I’m a scientific realist and, after twenty-two years in the army, a political realist. Is that inconsistent?

Question

I retired as a major after twenty-two years, the last stretch on the DMZ. At staff college we read the classic realist authors on international politics: states pursue power and security, and moral principles do not govern what they do to each other. I still think that describes a great deal of what I saw.
In retirement I've been reading philosophy of science, and I find myself a scientific realist too. I think electrons really exist, whether or not anyone observes them, and that our best theories are approximately true descriptions of how things are.
At a reading group last month someone joked that I'm "a realist about everything". Then someone else said that scientific realists usually think there are objective facts, while political realists deny there are moral facts in international affairs, so I'm a realist about electrons and an anti-realist about morality. Now I'm confused about what I believe.
Are these the same word for the same idea? Am I contradicting myself?

Javier Morales · Accepted Answer

You are not contradicting yourself, because the two claims share a word and very little else.
"Realism" is probably the most overloaded word in philosophy. Some of its senses:
Scientific realism: unobservables like electrons exist independently of us.Moral realism: there are objective moral facts.Mathematical realism: numbers and sets exist.Realism about universals: redness exists as well as red things.Legal realism: a claim about method, that law is what officials actually do rather than what the texts say.Political realism: a claim about international politics, that states act for power and security and moral categories do not govern relations between them.
Most of these are claims that some kind of thing is real independently of us. Political realism is not. It is a different use of the word that happens to be spelled the same, and in one respect it points the other way: it is sceptical about moral claims in international affairs.
But note that even political realism is not the same as moral anti-realism. Several classic political realists believed in objective moral principles but doubted they could be applied to states in the abstract. A moral realist can be a political realist without inconsistency.
So: scientific realist, political realist, and on morality, undecided. Perfectly coherent. The useful question, whenever someone says "realist", is: realist about what?

Choi Byeong-hun · Answer

Javier, thank you. "Realist about what" is going on the inside cover of my notebook. I think I'm also a moral realist, actually. I saw things that were wrong, and not just against regulations.

Oskar Nyberg · Answer

A good example of why philosophers have learned to distrust single words. Political realism even has an ancient pedigree that has nothing to do with metaphysics: the Athenian envoys in Thucydides' Melian dialogue tell the Melians that the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must. That is a claim about power, not about what exists. Hobbes is usually enlisted on the same side, though his view of the state of nature between sovereigns is more complicated than the slogan.

Mateo Quispe · Answer

And in Lima, add a further sense: when people here say realismo, they first think of literature, the realist novel and its long argument with lo real maravilloso, the marvellous real. So you're also, Major, not obviously committed to anything about novels.

Aroha Tipene · Answer

At my school in Rotorua, the "realism" confusion comes up about our rivers. When the law recognised a river in this country as a legal person, people asked me "but is it really a person?" as if the law had made a metaphysical claim. For us the river's standing comes from whakapapa, from relationship, and the law caught up. Your post helps me explain to my students that "real" in a court and "real" in a philosophy class are different questions.

I’m a scientific realist and, after twenty-two years in the army, a political realist. Is that inconsistent?

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