Taking rulers' interests seriously: The case for realist theories of legitimacy

Realist theories as ruler-interested

Why should we think that rulers’ interests direct them towards addressing the First Political Question and the BLD? I think this can be explained by the following argument:

Rulers have an interest in preserving their rule.

The idea of ‘preserving one's rule’ in the first premise contains three distinct aspects: the preservation of the ruler's position within a political system; the preservation of sufficient power for effective exercise of the authority of the position; and the preservation of a political system in which the ruler is able to wield power. The latter two aspects are significant because they limit the extent to which institutional design can make concern for this interest redundant. For example, in a system where rulers have strict term limits, rulers may not be in a position to worry much about the first aspect, but may still need to take thought for the second and third.

The first premise does not stipulate that the preservation of rule is the only interest rulers have. Nor does it suppose that rulers want power for its own sake. Even a ruler who has no interest in being in power for its own sake, but only wishes to implement policies and actions which she might regard as just, fair, or otherwise desirable, must preserve her rule in order to accomplish these things. This is no more than a reiteration of one of Machiavelli's least controversial – but by no means unimportant – insights: the prince who wishes to ‘achieve great things’ must first be able to ‘maintain his state’ (Skinner 1978: 134–135). ⁴

There might be two types of rulers who are exceptions to the first premise. The first is the fanatical principalist who only wants to act in accordance with certain principles, regardless of whether doing so enables her to preserve her rule – or, for that matter, achieve any substantive political outcomes she might otherwise profess to want. The second is the ruler who thinks that the political institution she presides over is unlikely to survive much longer regardless of what she does, and may find it profitable to contribute to its demise. The downfall of the Soviet Union might be one such example – government officials decided they would rather loot what was left of the state rather than continue to prop it up (Friedman 2008: chapter 5). Both cases, I think, are fairly rare. The first case, in particular, is highly unusual, since fanatical principalists usually fail to gain power or lose it very quickly. Apart from these exceptional cases, I think it is fair to suppose that the first premise is correct.

The third premise is also in need of a little explanation. It seems clear how the First Political Question relates to the provision of stability – after all it is just this. But why should we think that the BLD is also related to the creation and maintenance of stable political rule? Here, I think we can draw on a basic insight of Max Weber (1958: 1): legitimacy – as he understood it – is a stabilising device. Weber does not suppose that rulers cannot stay in power by brute coercion alone. However, he does hold that relying on brute coercion to stay in power makes one's rule prone to instability. If rulers have an interest in achieving stable political order, they have an interest in gaining the support of citizens. To be sure, stability does not usually require the support of all citizens. But neither does the BLD: it only requires that rulers are supported by enough citizens – whoever and however many that happens to mean in the relevant context. Hence, making at least some effort to address the BLD is also necessary for political stability. ⁵

It might be asked if Williams’ theory is too idiosyncratic among realist theories of legitimacy in order for this to support the claim that realist theories in general are ruler-interested. We have seen that each of the two features of Williams’ theory – Hobbesian stability and Weberian voluntarism – are ruler-interested in their own right. Hence, any theory of legitimacy will be ruler-interested as long as it focuses on at least one of these two features. To the extent that realist theories tend to do this, they can be generally regarded as ruler-interested.

While some realist accounts of legitimacy fit neatly with this (e.g. Rossi 2013: 565), others may deviate from it, if only slightly. For example, John Horton (2012: 141) and Matt Sleat (2014: 325–326) depart slightly more from Weber by placing importance on the distinction between a justification that citizens accept and a justification that accords with citizens’ beliefs. One might argue that this makes their theories somewhat less clearly ruler-interested than Williams, since it allows for the possibility that rulers can be legitimate even if all or most people reject the justification given for their rule.

In reply, we can make two points. First, the focus on Williams as a representative of realist theories of legitimacy is hardly arbitrary, given the dominant influence of his theory (Rossi and Sleat 2014: 692). Second, to the extent that some alternative realist theories of legitimacy are less clearly ruler-interested than Williams, the argument I make in this article for the preferability of realist theories over moralist theories could be extended to the preferability of Williams’ theory over its realist rivals. Williams’ theory would then have an advantage over Horton and Sleat's theories for the same reason that it has an advantage over moralist theories.

Moralist theories as ruler-disinterested

Suppose we accept that the argument is sound and that realist theories of legitimacy are indeed ruler-interested theories. What about moralist theories? We might initially see if moralist theories can be ruler-interested by focusing on interests other than the preservation of rule. The difficulty here, though, is to find another interest that rulers have in common. Unless we can identify a way in which all rulers have an interest in satisfying the requirements of a moralist theory of legitimacy, the theory is not ruler-interested.

One possibility might be that rulers have an interest in satisfying the requirements of moralist theories just because they have an interest in acting morally. That is, there is something about acting morally that serves a non-instrumental interest, along the lines of the idea that a good deed is its own reward. For example, John Rawls (2005: 201–206) claims that maintaining a well-ordered political society based on a reasonable political conception of justice is itself a good, not because it is valuable for some other end (e.g. stability, prosperity), but because it is a ‘final end’ (2005: 202). He would presumably add that all members of such a society have an interest in pursuing this good, including rulers. We might then think that Rawls's theory of legitimacy – and perhaps other relevantly similar moralist theories as well – can qualify as ruler-interested. However, I think there are three serious problems with this view.

First, Rawls's claim is only that maintaining a well-ordered society is good for people living in a well-ordered society. It does not follow from this that people currently not living in well-ordered societies (i.e. everyone) has an interest in trying to enact the moral principles on which a well-ordered society would be based. At most, it might imply that a well-ordered society is in some sense desirable for everyone, including rulers. ‘Desirable’ here would mean nothing more than an affirmative answer to the question ‘wouldn’t it be nice if. . .?’ But this is quite compatible with everyone now and around here having an interest in not enacting any of the moral principles on which a well-ordered society might be based, even if these principles are justified in every way Rawls thinks they are. Even if rulers care deeply about Rawlsian principles, they must first reckon with the task of preserving their rule. Otherwise, they cannot enact any of the principles they care about. And if trying to enact these principles is detrimental to the preservation of their rule, they have an interest in not enacting them.

Second, the more general idea that people have an interest in doing X just because X is moral strikes me as highly suspicious of wishful thinking. This is not to say that people never have an interest in doing the right thing. It might even be possible to show that, at least according to certain accounts of morality and human goodness, acting morally is a necessary part of human flourishing. Augustine (1998: 232), for example, claimed that Christian emperors are said to be happy because they ruled justly. But I think we are guilty of wishful thinking if we simply assume that morality constitutes an interest. Geuss (2005: 231) argues that this assumption is characteristic of much traditional philosophy, and rejecting it requires us to acknowledge that there is ‘no guarantee that the items in the optimists’ package – rationality, individual happiness, natural human development, socially desirable action – are all compatible.’ If this is right, we are not entitled to assume, as Rawls (2005: 202) seems to, that ‘the end of political justice’ constitutes a shared interest.

Third, realists have often argued that moralist theories are ideologically suspicious because they rely on epistemically dubious moral intuitions (Cross 2021a; Geuss 2008; Raekstad 2021; Rossi and Argenton 2021). One of the ways in moral intuitions can be epistemically dubious is by allowing the interests of some to masquerade as common interests (Geuss 2008: 51). The point here is not that there can be no common interests, but that moral intuitions are not epistemically adequate evidence for supposing that common interests exist. If so, moralist theories of legitimacy do not provide epistemically plausible reasons for supposing that rulers and citizens alike share a common interest in pursuing justice.

For each of these three reasons, I don’t think we can plausibly hold that moralist theories of legitimacy are ruler-interested in virtue of rulers having an interest in acting morally. If it is nonetheless possible to show that they are ruler-interested, I think it is necessary to show that they connect with rulers’ interests in preserving their rule.

It may seem that certain voluntarist moralist theories – those which hold that legitimacy requires the consent of the governed – can do this (e.g. Waldron 1987). If rulers’ exercise of power is accepted by all those subjected to their rule, this may indeed be a great asset to the stability of the political order. However, I think it is clear that rulers do not have an interest in pursuing this goal, partly because attaining it seems impossible – chances are there is no way of exercising power that will be acceptable to literally everyone – but also because stable political order is clearly possible without it. The rejection of rulers’ power by a handful of people does not normally undermine political stability. Here the realist position seems to have a clear advantage, in spite of its relative imprecision: it requires that rulers’ power make sense only to enough citizens in order for the situation to be plausibly understood as going beyond brute coercion. Failure to achieve this goal may threaten political stability in ways that failing to achieve universal acceptance does not.

A non-voluntarist moralist theory, meanwhile, can connect with rulers’ interests only if its criteria for legitimacy happen to be widely endorsed by their citizens. Consider a Lockean theory of legitimacy, according to which political legitimacy requires the protection of certain basic natural rights. If most citizens care deeply about Lockean natural rights, then ensuring that rulers fulfil the requirements of Lockean legitimacy might be necessary to create stable political order. But if citizens have little or no concern for the protection of Lockean natural rights, then it is hard to see how rulers can have an interest in satisfying the requirements of Lockean legitimacy. The ability of non-voluntarist theories to connect with rulers’ interests is thus entirely contingent on the congruence of their criteria with the views of citizens.

What about a voluntarist moralist theory that does not require universal consent? The obvious candidate is Rawls's liberal principle of legitimacy, which requires that state power be exercised in accordance with a constitution the essentials of which all reasonable people can endorse (Rawls 2005: 137). Rawls's theory is voluntaristic in the sense that it requires the endorsement of a particular subset of citizens. ⁶ But what if this subset is a very small minority? Perhaps reasonable people are only a small fraction of the total number of people subject to state power. In that case, a Rawls-type theory of legitimacy may struggle to connect with rulers’ interests in much the same way as more straightforwardly non-voluntarist moralist theories. In a society in which reasonable people are in short supply, it isn’t clear that rulers have any kind of interest in bringing their rule into conformity with the requirements of reasonableness. In such a society, they might even have a very strong interest in not satisfying the liberal principle of legitimacy, given that trying to do so may well have a destabilising effect.

We have thus seen that voluntarist moralist theories that require universal acceptance fail to connect with rulers’ interests because universal acceptance is not normally possible or necessary for political stability. Additionally, non-voluntarist theories fail to do so as long as their principles are not widely endorsed by citizens, while partial voluntarist (e.g. Rawlsian) theories also fail to do so as long as their stated constituency is a relatively small minority. It may therefore seem that moralist theories are overwhelmingly ruler-disinterested theories.

There is, however, a possible objection that might be made on behalf of Rawls's theory of legitimacy. Although it is only capable of connecting to rulers’ interests in certain select societies where reasonable people are a clear majority, these are also the only societies in which it purports to apply. It has little or nothing to say about societies in which the normative principles underlying its criteria for legitimacy are not widely endorsed. The rulers of a society in which the majority of citizens are not reasonable might not be able to satisfy the liberal principle of legitimacy, but Rawlsians need not infer from this that their rule is illegitimate. In fact, it is not clear that they wish to say anything at all about such societies, apart from remarking that it would nice if more of their citizens could become reasonable, and then perhaps suggesting some ways for accomplishing this. Apart from this, Rawlsians may say that the liberal principle of legitimacy applies only to societies with an abundance of reasonable people. In such societies, Rawls's theory of legitimacy will be a ruler-interested theory.

What sort of society, though, actually does have an abundance of reasonable people? On one view, such a society is, for the time being at least, an ideal that has not come into existence. This is the view of Jonathan Quong, whose interpretation of political liberalism defines reasonable citizens as ‘those ideal citizens who would populate a well-ordered society’ and holds that ‘the legitimacy of political principles does not depend on whether current liberal citizens do accept them, or whether their principles are congruent with their current beliefs’ (Quong 2011: 144). For Quong, the purpose of political liberalism is not to assess the legitimacy of contemporary rulers, but to articulate features of an ideal liberal society. In contrast to ‘interpretive’ readings of Rawls which hold that he sought ‘to work out a political theory only for us’ (2011: 154, emphasis in original), Quong describes his project as ‘justificatory’, holding that his idealised constituency endorses ‘the fundamental political values that we should all endorse’ (2011: 159). Hence, on this view, the liberal principle of legitimacy is a ruler-disinterested theory in every actual existing society.

Perhaps, however, Quong's interpretation of Rawls is something of an easy target for realists, since it seems to play straight into the charges of excessive abstraction that realists have often levelled against Rawls. Those who have tried to provide Rawlsian responses to Williams have generally embraced the idea that Rawls's theory is indeed best understood as interpretive, sometimes explicitly so (Wolthius 2016: 3–6). That is, it is designed for a specific kind of society that actually exists: a constitutional democracy. If the liberal principle of legitimacy can connect with the interests of rulers of constitutional democracies, then perhaps it can be understood as a ruler-interested theory.

I think, however, it is unlikely that the liberal principle of legitimacy can do this. Even in constitutional democracies, reasonable people – in the Rawlsian sense – are not the majority. Nor is it clear that they are a sizeable constituency of any kind. As David Enoch (2015: 121–122) observes, ‘reasonableness’, for Rawls, is a technical term which the vast majority of people do not live up to, even if they are actually quite reasonable in a more ordinary and mundane sense. Given that the ‘technically reasonable’ are such a tiny group, catering to their views is hardly necessary or even helpful for the creation of stable political order. Furthermore, the fact that contemporary liberal democracies have headed in an increasingly anti-Rawlsian direction over the past two decades (Rossi 2019a: 307–309) suggests that the values and ideas associated with ‘technical reasonableness’ are only becoming less and less influential. Rawlsians may still hope that they can be found within the public political culture of constitutional democracies. But if they are there at all, they are buried deep, and too deep to have substantive influence over the kind of politics necessary to create stable political order now and around here. I therefore think that the interpretive reading of Rawls, whatever other virtues it may have, is hardly any more capable of connecting the liberal principle of legitimacy with the interests of rulers of constitutional democracies than with rulers of any other kind of regime.

On this basis, I think we can plausibly claim that realist theories of legitimacy are ruler-interested theories, whereas moralist theories are ruler-disinterested. However, I expect most moralists would grant that rulers may not always or even usually have an interest in satisfying the requirements of their theories of legitimacy, but that this counts against the rulers, rather than the theory. In the next section, I will try to show that this position is mistaken.

The practical purpose

Let us first consider how ruler-interested theories of legitimacy might fulfil the practical purpose. I think we can identify at least three distinct potential practical contributions they might make, each of which may already find some representation in existing realist literature. First, ruler-interested theories may exercise some degree of influence over the actions of rulers by convincing them that certain courses of action are in their best interests (Beetz and Rossi 2017; Ci 2019; Jubb 2015). If ruler-interested theories can do this while retaining a concept of legitimacy that is in the interests of citizens, then citizens have reason to regard this practical function as eminently desirable.

Admittedly ruler-interested theories may not always or even usually succeed in doing this. One reason for this is that they may not have the necessary audience. It may be hard for political theorists to influence the actions of rulers if rulers don’t read their work. Another reason is that rulers are often imperfectly instrumentally rational. Even if a ruler-interested theory can correctly show how attaining political legitimacy is in rulers’ best interests, it does not follow that rulers will recognise this to be the case. There might even be select circumstances where a ruler-disinterested theory manages to influence rulers to act in accordance with its dictates, while a ruler-interested theory might fail to do so. Still, I think we can plausibly suppose that a ruler-interested theory is more likely to exercise influence over rulers’ actions than any other type of theorising. In general, rulers who either wilfully neglect their interest in preserving their rule or whose capacity for instrumental rationality is exceptionally poor tend not to remain in power. Hence, I agree with Jiwei Ci, who has long sought to demonstrate that the Chinese Communist Party has self-interested reasons to pursue democratic reforms, when he argues that ‘if such intellectual persuasion fails, nothing else is likely to be both realistic and constructive’ (Ci 2018: 606).

A second practical function of ruler-interested theories might be to predict the courses of action that rulers are likely to take in the future (Cross 2021c; Rossi 2017; Williams 2005: chapter 12). Showing that rulers need to do X in order to retain their legitimacy gives us some reason to think that it is likely that they will, in fact, do X. Such predictions, if accurate, may provide practical orientation for broader forms of political action. Again, ruler-interested theories may only be able to fulfil this function to a limited extent. Even if a theory can accurately identify what course of action is in rulers’ best interests, there is no guarantee that rulers will also recognise this to be the case. Rulers are usually imperfectly instrumentally rational.

Each of these two functions may also give rise to a third: perhaps the most valuable practical contribution ruler-interested theories can make is that they can tell us something about the limitations of what is both possible and desirable under a particular political arrangement (Westphal 2021). If a theory can tell us that a certain ruler R₁ must do X in order to preserve her legitimacy, this not only tells us that R₁ may be likely to do X and unlikely to be open to being persuaded not to do X; it also tells us that, unless we plan to create a legitimation crisis that will produce very different political circumstances, it may be highly undesirable to try to cause R₁ not to do X, however morally objectionable we might find her doing X to be. As long as ruler-interested theories understand legitimacy in ways that make it in the interests of citizens as well as rulers, an action that compromises rulers’ ability to legitimate themselves may be harmful to the interests of citizens.

Note that this does not mean that ruler-interested theories ask us to reconcile ourselves to the inevitability of living under certain rulers. Suppose we find X highly objectionable, even though R₁ needs to do X in order to preserve her legitimacy. One response is to reconcile ourselves to the necessity of X in spite of our objections. Another response might be to try to reform the political system so that doing X is no longer necessary for R₁'s legitimacy. Another more radical response might be to aim for a political revolution, in which R₁ is replaced by a different sort of ruler R₂ who does not need to do X in order to retain her legitimacy.

An example of this kind of argument is Enzo Rossi's realist analysis of the concept of religious freedom (Rossi 2017). Rossi argues that a common objection to the liberal idea of religious freedom – that it presupposes a privatised Western-centric model of religion – neglects the fact that liberal states need to mould religions into largely privatised entities in order to retain their legitimacy, and have historically done this with some degree of success. By itself, this does not give us reason to support or reject liberal states or the idea of religious freedom. But it does provide us with a realistic picture of our political options: embrace liberal states and reconcile ourselves to the inevitability and necessity of the privatisation of religion; seek to replace liberal states with non-liberal states which do not need to privatise religion in order to retain their legitimacy; or seek (somehow) to end the rule of the state itself (Rossi 2017: 66).

Ruler-interested theories are thus capable of fulfilling the practical purpose to a considerable extent, while also acknowledging the limitations of their capacity to do so. What about ruler-disinterested theories? To the extent that rulers are more likely to be swayed by considerations that appeal to their interests than by considerations that do not do so – something I see no reason to doubt – we may suppose that ruler-disinterested theories are generally less capable of persuading rulers to act in accordance with their dictates than ruler-interested theories. But even if this is so, it does not follow that ruler-disinterested theories have no practical function. Perhaps they can tell non-rulers (i.e. citizens) about a very important criterion for evaluating rulers’ merits. It may then be hoped that this will enable citizens to critically evaluate their rulers’ actions, so that they can decide whether to support them or not. For example, if a ruler-disinterested theory can show us that the rulers of a particular society cannot legitimately implement a particular policy, then citizens have reason to oppose the policy.

This sort of claim faces a familiar objection frequently made by early critics of ideal theory: finding out that a particular political policy is bad – even if it is really, really bad – does not always or even usually provide any clear practical orientation for action. At the very least, we require some account of how we might go about changing this policy into something that is at least less bad (Farrelly 2007). But proponents of ruler-disinterested theories also have an equally familiar reply available to them: they hope for a division of labour between those who identify the requirements of legitimacy and those who formulate empirically informed proposals for implementing these requirements (Swift 2008; Erman and Möller 2022). Thus, it may be that ruler-disinterested theories can play an important role in directing us towards concrete political action.

However, I think this division of labour does not escape a fundamental problem facing ruler-disinterested theories: many and perhaps most rulers will see little reason to implement their dictates. The non-ideal theorist who works in tandem with the ruler-disinterested theorist may find a way of showing how the desired policy change could be accomplished if rulers perform certain actions. But if rulers have no interest in performing these actions, what does this division of labour really accomplish?

To illustrate this point, we might consider the work of Elizabeth Anderson, perhaps the best-known exponent of non-ideal political philosophy. Although her work does not usually address issues relating to political legitimacy, it may helpfully demonstrate what I take to be the practical limitations of ruler-disinterested theories. In The Imperative of Integration, Anderson argues for the revival of racial integration as a political and social goal, arguing that the realisation of the value of racial equality is thwarted by the continued existence of racially segregated communities – even if this racial segregation is not legally enforced as it was before the Civil Rights Movement (Anderson 2010). Yet in the conclusion to her work, she acknowledges that the prospects for undoing this segregation may be bleak. She attributes this to the likelihood that ‘this state of affairs is just how whites want it—except that they think they are not getting it since they believe government is doing too much to help blacks’ (Anderson 2010: 189). I share Anderson's pessimism, albeit for very different reasons. As I see things, the kind of segregation that Anderson criticises may be useful in creating a kind of race essentialism that serves the hegemonic interests of the US Democratic Party (Reed Jr. 2018). In any case, if we are both right in thinking that the US government does not intend to take action to end this segregation, what is the point of claiming that it ought to do so?

Anderson's reply is that taking this unwillingness into account takes us beyond the requirements of normative political philosophy:

some theorists believe that a sound political philosophy must be realistic in another sense: that it must accommodate people's unwillingness to meet certain standards of justice. David Estlund argues that no one supposes that moral philosophy should be realistic in this sense: people's refusal to do what morality requires does not generate a valid claim on their part to be let off the moral hook. Why should matters be any different in normative political philosophy? . . . It is one thing to lay out an objective required by justice, another to implement policies capable of achieving that objective. (Anderson 2010: 190, Estlund 2008: 12–13, italics in original)

My point is not that all normative political philosophy should be confined to that of ruler-interested theorising. However, I do think it must avoid indifference to rulers’ interests. For example, radical realists often endorse a kind of negative utopian criticism of existing institutions by showing how they frustrate the satisfaction of certain interests and desires (Geuss 2016: 47; Raekstad 2020: 550; Rossi 2019b: 644–645; Thaler 2018). This kind of utopianism is not ruler-interested because it does not say anything about what rulers ought to do. However, it is not indifferent to rulers’ interests. It reveals that satisfying certain interests and desires may be impossible – for all practical purposes – under existing political institutions, because their rulers have institutionally-generated interests in not acting in ways that would enable their satisfaction. If we want these desires and interests to be satisfied, then these political institutions need to be reformed or replaced entirely. ⁷ Anderson's project could conceivably be pursued along such lines, but its focus would be markedly different. Instead of focusing so much on why the US government ought to implement a political program of racial integration, it would highlight how the government has an interest in actively preventing the implementation of such a program, thus leaving the reader with the discomforting but empirically accurate choice: reconciling oneself to the existence of racially segregated communities, or exploring political alternatives to the US government in its current form.

Ultimately the position Anderson appears to take here seems to require a further division of labour between the non-ideal theorist and those responsible for policy formulation. But if those responsible for policy formation (i.e. rulers) have no interest in acting on the prescriptions of her theory, it would be a mistake to suppose that they share her objectives. The US government is not on her side, so to speak.

Perhaps Anderson might still think that her theory can fulfil the practical purpose in one of two ways. First, she might hope that that at some point in the future, there will be some rulers who take pursuing her policy objectives to be in their interests, or at least consistent with them. Second, she might think that her theory will persuade a large number of US citizens about the desirability of racial integration, and that this will make pursuing integrationist policies necessary for the government to preserve its rule.

I think both scenarios are clear instances of wishful thinking. The first rests entirely on a hope, rather than a reasoned prediction. The second suffers, not only from a highly optimistic view of the capacity of normative political philosophy to persuade a wide audience, but also from indifference to the obstacle presented by rulers’ interests. Even if Anderson's theory somehow managed to persuade a great many people of the desirability of racial integration, the government may still have an interest in not pursuing integrationist policies. What's more, this interest may stem from a factor – perceived political gain from the prevalence of race essentialism – that is not straightforwardly affected by the level of support for integrationist policies among the citizenry. If so, there are positive reasons to doubt that the second scenario will come to fruition.

This is not to say that either scenario is impossible. Wishful thinking can sometimes lead to true beliefs (Cross 2021d; Geuss 2017: 241). There might just happen to be a suitable ruler on the horizon. It may even be that a ruler-disinterested theory like that of Anderson's may somehow contribute to creating a scenario in which it is in rulers’ interests to act in accordance with the theory's dictates. As Geuss (2008: 11–13) points out, political speech may have unforeseen effects. My point, however, is that there is no reason to think either scenario will occur, and in the case of the second, positive reasons to doubt that it will.

To summarise so far: I have argued that ruler-interested theories of legitimacy can fulfil the practical purpose to a considerable extent, while ruler-disinterested theories have very little capacity to do so. Furthermore, to the extent that proponents of ruler-disinterested theories still hope to fulfil the practical purpose, they are highly vulnerable to wishful thinking. However, it may be that proponents of ruler-disinterested theories are willing to forfeit any commitment to fulfilling the practical purpose in order to focus on the importance of fulfilling the epistemic purpose. Let us now consider whether they are capable of doing this.

The epistemic purpose

A ruler-interested theory may fulfil the epistemic purpose by providing accurate information about what policies are in the interests of both ruler and citizen. This may then provide further information relating to some of the practical functions outlined above: predicting rulers’ actions, and outlining the range of policy options that are both desirable and possible given the structure of existing political institutions. The proponent of a ruler-disinterested theory, meanwhile, may hope that her theory of legitimacy can fulfil the epistemic purpose by providing knowledge of certain kinds of duties rulers have towards their citizens, as well as the duties of citizens towards rulers.

One reason why at least some ruler-disinterested theories may be unable to fulfil the epistemic purpose has already been alluded to in the third section: they rely on ideologically suspicious intuitions. The idea here is that any theory that attempts to justify its normative claims by clarifying our intuitive judgements – e.g. by using something like Rawls’ idea of reflective equilibrium (Rawls 1999) – without subjecting them to careful historical and sociological analysis is appealing to epistemically dubious intuitions to justify itself. If these arguments are convincing – and I generally do find them so – then such ruler-disinterested theories are not capable of fulfilling the epistemic purpose.

Other ruler-disinterested theories, however, might not rely so straightforwardly on intuitions. They might instead appeal to human needs, desires and interests – notions which realists generally regard as less ideologically suspicious than intuitions (Cross 2020a: 10). For example, Amanda Greene (2017) defends a Weberian view of legitimacy on the grounds that it secures the important goods of stability, non-alienation, and civic alignment. Her set of criteria for legitimacy is thus almost identical to Williams-type realism. ⁸ However, as I understand her, she presents these goods as goods for citizens, but not as goods for rulers themselves (Greene 2017: 309–314). Her theory of legitimacy is thus presented as a ruler-disinterested theory. I don’t think this poses insurmountable problems for her theory, since it could be fairly easily reframed as ruler-interested. As we saw in 3.1, the pursuit of stability is highly relevant to rulers’ interests. However, my claim here is that, to the extent that Greene's theory of legitimacy is presented as ruler-disinterested, it is ideologically problematic in virtue of its political function (Geuss 2008: 53–54).

My argument for this claim draws on a recently formulated idea of ‘importance misrepresentation’ (Cross 2021e). The idea here is that the act of discussing a topic almost invariably promulgates a view of reality which would allow those who hear and participate in this discussion to recognise this topic as important. Hence, talking about the topic of political legitimacy promulgates a view of reality in which this topic is important.

My contention is that most people are likely to think of the topic of political legitimacy – and that of political philosophy more generally – as something that is important primarily because of its practical function. Even political philosophers who stress the epistemic contribution of ideal theory also seek to show – unsuccessfully in my view, for the reasons mentioned above – that it has important practical functions (Erman and Möller 2022; Swift 2008). As far as I am aware, no political philosopher has ever been willing to acknowledge that their work lacks any practical function. Even radical realists who confine their attention to evaluating the epistemic merits of legitimation narratives have their own accounts of how this can help resource political action (Cross 2021a: 8–10; Rossi 2019b: 644–649).

If this point is correct, then the idea of importance misrepresentation suggests that the act of discussing the topic of legitimacy in terms of ruler-disinterested theories promulgates a view of reality that is misleading. It promulgates the view that ruler-disinterested theories have some important practical contribution to our engagement with politics. But as I argued in the first part of this section, this view is mistaken. And if this mistaken view is nonetheless accepted, people may understandably come to conflate a claim made by a ruler-disinterested theory that is meant to provide a certain kind of knowledge about a political issue (e.g. ‘this policy is illegitimate’) with a practically significant action (e.g. ‘by showing how this policy is illegitimate, we are helping to stop its implementation’). It is not hard to see how this conflation can serve the interests of those who want said policy to remain in place.

To my mind, the conflation of these two types of criticism is exhibited in the frequently-repeated claim that moralist theories help combat ‘status-quo bias’ by formulating normative political principles that are unencumbered by the reality of non-compliance (e.g. Leader Maynard 2021; McKean 2016; Verovšek 2019). ⁹ On closer inspection, this ‘status-quo bias’ is confined to ‘normative theory’ (Leader Maynard 2021: 12). On this view, an anti-status-quo political theory is one that prescribes certain states of affairs that are not part of the status quo. Yet one may understandably be led to think that the importance of making one's normative theory anti-status-quo in this sense hinges on the further claim that this somehow translates to a political theory that can resource real-world anti-status-quo political action. For example, moralists sometimes criticise realist theories of legitimacy for allowing for the possibility that states which rely on slavery or patriarchal power can sometimes be legitimate (Thomas 2017: 315–316). Presumably, the assumption here is that calling such eminently undesirable phenomena illegitimate is either necessary or helpful for facilitating some kind of political action that will help bring them to an end, while calling them legitimate can only help preserve them. But it is a mistake to assume that we somehow help to defeat a particular political policy merely by describing it pejoratively. Marx and Engels (1989) famously insisted that it is a mistake to argue that capitalism is unjust, but this hardly makes them pro-capitalist thinkers. Yet one would be forced to accept that they are indeed pro-capitalist if one really believes that making ambitious anti-status-quo normative prescriptions is somehow key to developing a genuinely anti-status-quo political theory.

It might be asked whether I think this argument extends to all forms of ruler-disinterested normative political philosophy that makes claims about what rulers ought to do, not just theorising about legitimacy. My answer, in short, is: yes it does. If we find a political policy objectionable, it may be cathartic to say that rulers are doing something unjust, especially if we say it loudly enough. But if I am right, it is not only the case that we are deluded if we think that making these kinds of claims is usually necessary or helpful for preventing the policy. It is also the case that, by making these claims, we are effectively promulgating the delusion that they are necessary or helpful for preventing the policy. Consider Marx and Engels’ well-known criticism of the Young Hegelians. Their point, I take it, is not merely that the Young Hegelians were labouring under the delusion that by ‘fighting against phrases’ they were somehow ‘combatting the real existing world’; it is also that their act of focusing on fighting against phrases promulgates this very delusion (Marx and Engels 1998: 60). Similarly, the act of engaging in ruler-disinterested theorising about the moral duties of rulers may promulgate the delusion that this is somehow a way of challenging the status quo. If my argument is correct, the ruler-disinterested political theorist is no less a friend of the status quo than the Young Hegelians, even if she only aims to fulfil the epistemic purpose.

So to sum up: I have argued that a ruler-disinterested theorist who aims to fulfil the epistemic purpose but not necessarily the practical purpose is engaged in a kind of ideologically problematic theorising. In light of the prevalence of widely shared assumptions about the value of political philosophy as tied to its practical contribution, this ruler-disinterested theorist is effectively promulgating the misleading belief that ruler-disinterested theorising is indeed fulfilling the practical purpose in some way, even if she has no intention of promulgating this belief. This misleading belief then serves existing hegemonic political arrangements by promulgating a false picture of what anti-status-quo political theorising looks like. If one wants an analogy: consider a prisoner who aims to break out of prison by ramming his shoulder repeatedly against the solid stone walls of his cell. It may be that there is some possible means of escape for the prisoner – a secret tunnel, unlocking the cell door with a pin, etc. Then again, there might not be any chance of escape. But an honest appraisal of the situation must begin with acknowledgment that ramming one's shoulder against the wall is not going to work, and if the prisoner has any chance of escaping, he needs to explore some other option. Talking about how the prisoner can increase the intensity of his shoulder-ramming – e.g. by doing push-ups – might not involve saying anything that is strictly speaking false, but it is only going to ensure that he remains in the cell.