Abstract

Raymond Geuss and Bernard Williams reject mainstream approaches to politics on the grounds that they conceive of political theory as applied moral philosophy. This paper provides a reconstruction of what this objection amounts to, and outlines the reasons these authors have for dismissing an assumption that is widely shared among contemporary political theorists, namely, that any theoretical approach to politics that deserves to be taken seriously has to be based on a purely normative or ideal theory of justice. The paper then outlines some strengths and weaknesses of the alternative?realist? approaches that Geuss and Williams put forward against?moralistic? ways of doing political philosophy. On the basis of this discussion, a case is made for working out an approach to political theory that is at the same time realist, contextualist, critical, activist and negativist.