Realism, Utopianism and Human Rights
| Date | 01 November 2020 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1478929919868596 |
| Author | Paul Raekstad |
| Published date | 01 November 2020 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1478929919868596
Political Studies Review
2020, Vol. 18(4) 542 –552
© The Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/1478929919868596
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Realism, Utopianism
and Human Rights
Paul Raekstad
Abstract
In a recent article, Benjamin McKean defends utopian political theorising by means of an internal
critique of realism, construed as essentially anti-utopian, in order to defend human rights against
realist objections thereto. I challenge that argument in three steps, focusing on the realism of
Raymond Geuss. First, I show that the realism of Raymond Geuss is not incompatible with
utopianism, that Geuss never opposes realism to utopianism and that he frequently argues that
political theory should be both more realistic and more utopian. Second, I show that McKean
misconstrues Geuss’ opposition to human rights as anti-utopian. Neither Geuss’ opposition to
ethics-first political theory nor his objections to human rights can accurately be explicated in
terms of McKean’s ‘utopianism’. Finally, I show how this misconstruing of Geuss’ realism renders
McKean’s critique of Geuss ineffective, as a result of which his defence of human rights against
Geuss’ realist objections fails. I conclude with some reflections on the importance of this for
methodological debates in political theory, the value of realistically utopian theorising and the
ideological power of contemporary ethics-first approaches to political theory.
Keywords
political theory, realism, utopianism, human rights
Accepted: 8 July 2019
Introduction
In a recent article (McKean, 2016), Benjamin McKean defends utopian political theo-
rising by means of an internal critique of realism, which is construed as essentially
anti-utopian in nature and orientation. The question of whether, and (if so) to what
extent, realism is compatible with utopianism is a subject of considerable recent debate
(Estlund, 2014, 2017; Finlayson, 2017; Galston, 2010; Geuss, 2010a, 2010b, 2014,
2016; Hall, 2017; Prinz, 2016; Raekstad, 2015, 2018; Rossi, 2015; Rossi and Sleat,
2014; Sigwart, 2013; Thaler, 2018; Thomas, 2017; Valentini, 2012), especially among
realism’s critics. For instance, Laura Valentini describes realism as essentially con-
cerned with the feasibility constraints of politics, in particular rejecting thinkers like
Rawls’ supposedly ‘implausibly optimistic assumptions about human nature’
Department of Political Science, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Corresponding author:
Paul Raekstad Department of Political Science, University of Amsterdam Postbus 15578, 1001 NB,
Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Email: paul.raekstad@cantab.net
868596PSW0010.1177/1478929919868596Political Studies ReviewRaekstad
research-article2019
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