Does Normative Behaviourism Offer an Alternative Methodology in Political Theory?

Abstract

A central distinction for Jonathan Floyd is that between the traditional method of pursuing political theory conducted by mainstream theorists, which he calls ‘mentalism’, and his suggested method, so-called ‘normative behaviourism’. While the former relies on patterns of thought (e.g. intuitions, value commitments, principles or considered judgements) to justify normative theories, the latter instead relies on patterns of behaviour. Floyd argues that normative behaviourism offers an alternative methodology to mainstream mentalism, a new – and better – way of doing political philosophy. Our aim in this article is to reject this claim: normative behaviourism does not offer an alternative methodology in political theory. First, we show that normative behaviourism, contrary to Floyd’s claim, is as dependent on value premises as mainstream, ‘mentalist’ political theory. Second, we illustrate the structural similarities between normative behaviourism and mainstream political theory from a methodological standpoint by comparing the former with an influential normative theory, namely, utilitarianism.