Discuss the significance of a normative approach to Political theory. (UPSC CSE Mains 2020 - Political Science and International Relations, Paper 1)
The normative conception is based on the belief that the world and its events can be interpreted in terms of logic, purpose and ends with the help of the theorist’s intuition, reasoning, insights and experiences. In other words, it is a project of philosophical speculation about values.
Normative political theory leans heavily towards political philosophy, because it derives its knowledge of the good life from it and also uses it as a framework in its endeavour to create absolute norms. In fact, their tools of theorisation are borrowed from political philosophy and therefore, they always seek to established inter-relationships among concepts and look for coherence in the phenomena as well as in their theories, which are typical examples of a philosophical outlook. Leo Strauss has strongly advocated the case for normative theory and has argued that political things by nature are subject to approval or disapproval and it is difficult to judge them in any other terms, except as good or bad and justice or injustice.
ut the problem with the normativists is that while professing values which they cherish, they portray them as universal and absolute. They do not realise that their urge to create absolute standard for goodness is not without pitfalls. Ethical values are relative to time and space with a heavy subjective content in them, which precludes the possibility of any creation of absolute standard. The exponents of empirical theory criticise normativism for:
a) Relativity of values
b) Cultural basis of ethics and norms
c) Ideological content in the enterprise and
d) Abstract and utopian nature of the project
But in the distant past those who championed normative theory always tried to connect their principles with the understanding of the reality of their times. In recent times, again the old sensibility within the normative theory has re-emerged and the passion for good life and good society has been matched by methodological and empirical astuteness. John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice is a case in point which attempts to anchor logical and moral political theory in empirical findings. Rawls, with his imagination, creates ‘original position’ to connect normative philosophical arguments with real world concerns about distributive justice and the welfare state.
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