of the world that
has moral force, and it is precisely this that political metaphysics supplies. To that extent, political
metaphysics is not something we can do without, and therefore is indeed an inevitability.

Notes and references

(n1.) For a recent discussion, see Stephen Lawrence and Cynthia Macdonald, Contemporary
Readings in the Foundations of Metaphysics (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998).
(n2.) See Plato, The Republic [translated by Richard W. Stirling & William C. Scott] (New York: W.
W. Norton & Co., 1985), Book VI, where Socrates resorts to an analogy with the sun to explain the

relation of the Form of the Good to the other Forms.

(n3.) See in particular John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (London:
Fontana, 1964).
(n4.) John Locke, Two Treatises of Government [Ed. Peter Laslett] (New York: Mentor Books,
1965), p. 315.
(n5.) For example, Marx and Engels insist that `The communists do not preach morality at all ...',
in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The German Ideology [Ed. C. J. Arthur] (London: Lawrence
and Wishart, 1970), p. 104. For a discussion of the issues, see Philip J. Kain, Marxism and Ethics
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988).
(n6.) This account of human nature is based on the account contained in the `Economic and
Philosophical Manuscripts' of 1844, which of course were not published in Marx's lifetime.
Whether this view remains behind Marx's subsequent writings is a matter of considerable debate,
but it is assumed here that it, or something very like it, does. The `Manuscripts' are contained in
Karl Marx, Early Writings (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1975).
(n7.) Aristotle's principle that that which is necessary to the fulfilment of man's natural telos, must
itself be natural and good (and which lies behind his famous assertion in The Politics that man is a
political animal) is a useful one in relation to ideology in general. The good society is always
`natural' in this Aristotelian sense that it is the one that best fits human nature and is therefore the
most conducive to human flourishing. Any society that is inimical to that flourishing must then be
`unnatural'. However, in the case of Marx there is the complication of a conception of history,
derived from Hegel, as a series of necessary stages towards the fulfilment of the telos, so that even
dehumanising societies are necessary, and in a certain sense are part of what is `natural' in the
longer view.
(n8.) See, for example, Tom Bottomore (Ed.), A Dictionary of Marxist Thought (Oxford: Blackwell,
1983), p. 472, where the definition of surplus value begins: `The extraction of surplus value is the
specific way EXPLOITATION takes place under capitalism, the differentia specifica of the capitalist
mode of production...'.
(n9.) See, for example, Marx and Engels, op cit., Ref. 5, p. 80: `... the state ... is nothing more than
the form of organisation which the bourgeoisie necessarily adopt both for internal and external
purposes, for the mutual guarantee of their property and interests'. Marx nowhere formally
analyses the state, but this and other passages point to the state's role in maintaining the ruling
class and thus the oppression of other classes.
(n10.) As with the state, Marx produced no formal analysis of ideology and in fact operated with
different conceptions of ideology at different times. But its role in justifying the position of the
ruling class is central. For a fuller discussion see Bhikhu Parekh, Marx's Theory of Ideology
(London: Croom Helm, 1982).
(n11.) Cf. Raymond Plant, Modern Political Thought (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991), ch. 2, where Plant
argues that in the evolution of modern normative political theory there is a shift from moral and
metaphysical conceptions of human nature towards factual and scientific ones (p. 65). He offers the
ideas of Eric Fromm and Herbert Marcuse as examples of the latter type. What is argued here is
that such conceptions, whatever their factual or scientific appearance, are always metaphysical and
moral. Both Fromm and Marcuse, for example, invest terms like `sanity' and `madness' with moral
and therefore metaphysical significance, as Plant's own analysis makes clear (p. 67).
(n12.) This structure of ideology and the theory of ideological language that goes with it are more
fully set out in Ian Adams, The Logic of Political Belief (Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf,
1989).
(n13.) See Andrew Dobson, Green Political Thought (2nd edn., London: Routledge, 1995).

(n14.) See for example Zygmunt Bauman's discussion of the `postmodern world-view' in Intimations
of Postmodernity (London: Routledge, 1992), ch. 2.
(n15.) The relationship between philosophy and ideology is a complex and contested one. See the
brief but inconclusive discussion in Andrew Vincent, Political Theory: Tradition and Diversity
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 17-20. Until quite recently it was usual to
distinguish between normative political theory of a philosophical kind, thought to be disinterested
and objective, and ideology as partisan and propagandist. For an example of this view see David
Miller and Larry Siedentop (Eds.), The Nature of Political Theory (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1983), Introduction. However, there has been a growing usage of the term `ideology' in a
more neutral sense to mean simply political belief, and as a result the distinction seems less
important. Quentin Skinner, for example, simply ignores it. It will be argued later in this paper that
there is indeed no such distinction, but that `ideology' should be the appropriate term to cover all
normative political theory.
(n16.) The other significant figure who seeks to dispense with metaphysics in his political theory is
Richard Rorty. There is not space here to consider both, and Rawls is the more substantial. In texts
such as Contingency, Irony and Solidarity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989) and
`The priority of democracy to philosophy', in Alan Malachowski (Ed.), Reading Rorty (Oxford:
Blackwell, 1990), Rorty claims that liberalism simply does not need metaphysical foundations to
sustain it. But then he is making general points about how to think about politics rather than
putting forward a concrete theory of how political life should be conducted in the way that Rawls
is. He seems to be saying that we simply `know' that liberalism is right and anyone who profoundly
disagrees is not worth arguing with. This suggests a kind of intuitionism that, along with the
pragmatism to which his rejection of metaphysics is related, is open to serious objections.
(n17.) John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971).
(n18.) Rawls equates the rational with the good. See ibid., ch. VII.
(n19.) For example, Alan Brown, Modern Political Philosophy (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1986),
ch. 3.
(n20.) See, for example, Michael Sandel's criticism of Rawls on this point in his Liberalism and the
Limits of Justice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. 93-5.
(n21.) Locke, op. cit., Ref. 4, p. 374.
(n22.) Rawls, op. cit., Ref. 17, p. 506.
(n23.) Ibid., p. 256.
(n24.) See note 7 above.
(n25.) For a discussion of Rawls's ideal society in relation to his conception of essential human
nature, see Chandran Kukathas and Philip Pettit, Rawls: `A Theory of Justice' and its critics
(Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990), pp. 53-8.
(n26.) Cf. Robert Paul Wolff, Understanding Rawls (Princeton: Princeton University Press., 1977),
p. 195.
(n27.) Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia (Oxford: Blackwell, 1974), Preface, p. ix.
(n28.) Nozick is notoriously vague about the foundations of his natural rights and says that to
provide them would be a `task for another time': Nozick, ibid., p. 9.
(n29.) For an account of the relationship between communitarians and liberalism in general, and
with Rawls in particular, see Stephen Mulhall and Adam Swift, Liberals and Communitarians (2nd
edn., Oxford: Blackwell, 1996).
(n30.) John Rawls, `Justice as fairness: political not metaphysical', in Philosophy and Public

Affairs, 14 (1985), pp. 223-51.

(n31.) John Rawls, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993).
(n32.) See for example Rawls, op. cit., Ref. 30, p. 224.
(n33.) For example, `Rawls has taken an unfortunate turn', Kukathas and Pettit, op. cit., Ref. 25,
Preface and p. 148. Cf. Jean Hampton, `Should political philosophy be done without metaphysics?',
Ethics, 99 (1989), pp. 791-814, in which she refers to `Rawls's new, more community-minded,
deliberately non-universal and non-metaphysical justificatory method', p. 792.
(n34.) Patrick Neal, `Justice as fairness: political or metaphysical', Political Theory, 18 (February
1990), p. 24.
(n35.) Rawls, op. cit., Ref. 31, p. 226.
(n36.) Rawls, op. cit., Ref. 30, pp. 225 & 231.
(n37.) Ibid., p. 247.
(n38.) Kukathas and Pettit, op. cit., Ref. 25, p. 75.
(n39.) Rawls, op. cit., Ref. 30, p. 223.
(n40.) Quoted in Kukathas and Pettit, op. cit., Ref. 25, p. 123.
(n41.) John Rawls, `The law of peoples', in Stephen Chute and Susan Hurley, On Human Rights
(New York: Basic Books, 1993), pp. 41-82. Subsequent page references are to this edition.
(n42.) This view of the relationship between ideology and philosophy is that contained in Adams,
op. cit., Ref. 12. But the arguments of that book have been misunderstood. Michael Freeden's
Ideologies and Political Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 134, sees a regrettable
`philosopher's assertion of superiority' in its dismissal of ideology as `an inherently defective mode
of thought'. The conclusion of The Logic of Political Belief is indeed that ideology is defective but
that we have no alternative to it, certainly not philosophy. Philosophy simply cannot do what
ideology does. The mistake may have arisen because there is a discussion of Hobbes which
concludes that his theory is not an ideological one. But this is because is it is not normative in a
moral sense. That theory has defects of its own and was not meant to be a model of how political
theory ought to be conducted.
(n43.) F. H. Bradley, Appearance and Reality: A Metaphysical Essay (2nd edn., Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1897), Preface.
(n44.) For discussion of the possibilities of non-political ideologies, see Adams, op. cit., Ref. 12, ch.
6.
~~~~~~~~
By Ian Adams, Department of Politics, University of Durham, 48 Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3LZ, UK