Getting Realistic About Action-Guidance: Moralism,Radical Realism and Divisions of Labour

Introduction

Several political realists have criticised moralist political philosophy for being unable to provide action-guidance (Galston, 2010; Horton, 2017). The basis for this criticism is that moralists allegedly lack a realistic picture of human psychology and cognitive abilities. For example, any moralist norms that only take into account human beings’ capacity for rationality will fail to be action-guiding, since they rely on an incomplete account of human psychology.

In a recent article, Luke Ulaş (2020) neatly turns the tables on realists by arguing that they face this same problem. They, too, provide norms that presuppose an unrealistic picture of human psychology and cognitive abilities. Hence, if moralism fails to be action-guiding for this reason, then realism fails to be action-guiding as well.

My interest here concerns Ulaş’ critique of radical realism – a distinct form of political realism for which there is now a growing body of literature (Aytac and Rossi, 2022; Cross, 2022a; Prinz, 2016; Raekstad, 2021; Rossi, 2019). One of the most distinctive features of radical realism is its use of ideology critique as a means of evaluating the epistemic merits of beliefs and narratives (Aytac and Rossi, 2022; Cross, 2021; Geuss, 2008; Prinz and Rossi, 2017, 2021; Raekstad, 2021; Rossi, 2019). Ulaş’ (2020: 19–21) argument is that this form of ideology critique is highly esoteric and intellectually demanding, such that we cannot plausibly expect most people to be able to use it. Hence, so Ulaş argues, radical realists cannot justifiably claim that ideology critique is action-guiding, because this would fail to acknowledge the limits of human intellectual capacities.

Ulaş’ critique of radical realism is interesting because recent literature suggests radical realists may have a ready-made response, yet this response may only invite further questions. The response is that radical realists can employ a division of labour. This is between: (1) the use of ideology critique to evaluate the epistemic merits of beliefs and narratives and (2) further political theory informed by the findings of ideology critique. For example, it is one thing to show that the various narratives supporting the legitimacy of capitalist accumulation are epistemically dubious; it is another thing to devise a fitting political response to this finding (Rossi, 2019: 644–645, see also Aytac and Rossi, 2022).

This division of labour seems to allow radical realists to respond to Ulaş’ claim that the method of ideology critique is too esoteric to be action-guiding for most people. Radical realists can reply that they do not expect all or even most people to use ideology critique. The possible limitations of human psychology and capacities only become relevant when decisions about political action informed by the findings of ideology critique are made.

However, this response may invite further questions because radical realists have also been critical of moralists’ attempts to rely on a division of labour. Moralists may regard a division of labour between the identification of correct normative principles – whether ideal whether ideal (Erman and Möller, 2013; Swift and White, 2008) or nonideal (Anderson, 2010) – and devising appropriate methods for implementing or approximating them as a way of showing that their normative claims are not infeasible. Radical realists have argued that this division of labour is unrealistic in certain respects (Cross, 2021: 1116–1117; Prinz and Rossi, 2017: 335; Rossi, 2019: 644–645). This invites the question: why is it ok for radical realists to rely on a division of labour, if it is not also ok for moralists to do so? This is the question I aim to answer in this article.

I argue that radical realists can successfully explain this asymmetry. Their criticisms of the moralist division of labour take the form of two distinct objections: that the moralist division of labour erroneously conceives of political activity as analogous to a classroom seminar; and that the moralist division of labour does not overcome the motivational deficiencies of moralist normative principles. Call these the seminar room objection and the motivation objection respectively. I will try to show how the radical realist division of labour would not be undermined by either objection if they were to be turned against radical realism.

There is one radical realist objection to moralism that I want to bracket from the outset. Radical realists have often argued that moralist normative principles lack the status of Wissenschaft because they are dependent on ideologically suspicious intuitions (Cross, 2022a; Geuss, 2008; Raekstad, 2021; Rossi, 2019: 644). If radical realists are right about this, then the moralist division of labour would be objectionable even if it could be action-guiding in some way. This is because it would be guiding action on the basis of principles whose epistemic status is not relevantly different from principles of astrology. By contrast, radical realists hold that the content of the findings of ideology critique does have the status of Wissenschaft (Aytac and Rossi, 2022; Rossi, 2019). My focus here, however, is purely on the capacity of the moralist division of labour to render moralist normative principles action-guiding, even if we put aside questions about their epistemic status.

The rest of this article proceeds as follows. In the second and third sections, I will try to clarify what I take to be the moralist and radical realist divisions of labour respectively. In the fourth section, I outline the seminar room objection. In the fifth section, I show how the seminar objection is unsuccessful if it is turned against radical realism. The sixth and seventh sections do likewise for the motivation objection. The eighth section concludes.

The Moralist Model of the Division of Labour

I have said that the moralist division of labour is between: (1) the formation of normative principles and (2) the devising of appropriate ways to implement or approximate them. In this section, I will try to give a more complete description of this division of labour, with particular attention to the detailed account provided by Adam Swift and Stuart White (2008). Their account is useful for our purposes, not just for its sophistication, but because it is an example of a moralist theory that tries to give consideration to the importance of empirical facts, including the demands of real politics.

Swift and White distinguish between three distinct ‘labourers’: the political theorist, the social scientist and the political actor. I will first summarise each of these three roles, before I then attempt to clarify how Swift and White view the division of labour between them as capable of showing how moralist normative principles can be action-guiding.

The domain of the political theorist is the domain of ‘values’ (Swift and White, 2008: 54). The political theorist’s task is to identify the values that political policies ought to be directed towards, and perhaps also how different values should be weighed and balanced against each other. Swift and White (2008: 52) regard political theory as having little or nothing to contribute wherever questions relating to value are rightly regarded as settled. For example, political theorists may have very little to say about sex trafficking.

The social scientist is tasked with providing empirical information that, when suitably combined with the labour of the political theorist, can yield more concrete policy proposals. If political theorists attempt to make policy proposals without this information, they run the risk of overgeneralising, such that they are not ‘sufficiently attentive to the specifics of policy design or to the particular circumstances in which the policy is being introduced’ (Swift and White, 2008: 57).

I use the term ‘political actor’ to include both politicians and citizens. Political actors actually enact policies, whether by voting for and against certain candidates at elections (as per the citizen) or by passing legislation in parliament or making executive decisions within the boundaries of one’s office (as per the politician). Unlike the political theorist, the political actor must deal with ‘real politics’, in which winning political contests (i.e. elections) is of paramount importance (Swift and White, 2008: 65).

Now it is clear that the moralist’s normative principles are provided by the political theorist in this division of labour. How, then, does this division of labour enable these normative principles to be action-guiding?

We might first note one way in which Swift and White (2008: 56) do not regard moralist principles as action-guiding: the political theorist has ‘no special authority in the democratic arena.’ They reject any suggestion that political theorists’ proposals should be implemented without first having passed through democratic contestation. And although they do not specifically discuss the idea of deference to expertise, I expect they would also deny that political actors have a duty to defer to political theorists on value-related questions, or to policy proposals emanating from the collaborative efforts of political theorists and social scientists. The political theorist is said to be no more than an ‘underlabourer’ for her fellow citizens. She has the opportunity to ‘persuade her readers’ (Swift and White, 2008: 54), rather than expect deference.

Would it then be accurate to say that Swift and White regard the political theorist as action-guiding in a purely advisory sense? Although they compare the role of the political theorist to experts in other disciplines ‘who lend their expertise when it is asked for’ (Swift and White, 2008: 56), I don’t think they regard the political theorist as nothing more than an advisor. The object of the political theorist’s study is normative truth, or more specifically, the truth-status of normative propositions about the goals and values of politics (Swift and Whit, 2008: 65). The political theorist is thus engaged in a kind of Wissenschaft, the findings of which provide a suitable basis for evaluating the goals and values that political actors pursue. In this sense, the normative principles that the political theorist seeks to identify are action-guiding for the political actor: they determine what goals and values the political actor ought to pursue.

At this point, one might make the familiar objection that the political theorist’s labour, so understood, is not really action-guiding because it is too abstract and indeterminate (Galston, 2010: 400). As Swift and White (2008: 49) acknowledge, normative theorising is normally insufficient to yield precise policy recommendations. At best, it might enable the political theorist to evaluate certain policies based on the goals that they seem directed towards. However, it would seem to prevent political theorists from offering any form of action-guidance that is more constructive.

To respond to this objection, Swift and White could hold that the policy proposals that emanate from collaboration between political theorists and social scientists also have the status of Wissenschaft, and have a similar kind of normative authority over political agents. Thus, they might claim that the political theorist’s normative principles can be action-guiding in a second sense: when appropriately combined with the social scientist’s empirical findings, they can normatively require political actors to attempt to implement certain policies through a democratic process. Again, the normative authority lies not with the proposals that are actually offered here, but with the ‘true’ or ‘correct’ policy proposals that the political theorist-social scientist collaboration seeks to uncover. Although Swift and White do not explicitly make this claim, I am inclined to think they would want to endorse it. I also think they need to do so to be able to hold that moralist principles can be more thoroughly action-guiding.

Let me summarise this section. The moralist division of labour, as presented by Swift and White, identifies three distinct agents with three distinct tasks: the political theorist, responsible for evaluating claims about the values and goals that politics ought to pursue; the social scientist, responsible for obtaining empirical information that, when combined with political theorist’s labour, might yield concrete policy proposals; and the political actor, responsible for implementing policies. We have seen that this allows moralist principles, as formulated by the political theorist, to be action-guiding in two ways. First, they can identify values or goals that political actors ought to work towards. Second, they can work collaboratively with social scientists to produce concrete policy proposals that political actors ought to implement, insofar as they can do so through democratic procedures. In this way, moralists can attempt to invoke the idea of the division of labour to respond to the charge that their normative principles are insufficiently action-guiding.

The Radical Realist Model of the Division of Labour

Ideology critique, recall, is a method for evaluating the epistemic merits of beliefs and other forms of consciousness. Although radical realists may employ a variety of different methods of ideology critique, the most literature seems to centre on two distinct theories: beliefs can be ideological in virtue of being ‘not what they seem’ (Prinz and Rossi, 2017, 2021), or in virtue of being instances of self-justifying power (Aytac and Rossi, 2022; Rossi, 2019; Rossi and Argenton, 2021).

There is one very simple sense in which radical realists view ideology critique as action-guiding, and this does not require any division of labour. Ideology critique assesses the epistemic merits of various legitimation narratives and asks people to revise their beliefs accordingly. For example, if ideology critique reveals a particular belief to be epistemically dubious, it generates a reason for rejecting this belief. To the extent that belief-revision constitutes an action, ideology critique straightforwardly guides people towards certain actions. What’s more, the theorist who undertakes ideology critique does not seem to require any further intellectual aid in this endeavour.

However, there is one other sense in which radical realists regard ideology critique as action-guiding. Radical realists anticipate that the various ways in which ideology critique might lead us to revise our beliefs will be highly relevant for pursuing epistemically informed political activity. True, radical realists do not believe ideology critique is capable prescribing political activity. It offers what Ulaş (2020: 5–8) calls ‘action-orienting guidance’. To illustrate this, let us suppose a policy P is supported by legitimation narrative N. If ideology critique reveals N to be epistemically defective, this does not entail that P should be opposed. It only entails that N should be rejected (Rossi, 2019: 646–647). What people should do in light of this is a further question, but a question for which the rejection of N will typically be highly relevant.

Granted, there might be select circumstances in which ideology critique seems to approach prescriptive action-guidance. Suppose we find out that all the legitimation narratives supporting P are epistemically dubious. This may seem to give us good reasons to oppose P in some way. However, even this much is debatable – what does it even mean to ‘oppose P’? Consider, for example, that there is a distinction between: (1) recognising that all the legitimation beliefs supporting P are defective, (2) wanting others to recognise this as well, (3) actively trying to persuade others that this is the case and (4) taking actions to try to stop P from being implemented. Although these three steps – from (1) to (2), (2) to (3), and (3) to (4) – may seem natural, they can all be coherently rejected (Cross, 2021: 1120–1121). In general, it is important to recognise that two people can accept the same findings of ideology critique and decide to pursue very different political agendas as a result. Radical realists need not regard this as a sign of any kind of theoretical failure, on the part of either the two people or the method of ideology critique itself.

Now if ideology critique is so indeterminate when it comes to political activity, how might it be capable of resourcing political activity at all? Aytac and Rossi (2022: 19) hint at an answer to this question when they ‘envisage a division of labour between ideology critique and other branches of political theory’. Although they do not elaborate further, we can perhaps shed further light on the radical realist division of labour by positing three agents, corresponding to the three agents in the moralist division of labour: (1) the ideologist, (2) the general political theorist who works in ‘other branches’ of political theory and (3) the political actor. ¹ The tasks of the first and third agents are clear enough: the ideologist carries out the study of ideology critique, while the political actor – as before – may be a citizen or politician who helps enact political policy and engages in other forms of political activity. The general political theorist, however, appears to be somewhat more mysterious. In the remainder of this section, I will try to shed some light on this agent, and how she might enable ideology critique to help resource political activity.

Suppose, once again, we decide that all the legitimation narratives supporting P are epistemically dubious. We might then consider a variety of options in response to this: campaigning for the immediate overthrow of a government committed to P; campaigning for reforming the government so that it no longer seeks to pursue P; engaging in a campaign of mass persuasion; trying to create some sort of prefigurative political community characterised by practices very different from P, and so on. Radical realists tend to think that political actors may have a kind of expertise in making these decisions that political theorists lack (e.g. Finlayson, 2016: 182–183; Rossi, 2019: 645–646). Politics can be a messy practice that is at least partially resistant to theorisation, and those on the ground may be best positioned to make decisions about how to act. In my view, however, the general political theorist can still offer further insights that might help resource these sorts of decisions.

One such contribution might be to try to enlarge people’s understanding of the range of options for political action by providing historical examples (Finlayson, 2017: 268). Another might be to draw attention to obstacles in the way of certain options. In each case, theoretical modesty is essential: historical possibility does not necessarily entail contemporary feasibility; and obstacles do not necessarily entail impossibility. Yet the point here is not to tell political actors what they should and shouldn’t do, but to provide further theoretical tools for resourcing decision-making. Many radical realists regard utopian thinking – rightly understood – as an example of precisely this sort of tool (Geuss, 2016; Raekstad, 2020; Thaler, 2018). The same could also perhaps be said of radical realist approaches to institutional reform and proposal (Aytac, 2022: 14).

We can thus see how the ideologist and the general political theorist can provide action-guidance by resourcing the deliberation of political actors. Observe, however, that this form of action-guidance is very different from the kind provided by the political theorist and social scientist in Swift and White’s moralist division of labour. In the latter case, the action-guidance consists of knowledge about what political actors ought to do: what goals and values they should pursue; and what policies they should try to enact. In the former case, action-guidance is also based on knowledge, but this knowledge can do no more than resource decisions about what to do, and perhaps offer limited criticisms. For example, the ideologist and the general political theorist may criticise political actions that are undertaken in ignorance of the kind of knowledge they both seek to provide (Cross, 2021: 1117–1120). Yet their combined knowledge lacks the normative content necessary to generate reasons for political action sui generis. This can only come from the particular goals, desires, and interests that different political actors may have. ²

The Seminar Room Objection

Having outlined both moralist and radical realist models of the division of labour, I now turn to radical realists’ objections to the moralist model. I begin with the seminar room objection, because I think it is easier to see how it does not seriously challenge the radical realist model.

According to the seminar room objection, the moralist division of labour – or more specifically, the conceived relationship between the political theorist/social scientist collaboration and the political actor – erroneously presupposes a view of politics as analogous to a seminar room (Rossi, 2019: 644) in which blueprints for implementing or approximating norms are designed. The point here is not that moralists really do think that politics is like a seminar room, but that, according to the objection, the moralist division of labour too closely resembles one. Swift and White seem to envisage a kind of pipeline between proposals arising from the political theorist/social scientist collaboration, and political actors tasked with implementing them. The political actor is thus placed under a kind of normative responsibility for enacting these proposals through a democratic process. Granted, Swift and White (2008: 64) suggest that political theorists have a ‘qualified tolerance’ for the messiness of democratic politics, but this seems to only be a basis for tempering their predictive expectations, rather than lessening their normative authority.

The main reason why radical realists object to giving such normative authority to these policy proposals is that they worry that technocratic blueprints are liable to impose erroneous and ideologically distorted constraints on the pursuit of seemingly ambitious political projects. To the extent that it attempts to offer prescriptive guidance, it will likely find it necessary to identify certain political projects as ‘feasible’ or ‘possible’ and others as ‘infeasible’ or ‘impossible’. ³ However, radical realists have long suspected that our notions of what is ‘infeasible’ or ‘impossible’ are vulnerable to ideological distortion (Finlayson, 2016: 177–181; Prinz, 2016: 785–786; Thaler, 2018: 677–678). While history may provide evidence that certain projects are possible in virtue of their having previously existed (Finlayson, 2017: 268), it does not enable us to make judgements about what is impossible with the same level of confidence. Often, politics may be the art of stretching the boundaries of what is considered ‘possible’ in potentially unforeseeable ways. For this reason, radical realists are drawn to the idea of political activity as a ‘craft’ or ‘skill’ (Geuss, 2008: 15–16), in which the theorist has no normative authority over the political actor.

The Seminar Room Objection Turned Against Radical Realism

I don’t think it is difficult to see how the radical realist model of the division of labour is not vulnerable to the seminar room objection. We can see how this is the case by highlighting two main features of the radical realist model.

First, as we saw in the third section, radical realists do not conceive of the role of the academic political theorist as that of providing substantive political prescriptions. Apart from recommending that people revise their beliefs in accordance with the findings of ideology critique, radical realists do not seek to tell anyone what to do. This goes for both the ideologist and the general political theorist. As Rossi (2019: 647) notes, ‘the realist can be politically ambitious and systematic, but must be theoretically modest enough to leave those details to politics: there are aspects of politics not amenable to philosophical domestication’. Even radical realist policy proposals are no more than suggestions – perhaps with certain epistemic virtues – that political actors may or may not have reasons to pursue.

Second, neither the ideologist nor general political theorist needs to make judgements about what is infeasible or impossible. Even though the general political theorist may identify important difficulties with certain strategies, these may be best understood as obstacles, rather than necessary constraints. Even if she may devise certain methods for assessing the severity of these obstacles, she does not need to try to determine whether or not it is possible for them to be overcome. Her role here may be better understood as trying to broaden the perspective of political actors by bringing certain relevant phenomena that might be otherwise remain occluded to their attention.

The seminar room objection is thus unsuccessful when turned against radical realism. In my view, the motivation objection may offer a more serious challenge and may therefore warrant more extensive discussion. In the next section, I will explain how radical realists can and have presented versions of this objection against moralism. Following this, I will consider whether radical realists can respond to the objection if it is turned against them.

The Motivation Objection

There are two distinct versions of the motivation objection which radical realists have either suggested or hinted at. Each version begins with the following two premises:

I will first explain these two premises in more detail. Following this, I will outline the two distinct ways in which the motivation objection might proceed.

The Motivation Objection Turned Against Radical Realism

I have suggested that the motivation objection may pose more of a challenge for radical realists when it is turned against them than the seminar room objection. However, I think there are three points that radical realists can make to show that they can successfully deal with it.

First, radical realists will argue that the findings of ideology critique are of interest to people in an objective sense, in a way that moralist norms are not. In the previous section, we saw that moralists may find it difficult to find agents who have an interest in implementing their norms. ⁷ By contrast, radical realists may argue that the findings of ideology critique are relevant to understanding and promoting people’s real interests, whether they recognise this or not.

Let us set aside the question of whether people have some kind of intrinsic interest in acquiring a more accurate understanding of the epistemic status of their beliefs. The findings of ideology critique can be instrumentally valuable because they can uncover illusory beliefs about what people’s interests are and how they are promoted. In this sense, they are ‘emancipatory’ (Geuss, 1981). If Prinz and Rossi (2021) are correct in their verdicts about moralist and technocratic narratives about sovereign debt, this may give people reason to believe that any policy on sovereign debt that relies solely on these narratives for its justification does not ultimately serve their interests. Elsewhere, I have attempted to show how certain quasi-apocalyptic narratives about climate change may misrepresent the interests of the materially comfortable as universal interests (Cross 2021). In cases such as these, ideology critique appears highly relevant to people’s interests.

Admittedly, these are cases where ideology critique seems to yield very specific conclusions about people’s interests. There is no guarantee that it will always or even usually do this (Rossi, 2019: 647). But it can nonetheless resource reflection on interests, even if it does not always point in a singularly clear direction.

Second, since ideology critique does not prescribe any particular goals or policies, there is no particular set of agents that it needs to persuade to avoid being motivationally inert. In general, anyone who is persuaded by the findings of ideology critique will have the ability to act accordingly. This is most straightforwardly the case when it comes to belief-revision: if someone is persuaded that a narrative is epistemically dubious, then she has the ability to act in accordance with this realisation by revising her beliefs. ⁸ By contrast, since moralist norms do prescribe goals or policies, they need to persuade a specific set of agents – those with the ability to act on these goals or policies – to be motivationally efficacious. Persuading people who lack this ability is not enough.

The capacity of ideology critique to resource substantive political action is a little more complex. Radical realists might well have reasons to be worried about the possibility that very few people might be persuaded by the findings of ideology critique, and thus be in a position to use it as a resource for their political activity. I will say more about this below. For now, however, it suffices to note that even if ideology critique only persuades a tiny minority of largely powerless people, this tiny minority is still capable of using ideology critique to resource their political activity, even if this amounts to little more than recognising the difficulties of pursuing their political goals in a society suffering from mass epistemic delusions.

Now some radical realists may regard these two points as sufficient for demonstrating that the findings of ideology critique are not troubled by a lack of motivational effectiveness. However, if this is all that radical realists can say in response to the motivation objection, one may worry that the motivational force of ideology critique is still very limited. At best, it tells people something about how they might rationally identify and pursue their interests. But if people are not always or even usually rational in this sense, just how much motivational power does this leave ideology critique with? And even if ideology critique does not need to persuade any particular set of people to be transparently motivationally effective, I think radical realists would still be troubled if it turns out that its persuasive power is fairly low. Even if the normativity of ideology critique is confined to revising beliefs, radical realists will likely still harbour hopes that the findings of ideology critique can be politically consequential in some way. This hope is clearly contingent on ideology critique having at least some persuasive power, particularly with regards to political actors who might have some ability to influence real politics.

Fortunately for radical realists, there is a third point they can make here. There is another sense in which the findings of ideology critique are motivationally effective: the sheer fact that a person is exposed to them can often be enough to cause them to rethink their beliefs. To be clear: I am not making an empirical claim that a person is guaranteed to be persuaded by ideology critique simply by reading a paper. Rather, I am making a point about how the method of ideology critique operates as a means of persuasion. This method can be as simple – and as complex – as redirecting people’s attention towards certain phenomena that have hitherto gone unnoticed by them. Consider how difficult it would be for a German citizen in the aftermath of WWII to remain sceptical of the existence of extermination camps after having seen them with her own eyes. Ideology critique may often require nothing more – but nothing less – than getting people to look in the right direction.

This is not to say that Ulaş is mistaken in describing ideology critique as an esoteric method, since this redirection of attention may be a rare skill, requiring historical knowledge and careful observation of the present. But it is not – at least usually – esoteric in the sense of relying on complex chains of reasoning that diminish its ability to persuade everyday people. This much can give the radical realist some reason for being cautiously optimistic about the persuasive power of ideology critique. If it manages to successfully redirect people’s attention in the right way – admittedly a potentially big ‘if’ – persuasion may be almost inevitable.

Prinz and Rossi’s criticisms of technocratic and moralist narratives about sovereign debt are an example of this kind of redirection of attention. They attempt to put the spotlight on certain aspects of the behaviour of political actors that, once acknowledged, make it hard for one to take these narratives seriously (Prinz and Rossi, 2021: 123). Once one becomes aware of the hypocritical behaviour of politicians promoting these narratives, one may find it very difficult – in a purely psychological sense – to somehow will oneself to regard these narratives as credible. Something similar could be said for instances of self-justifying power. The idea that people should not be judges of their own cases is something that, we may conjecture, will strike most people as irresistibly intuitive, even if radical realists may offer a more complex defence of this idea (Aytac and Rossi, 2022).

This point should not be overstated. I do not expect radical realists would have much success if they stood on soapboxes on street corners and began spruiking to passers-by about the findings of ideology critique. Yet the fact that the findings of ideology critique can exercise such immediate – and perhaps even involuntary – power over people’s beliefs gives it additional motivational credentials that morality arguably lacks. Geuss (2008: 9–10) notes that there can be chasms between: (1) establishing the truth of moral principles, (2) people recognising the truth of moral principles and (3) people acting in accordance with moral principles. By contrast, these chasms appear to be much smaller for ideology critique. The chasm between (1) and (2) is narrower because convincing someone to accept the findings of ideology critique may require nothing more (but nothing less) than redirecting their attention. The chasm between (2) and (3) is narrow because accepting the findings of ideology critique almost automatically leads one to revise one’s beliefs accordingly.

For each of these three reasons, then, radical realists can claim that they can deal effectively with the motivation objection if it is turned against them. They can therefore consistently hold that the moralist division of labour suffers from a degree of motivational ineffectiveness that does not apply to their own division of labour.

Conclusion

My aim in this article has been to show how radical realists can make use of a division of labour to show how their theories of ideology critique can offer genuine action-guidance, while simultaneously holding that moralists are unable to effectively use their own division of labour for the same purpose. I have discussed two objections that radical realists have made against the moralist division of labour – the seminar room objection and the motivation objection respectively – and argued that neither of them would be successful if turned against radical realism.

I do not intend for this article to be taken as a wholesale vindication of radical realism. In particular, although I regard both the seminar room objection and the motivation objection as generally persuasive arguments against moralism, I have not attempted to defend these objections at length here. I haven’t tried to show that moralists who are unpersuaded by these objections are mistaken. Rather, I have only sought to show that radical realists can continue to endorse these objections while embracing their own form of a division of labour. Doing this, I hope, will help provide a clearer understanding of radical realism’s methods and commitments, as well as those methods and commitments it does not have.