Introduction

All your life you've been coming across such claims as "You should do as your mother says" and "I had every right to do that" and "That's out of order!". (These are normative claims.) But it's quite common to feel a bit uneasy when you start coming across similar claims in political philosophy. In political philosophy, the normative claims that people feel uneasy about are (typically) moral claims.

For example, we might examine the claim that you have a duty to aid the poor, or the claim that coercion is wrong if it's not justified in egalitarian terms. And you'll be expected to argue for or against such a claim.

For a few more examples of the kinds of moral claim we make in political philosophy, click on the red link below.

More examples of moral claims in political philosophy ⇨

Frequently, students' first reactions to all this include doubts about the legitimacy of arguing for or against such claims at all. They say "who gets to decide whether that's true or not?" and "isn't it just a matter of opinion?"

Now, we all make moral claims all the time. But people often start having doubts as soon as they are asked to analyse and defend the claims. Yet political philosophy typically proceeds on the assumption that there is no problem with making and justifying moral claims in general. So, students find that their doubts are not directly addressed by the course content, and tutors find that they are repeatedly drawn into discussions not directly relevant to the material they're trying to teach. I get into at least one debate about this in every module I teach. Sometimes I get into several. Since my aim is normally to get back to the course material as quickly as possible, these debates are usually pretty unsatisfactory from all points of view.

The aim of this FAQ is to address the doubts. Click on the 'Address my doubts!' button below to start. If at any point you'd like to get a sense of where you are in the argument as a whole, there's a site map that you can access via the link at the bottom right of every page.

(N.B. The arguments that I describe in this FAQ are mostly not my own, but I have not given references for them, because this is not intended as a scholarly work. At the end, I suggest some more rigorous philosophical texts for those interested in pursuing these arguments further.)

Address my doubts!