Introduction
Over the past decade, compromise has attracted renewed scholarly attention in moral and political philosophy, particularly within the analytical tradition,Footnote 1 reflecting increased interest in questions of disagreement and pluralism. However, the relationship between compromise, morality, and democracy proves to be relatively entangled, if not profoundly ambivalent. On the one hand, compromise is presented as a procedure leading to morally problematic outcomes: the abandonment of core values, betrayal of integrity, lack of coherence, strategic calculations, and the stifling of social debate and contestation—thereby undermining democratic ideals.Footnote 2 On the other hand, compromise is often granted positive moral value, as a commendable decision-making approach for resolving conflicts, as an alternative to consensus, or even as a defining feature of democracy that promotes values of mutual respect, reciprocity, and inclusion.Footnote 3 This duality gives rise to two opposing theoretical camps. The first criticizes compromise, arguing that the defense of compromise amounts to praise nihilism or the absence of principles.Footnote 4 Compromise is criticized for exacerbating social inequalities, due to unequal bargaining power among stakeholders,Footnote 5 and for its potentially violent and coercive effects when treated as the sole method for managing democratic conflicts.Footnote 6 The second group views politics as fundamentally “the art of compromise.”Footnote 7 John Morley, a 19th-century British Lord who authored one of the first comprehensive work on this subject, argued that “compromise … is fully compatible with fervor and hope and devotion to great causes” (1886/1906: 86). Paradoxically, the analytical focus in the literature on some technical aspects of compromise—compromise as process versus compromise as outcome, principled versus instrumental justifications of compromise (Golding Reference Golding1979)—has fragmented the notion, to a point where it has obstructed the formation of a comprehensive theory of compromise.
As the concept has been chiefly explored within the tradition of analytical philosophy, it has overshadowed the significant contributions of continental philosophy and other disciplinary traditions that have previously engaged with the concept of compromise. This oversight is particularly surprising, given that sociology—from Georg Simmel’s microsociology of conflict (1964) to the pragmatic sociology of Laurent Thévenot and Luc Boltanski in On Justification: Economies of Worth (2006)—elaborated some of the earliest systematic frameworks for understanding compromise, well before normative philosophy turned its attention to the topic. This disciplinary precedence carries implications that go beyond mere anecdotical historical interest. It signals compromise’s fundamental conceptual affinity with the social sciences and suggests that the concept itself constitutes a “situated knowledge,” to borrow the expression of Donna HarawayFootnote 8—a knowledge that is perspectival, shaped by the particular position and cultural location of those who produce it. From this point of view, any adequate theorization of compromise must account for its social, political, and cultural embeddedness.
This paper builds on the hypothesis that Paul Ricœur’s philosophy offers the appropriate conceptual framework to understand adequately the meaning of compromise in democracy. Although Paul Ricœur only gave a brief interview on the topic, entitled “The Ethics of Compromise” (Reference Ricœur1991), I contend that Paul Ricœur’s philosophical thought provides essential elements that shed new light on the concept of compromise in democracy, particularly on its ethical foundations.Footnote 9
My main argument is that compromise can be grounded in an ethics and viewed positively as a fundamental element of democratic politics and intersubjectivity. As such, an ethics of compromise can also help to characterize compromising behaviors—that is, sacrificing one’s principles. It should be made clear from the outset that a Ricœurian approach to compromise is not a theory of compromise that P. Ricœur himself developed. Thus, the philosophical method that I follow is not strictly an exegesis of P. Ricœur’s texts, but mobilizes Ricœurian concepts to systematize his remarks and develop an original frameworkFootnote 10 for understanding compromise, with particular emphasis on its ethical dimension.
This paper is structured into two main parts. First, I examine how the concept of compromise implies to reconsider the relationship between ethics and politics and demonstrates how Paul Ricœur offers a compelling framework for this re-evaluation. Instead of separating politics from ethics, or establishing a hierarchy between these domains, Ricœur focuses on their intersection. This overlap between ethics and politics, however, does not imply that politics is fully subject to ethics, as there are aspects of politics—such as power dynamics, negotiation, and strategic thinking—that escape ethical scrutiny. Conversely, ethics cannot be subsumed under politics, in light of the need to respect diverse conceptions of the good in pluralist societies. Building on P. Ricœur’s thought, I then propose a new definition of compromise as the “voluntary and innovative intersection of conflicting domains.” Second, I analyze the ethics of compromise as a disposition of Ricœurian agents. Given the continuity between ethics and politics in Ricœur’s philosophy, compromise must be grounded in a philosophy of a subject (Ricœur Reference Ricœur1988, Reference Ricœur1990, Reference Ricœur2004) that places recognition at its core and understands persons as capable yet fallible agents who can work toward the common good, while accepting enduring disagreements (Ricœur Reference Ricœur1991).
The intersection between politics and ethics: a metaphor for compromise?
Methodologically, Ricœur does not opt for a comparison between classical authors who have historically debated the contentious relationship between politics and morality; instead, he prefers to start his inquiry from the contemporary need of ethics in politics (Ricœur Reference Ricœur1991a, Reference Ricœur2019: 95–113). Theoretical discussions that separate morality from politics, by placing individual morality on one side, and political realism on the other, not only lack practical relevance but also dangerously undermine legitimate citizens' demands for ethical politics—demands that contemporary societies cannot, and should not, ignore, particularly in the wake of political scandals involving unethical conduct, such as corruption and conflict of interests.
For Ricœur, the relationship between ethics and politics is fundamental for the political community and warrants our consideration.
In this part, I shall first explain that Ricœur considers politics as deeply tied to an ethical purpose. Second, I shall show how this conceptualization of the relationship between ethics and politics opens the door to a new definition of an ethics of compromise, as an intersection of multiple domains.
The intersection of ethics and politics
In his article “Ethics and Politics,” Ricœur directly references the intersection as a paradigm of his conception of the relationship between ethics and politics:
First, in order to avoid any moralizing approach to the problem and not prejudge the order of precedence between ethics and politics, I propose that we speak in terms of intersection rather than subordination of the relationship of ethics to politics. I see two foci decentered from each other, each posing an original problem and creating a common segment, precisely through their intersection. (Ricœur Reference Ricœur1985: 58)
Politics and ethics are connected through intersection rather than hierarchical subordination: “(…) ethics and politics constitute two distinct spheres, even if they intersect” (Ricœur Reference Ricœur1985: 69). This suggests that ethics and politics constitute two distinct domains whose respective logics cannot be fully aligned. The concept of intersection represents the emergence of shared concerns and the potential for dialog between these domains. This terminology deliberately avoids normative language that would privilege one domain over another or conflate them entirely, instead creating a flat, horizontal relationship between the two spheres.Footnote 11 Intersection relates not two, but three domains, encompassing the economic, political, and ethical realms:
Second remark: it is not only of an intersection between two circles, that of ethics and that of politics, that I would like to speak to you about, but of the intersection between three circles: the economic, the political, and the ethical. (Ricœur Reference Ricœur1985: 58)
The advent of globalization has complexified the traditional tension between morality and politics by amplifying a third domain: economics.Footnote 12 The relationship between ethics and economics requires closer examination, especially given the debate over the alleged hierarchy or independence of economics. While classical approaches often treat economic efficiency as a distinct or even normatively prior domain, contemporary scholarship challenges this assumption. Amartya Sen, for instance, emphasizes that economic reasoning is intertwined with ethical evaluation, arguing that both economics and ethics would benefit from a closer relation (Sen Reference Sen1989). Similarly, Picavet has tried to identify the levels at which ethics can be relevant to questions of economic efficiency (Picavet Reference Picavet2009). Fleurbaey (Reference Fleurbaey2019) has emphasized the importance to develop frameworks that integrate social justice and economic reasoning, demonstrating that ethical issues are underlying various economic approaches. The branch of economics known as Social Choice theory, associated with scholars such as Sen and Fleurbaey, is primarily concerned with determining how goods, services, and well-being can be allocated in ways that satisfy specific axioms, which themselves embody ethical considerations. Ricœur anticipates and contributes to this reflection on the interdependence of economics and ethics by offering his own interpretation of the problem of the hierarchy of these two domains.Footnote 13 He adds that the claim of economics as a form of political knowledge (ranging from orthodox Marxists to neo-liberal perspectives) has tended to subordinate politics to the economic domain. According to Kandil, Ricœur’s statement on interconnections between domains has three aims: first, to describe how planetary civilization produces systemic injustices and unstable forms of life; second, to explain their root causes by examining the interconnections of economic, political, and ethical dimensions; and third, to identify the politico-ethical resources needed to address these injustices and foster more just, sustainable ways of living (Kandil Reference Kandil2023). In his article, Ricœur himself presents the following diagram to illustrate the three intersecting circles of politics, economics, and ethics (1958: 58):
I contend that P. Ricœur’s diagram provides a compelling illustration of the concept of compromise—an idea implicit in his work and warranting more explicit elaboration. From this schema, two key observations can be made:
1. P. Ricœur depicts an ideal model of intersection, where the spheres of economy, politics, and ethics are of equal size.
2. If these spheres become unbalanced—particularly if the economy dominates—their intersection shift, making it harder to achieve a balanced compromise, as the influence, or weight, of each domain fluctuates.
Understanding compromise as the overlap of these domains allows us to propose a guiding principle drawn from the previous diagram: Compromise is easier to achieve when the intersection is larger, that is, when values and interests converge on shared points and form a common basis for discussion. Conversely, the smaller the intersection—meaning the greater the divergence of values and interests—the harder it becomes to find compromise.
In sum, ethics must take into account the challenging, degraded conditions of its exercise under which it operates within the political realm. Ethics never completely coincides with the reality of politics; however, it should strive to maintain its connection to the political domain.Footnote 14 For Ricœur, politics inevitably includes a dimension of violenceFootnote 15—the State as a monopole of force or constraint that he borrows from Max Weber’s political philosophy—which ethics can never fully capture. Yet, politics also offers a space where the ethical goal of living together and mutual recognition can be actualized under the framework of the state as the rule of law.Footnote 16
For this reason, the relationship between politics and ethics is better understood as an intersection rather than in a hierarchical relation. Given this intersection, compromise can be reframed not simply as a concession, a giving-in, but as a creative convergence of values within domains among those involved.
The ethical aim of politics: the will-to-live-together in just institutions
For Ricœur, political institutions have an ethical dimension, as they aim to protect individual well-being: “Politics appears as the environment for fulfilling the wish for a good life” (Ricœur Reference Ricœur2019: 103). He further elaborates:
Without institutional mediation, the individual is merely a sketch of human being, his belonging to a political body [being] necessary for his human flourishing. (Ricœur Reference Ricœur1995: 39)
Institutions thus provide the foundational structures and framework for “living-together,” or acting-in-common—what Hannah Arendt referred to as “acting-together”Footnote 17—that allows individuals to act intentionally and take initiative. Through creative reconfiguration of norms, individuals strive to realize an ethical and political ideal in which they have a stake. Beyond supporting individual pursuits, political institutions also express a shared collective ethos. As Ricœur writes (Reference Ricœur1957: 724): “It is through ‘living well’ that politics and ethics mutually imply each other.” Individual happiness depends on the political community’s ability to embody a genuine will-to-live-together.Footnote 18
Principles of distribution and justiceFootnote 19 are underpinned by ethical presuppositions that grant them legitimacy. The institutional challenge lies in just distribution, ensuring the fair allocation of rights, duties, and resources. According to Ricœur, just institutions are not grounded in altruism, or mere procedures, but in a “sense of justice” rooted in the communal will to live together.Footnote 20 In this view, the legitimacy of democratic institutions cannot rest solely on obedience or prohibition; democratic institutions must also show an ability to foster well-being for citizens. If power derived legitimacy only from fear and faith, there would be no distinction between democracy and totalitarianism (or authoritarianism), as Raymond Aron observed (Reference Aron2017).
This clarifies the ethical purpose of Paul Ricœur’s “small ethics,” succinctly captured in a well-known phrase in his major opus, Oneself as Another (Ricœur Reference Ricœur1990: 279): “(…) the aim of the good life, with and for others, in just institutions.” His ethics weaves together three seemingly separate elements—self, others, and institutions—that are, in fact, interdependent. The good life cannot be conceived apart from one’s relationship to oneself, to those close to us (others), and to distant or anonymous others mediated through institutions oriented toward achieving justice (Landheer-Cieslak Reference Landheer-Cieslak2012: 7).
A new definition of an ethics of compromise: a voluntary and innovative intersection between different domains
In his interview “For an Ethics of Compromise,” P. Ricœur declares (1991:1) that “the problem of compromise is that one cannot reach the common good through a unitary justification, but only through the intersection of several orders of magnitude.” In that sense, the different domains (politics, economics, and ethics) that P. Ricœur outlined mobilize different orders of justification.
To clarify the concept of compromise, P. Ricœur explicitly cites in The Course of Recognition (Reference Ricœur2004: 299–307) and his interview “For an ethics of compromise” the French school of pragmatic sociology,Footnote 21 particularly its leading figures, Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot. Ricœur seems to have developed an interest in the concept of compromise after reading the major book of Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot, On Justification (De la Justification). He notes: “I believe this is the only significant text in the humanities that addresses the issue of compromise” (Reference Boltanski and Thévenot1991: 1). This observation raises, in turn, a question: how does Ricœur position himself in relation to the theoretical framework proposed by Boltanski and Thévenot?
In On Justification, Boltanski and Thévenot outline six “Cities” or “worlds,” each dedicated to a particular good. These cities correspond to distinct orders of justification, or “magnitude”—shared normative frameworks through which individuals justify their conduct and decisions. Among these worlds are the world of inspiration, the domestic world, the civic world, the world of opinion, the industrial world, and the market world. These worlds are arranged according to an “order of magnitude,” a principle or scale of value shared by actors within each world, which serves as a common grammar for evaluating and justifying the importance of various social activities and values, even as these actors may compete or conflict over the allocation of power or resources. The notion of “orders of magnitude” thus carries two key implications. First, it suggests a general principle for structuring society that governs how different domains, such as economic and political spheres, are characterized. Second, it underlies the power struggles and rivalries between these domains.
In line with Boltanski and Thévenot, Ricœur holds that “compromise emerges when multiple systems of justification come into conflict” (1991: 1). For him, the core challenge of compromise is that the common good cannot be justified in a univocal manner; rather, it necessitates “the intersection of multiple orders of worth (…). There exists no overarching rule for resolving conflicts; instead, conflicts are settled within a homogeneous order in which individuals recognize themselves” (1991: 1).
Ricœur argues that compromises mainly occur between preexisting orders, which he terms as external compromises. He illustrates this with the example of merchants operating within the commercial order, whose rules differ from those governing the familial order. However, compromises can also be internal, arising within the same order, like in a dispute between two merchants. According to Ricœur, the commercial order generates the most conflicts, as it extends the logic of market transactions into other spheres of value. In this respect, Ricœur aligns with Boltanski and Thévenot, implicitly endorsing their distinction between disputes, which involve the adjustment of worth across different worlds, and différends, which give rise to the creation of a shared world. He cites the following sentence from Boltanski and Thévenot (Reference Ricœur2004: 305):
In a compromise, an agreement is reached to accommodate, that is, to suspend the différend, without resolving it through a test within a single world.
For Ricœur, the complexity and inherent ambiguity of compromise lie in its attempt to regulate the différend, a difficult task insofar as compromise itself reveals the absence of any universally accepted order. Like Boltanski and Thévenot, Ricœur holds the value attributed to a good or a principle depends on the actor’s justificatory framework; it is shaped by the mutual discussion by the parties. In a similar fashion to the sociologists, Ricœur regards the concept of an objective standard for assessing compromise to be unattainable. The sociologist Christian Thuderoz (Reference Thuderoz2010: 188) expresses a similar idea on compromise: “the relationship between desiring subjects and desired objects determines the value of the exchange, rather than an intrinsic magnitude independent of the exchanging parties.”
Another important parallel with Boltanski and Thévenot lies in Ricœur’s preference to frame justice as a strategy of justification rather than as a fixed “shared value.” For Ricœur, the term “value” risks to obscure the plurality of justificatory criteria. Indeed, the common good is always pursued amidst pluralism, “under the condition of a plurality of principles of agreement” (Boltanski and Thévenot Reference Boltanski and Thévenot1991: 302). Accordingly, Ricœur contends that societies function within distinct systems for justifying what is just and unjust: each order has its own regulatory framework, and each set of rules defines a specific order of worth. This pluralization of justice closely parallels Michael Walzer’s theory of spheres of justice (Walzer Reference Walzer1984), which Ricœur explicitly references in Oneself as Another (Ricœur Reference Ricœur1990: 293–294).
Notably, however, Ricœur does not use the term “sphere” in his interview. One might speculate that he finds the “order of worth,” or “orders of magnitude,” a more fitting terminology for several reasons. First, the notion of sphere implies that all points are equidistant from a central point, whereas an order of worth rejects a central fixed point in favor of analyzing each actor’s position within a given framework. Moreover, a sphere suggests a geometrically perfect space, whereas an order of magnitude allows greater flexibility, enabling transformation and adaptation based on an individual’s emphasis on certain values within the order.
Departing from the approach of Boltanski and Thévenot, Ricœur does not seek to construct a typology or taxonomy of compromises—an effort that, while instrumental for analyzing social phenomena, runs the risk of reifying, oversimplifying the dynamic and evolving nature of agreement. Instead, Ricœur’s inquiry takes place at a philosophical and ethical level, examining the intersubjective relationships among actors and the very possibility of a common good. Viewed from this perspective, compromise emerges as an essential mechanism through which individuals become attuned to different values and justificatory worlds, thereby fostering an awareness of perspectives and logics different from their own.
Is it possible to further systematize Ricœur’s approach to compromise?
First, one can consider that compromise must be voluntary, though it builds upon the involuntary distribution of domains—a necessity we must accept—similar to those aspects of human experience not directly controlled by the will (Ricœur Reference Ricœur1988). For this philosopher, the will is neither absolutely free nor entirely determined, but is always non-coercive. The involuntary does not stand in simple opposition to the voluntary; rather, it forms an integral component of human agency. Thus, the involuntary disposition of domains does not obstruct human freedom but constitutes a necessary condition for the will to compromise; human agency involves accepting and working with involuntary elements. Second, compromise is also inventive, as it requires collaborative work with others to discover new intersections between previously unconnected values. Third, compromise proves difficult to achieve but also creative. There is no one-size-fits-all, ready-made solution for participants entering into compromise, and it depends heavily on contextual interactions wherein individuals evolve and justify their actions.
An ethics of compromise goes beyond mere concessions to be defined as a voluntary and creative process where individuals engage at the intersection of conflicting domains. This approach rests on both dialog and translation, and individuals’ capacity to build bridges between different value systems.
Compromise as a disposition of Ricœurian agents
Compromise becomes possible when grounded in an anthropology that makes it desirable. Compromise must begin with a philosophy of the subject. However, it cannot be grounded in just any conception of subjectivity, but specifically in the Ricœurian subject, one that makes room for the presence of the other within the self.
I contend that the dialectic between the self and the other is an integral part of the subject and accounts for the essential character of compromise. In Ricœur’s conception, the idem (essential characteristics) and the ipse (evolution of the self through time) are internally linked to alterity and mediated through “narrative identity.” Consequently, the ethical subject in P. Ricœur’s work has no other choice but to conceive himself in terms of compromise. What begins as a simple, mundane daily practice becomes a constant and essential dialectic of the subject, shaping how he positions himself in relation to oneself, to others, and third parties.
In this section, I emphasize that compromise is a process that must be based on “narrative identity,” which links idem, ipse, and the other, through narration. The self, as Ricœur writes (Ricœur Reference Ricœur1990: 268), acquires self-understanding only through mediation, in a “comparative, differential, oppositional” manner. It is precisely because I recognize the similar character of the other in me that I am ready to make compromises with both myself and others. It is also because I am aware that others are different from me that I engage in compromise. We compromise not only because others are not us, and we are not others, but because—despite interests and values that we may disapprove of and that are not ours—others are similar enough to us as beings of convictions, bearer of ethical values, to warrant compromise. Compromise illuminates the enigmatic consubstantial relationship between self and other that drives action. For P. Ricœur, being is not defined as substance; it is a self shaped by alterity from the very beginning. It exists as an “imperfect mediation” (Sugimura Reference Sugimura and Greisch1995: 215) of a person who is both fallible and capable of acting in the world.
Ricœurian identity, therefore, neither confines compromise to the illusion of pure consciousness nor removes it from the philosophy of action. The premise of a theory of compromise is a hermeneutics of the selfFootnote 22 inextricably linked to an ontology of action.
Compromise: a fundamental element of narrative identity for capable, yet fallible agents
How can Ricœur assert, without contradiction, that compromise “far from being a weak idea, is on the contrary an extremely strong idea” and, shortly after, that “compromise is always weak and revocable” (Ricœur Reference Ricœur1991: 6)? To make sense of these apparently paradoxical formulations, one must turn to Ricœur’s anthropology, understood as an ontology of action.
For Ricœur, the constitutive fragility of men directly affects the phenomenon of compromise, as the terrain upon which compromise unfolds is extremely fragile. While the contemporary philosophical notion of the subject has entered what he calls an “era of suspicion” (Reference Ricœur1995a: 44), Ricœur paradoxically places his approach within the longstanding tradition of philosophies of the subject. In his view, the subject remains a meaningful concept, as long as it is understood neither as a metaphysical category nor as a fiction. Instead, he advocates for a balance between what he terms the “exalted cogito” of Descartes and the “humiliated cogito” of Nietzsche (1990: 27). For Ricœur, the cogito is best described as “wounded” (Ricœur Reference Ricœur1990: 22)—its ontological fragility is inseparable from its capacity of agency.
Humanity is both fallible and capable: human power has an active sense, oriented toward action, but it is also powerlessness, incapacity for actualization, and vulnerability to suffering. Consequently, the capacities of the self are never fully guaranteed—and compromise will always carry elements of uncertainty, contingency, and unpredictability. The fragility and opacity of the self are compounded by the enigma of alterity: the other is both distinct from me, and yet another self. According to Ricœur, the self is not in opposition to the external world; rather, the presence of the other is woven into the very fabric of the self: “Alterity is not added from the outside to selfhood but belongs to the tenor of meaning and to the ontological constitution of selfhood” (Ricœur Reference Ricœur1990: 367). Therefore, this gap, both within oneself and between self and other, far from being accidental, serves as the driving force compelling humans to constantly and endlessly seek a better mediation of self-authentication through action and language. For Ricœur, the other is not an obstacle. It is, on the contrary, the key to the problem.
Self-recognition requires the assistance of others: reciprocity is embedded at the core of the subject’s identity, divided between idem identity (sameness) and ipse identity (selfhood). However, Ricœur’s concept of recognition should not be mistaken for an idealized, or overly optimistic, vision of social relations. The philosopher does not claim that mutual recognition, and the compromise it entails, is destined to succeed. On the opposite, recognition remains an “incomplete, mutilated” process (Ricœur Reference Ricœur2004: 109), as an inherent dissymmetry in one’s relation to both self and others will always persist. The intertwining of recognition and compromise in Ricœur’s thought leads to a renewed understanding of compromise, framing it as an ethical relation that presupposes reciprocity and unfolds within an asymmetry of powers.
Compromise at the risk of promise
For these reasons, there will never be an absolute guarantee that the commitment made through compromise will be honored. The risk of betraying compromise agreements is ever-present: while compromise carries a moral obligation, its violation is not always subject to sanction. Compromise is made possible through mutual promise. In other words, promise is the necessary condition of compromise. Etymologically derived from cum-promissum, compromise is a mutual agreement where the subjects both commit and attest themselves through others. To promise is to commit oneself through words to say that one will do tomorrow what is said today (Ricœur Reference Ricœur2005: 2).
The foundation of any promise is “a promise before the promise” (Ricœur Reference Ricœur, Crépon and de Launay2004a); all promises presuppose and depend upon this initial promise, which consists in keeping one’s word in all circumstances. To the question: “Who does one betray when one breaks one’s promise?”, Paul Ricœur would respond that it constitutes a triple betrayal (Assayag Reference Assayag2016): betrayal of the other, who counts on my promise and whose expectation is flouted; betrayal of oneself, of the deepest part of one’s being; and betrayal of language itself, for “a certain evil done to language as an institution” is also at stake. The subject must also recognize that lack accompanies the promise and forms part of its meaning; surrounded by a climate of uncertainty, the promise engages an uncertain future, due to its fiduciary dimension. Nothing also guarantees to the subject that others will respect their commitments. This “shadow of the negative” (2004: 165), mentioned by P. Ricœur, in other words, the permanent eventuality of promise betrayal, is not the reverse of compromise, but its very essence.
The ethics of compromise: a non-betrayal?
Despite the intrinsic fragility of compromise, Ricœur seeks to restore the positivity of compromise through an ethics. Compromise, he argues, is subject to mistrust because it is common to confuse it with compromising in the pejorative sense—with betrayal. Common usage has subjected compromise to a pejorative semantic shift, making the terms synonymous. Ricœur’s first philosophical gesture is to refine our perception by making a clear distinction between the two.
Undue concessions, or the abandonment of principles, constitute “a vicious mixture of plans and principles of reference,”Footnote 23 while compromise keeps the different orders of justification intact. Thus, compromising in the negative sense involves mixing orders (e.g., the political world and the family world), while compromise takes these different orders into account, without seeking to merge them. The confusion of orders at the core of bad compromising leads to conflicts of justification and ethically condemnable positions. For example, the order of love is based on a logic and practice of non-reciprocity and cannot be mixed, except for fallacious reasons, with the order of justice operating on the basis of proportional relations between the act committed and its sanction (Ricœur Reference Ricoeur2008).
Thus, compromise both acknowledges the need to construct a shared universe of justification beyond persisting disagreement and to maintain respect for each actor’s position and values, without privileging or confusing one order with another. It is the intersections, not a mishmash of contrary positions, that establish a common ground serving as the basis for compromise. Ricœur himself provides an example of inauthentic compromise.Footnote 24 He cites a company that must combine workers’ rights to unionize with productivity requirements. The boss would, by paternalism, invoke family values, asserting “We are a big family” and thereby establishing the superiority of the company’s order over that of the family. This would constitute a bad compromise, in the Ricœurian sense, as it would establish a hierarchy by crushing and mixing one order over another, and disregard ethical demands.
By contrast, he offers an example of authentic compromise: the entrepreneur who, in granting his workers the right to unionize, respects their social demands.Footnote 25 Indeed, the boss does not mix up or confuse the orders of the company and the workers, which remain heterogeneous and conflicting, but makes them meet at a precise point that threatens neither the order of the company nor employees’ demands. Even if the right to unionize is a priori against his own interests—it offers a right of rebellion against his decisions and the company’s orientations—this sacrifice is offset by workers’ well-being and their satisfaction of having their rights respected. This compromise, seemingly disadvantageous for the employer, actually benefits the company, as it leads to higher productivity and may perhaps foster greater employee loyalty.
For Ricœur, the delicate and ambiguous character of compromise relates to the settlement of democratic “disagreement,” a problematic issue insofar as compromise precisely reveals the absence of a universally acknowledged unique order. According to him, compromise is a mode of resolution always partial and unsatisfactory, since it relies on fragmentary references and can only exist in an unstable form, positioned between the conflicting and opposing justifications of different orders. “Compromise is always weak and revocable, but it is the only way to aim at the common good.”Footnote 26
Conclusion
Rather than situating my approach to compromise within analytic philosophy or the Rawlsian scholarship—interpreting compromise in relation to established concepts such as overlapping consensus or modus vivendi—I have adopted a different starting point: considering the ethical dimension of politics that has been overlooked and that Paul Ricoeur brings to the forefront.
From this perspective, compromise is not equivalent to weakness but instead expresses a strong position on the nature of humanity living in a common world.
Ricœur does not equate compromise with bad compromising—that is, the negation of values, sacrifice of moral integrity, or reciprocal concessions that result in feeble proposals and unsatisfactory solutions for all. Far from being a lazy juxtaposition of viewpoints due to the inability to judge and decide, compromise, for Ricœur, represents an original intersection that evolves and reshapes each decision, rooted in the shifting and conflicting values and interests of individuals who are themselves divided. While human fragility constitutes both the condition and horizon of compromise, its counterpart lies in humanity’s capacity to promise and mediate the recognition of oneself and others through narrative identity.
Ricoeur’s political thought challenges us to rethink both democratic theory and practice. He invites us to move beyond idealized models aiming at full agreement or rational consensus, and instead to recognize persistent, irreducible conflicts of values as a normal and necessary feature of pluralistic societies. In this light, compromise is not a sign of democratic failure but a democratic practice through which citizens and institutions remain responsive, adaptable, and mutually accountable.
As noted in the introduction, compromise is often theorized in the analytic literature within a broadly Rawlsian framework, as shown in the work of Daniel Weinstock (Reference Weinstock2017) and Elise Rouméas (Reference Rouméas2019), with the notable exception of Margalit (Reference Margalit2013). Within these approaches, compromise is typically framed in relation to a modus vivendi and an overlapping consensus (Arnsperger and Picavet Reference Arnsperger and Picavet2004). It is considered normatively preferable to the former insofar as it appeals to reciprocity and mutual justification, yet it falls short of the latter’s ideal of principled agreement. In sum, these accounts aim to extend or critique the Rawlsian project by incorporating compromise into the framework of public reason (Wendt Reference Wendt2016). However, they largely remain reactive to the Rawlsian legacy, consisting mainly of corrective moves, such as reorienting deliberation toward compromise rather than consensus (Weinstock Reference Weinstock2017). As a result, they remain captive to Rawlsian distinctions, particularly that between compromise and modus vivendi Footnote 27 and thus fail to apprehend compromise in its own normative terms. This way of framing compromise limits the extent to which compromise can be understood as an original ethical practice in its own right.
On the contrary, Ricoeur’s philosophy of the subject offers a valuable framework to develop a robust ethics of compromise and clarify how to articulate different fields of democratic practice—economical, political, and ethical. By emphasizing ethical responsibility, his philosophy also foregrounds the role of the person as a reflective agent in political life. This perspective highlights how democratic institutions and procedures are inseparable from questions of judgment, compromise, and trust. In practice, it encourages the design of structures and mechanisms that foster the search of compromise under the constraints of human and institutional conditions. Rather than thinking solely in terms of political structures or agents, Ricoeur encourages considering political–ethical agents who operate within institutional structures. While Ricoeur’s emphasis on subjectivities as always already situated within institutions does mark a contrast with models of representative democracy that treat institutions as relatively external frameworks, it remains closer from participatory approaches that likewise stress the subjectivities of political agents within shared practices and structures. The specificity of Ricoeur’s contribution lies, however, in how he articulates these subjectivities in explicitly ethical terms, foregrounding the mediation between personal agency, institutional norms, and the aim of the “good life with and for others in just institutions.” He envisions democratic politics as an intermediate space shaped by vulnerable agents operating across different domains, seeking shared yet always partial intersections between values.
His philosophical approach provides a way to renew democracy in the face of polarization and declining institutional trust, and it does so by reconfiguring how we understand and practice compromise. Instead of viewing compromise as a reluctant concession or a purely strategic adjustment between fixed interests, it becomes an ethically grounded process through which political agents recognize one another as legitimate interlocutors within shared institutions. In contexts marked by polarization, such an account helps shift the focus away from zero-sum confrontations toward practices that preserve plurality while maintaining the possibility of common action. At the same time, by situating compromise within an ethical relation to institutions (understood not merely as constraints but as sites of shared meaning and responsibility) it offers a way to address declining trust: institutions can be reimagined as spaces continuously shaped and justified through the practices of those who inhabit them.
Engaging with Ricoeur allows scholars and practitioners to approach democracy as a dynamic process that weaves together ethical judgment with oneself and others, aimed at sustaining social cohesion and democratic progress. In parallel, it sheds light on specific vulnerabilities of both democracy and the practice of compromise, based on an understanding of the subject as simultaneously fallible and capable.
In the absence of any universally acknowledged common good, compromise becomes not merely an occasional decision, as it is often portrayed in the existing compromise scholarship, but a constant requirement in democracy for actors to consider the pluralism of ethical perspectives. A Ricoeurian perspective allows us to formulate a comprehensive new definition of the concept: compromise is the intersection of conflicting values across orders, in which actors bring them into concordance and articulate justifications. It is by relinquishing exclusive claims to their respective viewpoints that individuals create and maintain a political world where mutual recognition and coexistence become possibilities.
This overlooked ethical understanding of compromise highlights the originality of a Ricoeurian approach to compromise, as it changes the direction of existing literature. By grounding democratic theory and practice in ethical reflection, this perspective highlights how compromise and institutional trust are not procedural concerns but foundational for a resilient and responsive political order.
Engaging in compromise then means mourning a homogeneous democratic society and simultaneously creating new possibilities for dialog and encounter. An ethics of compromise follows a different path from submission. By taking seriously the intersection of politics and ethics, it facilitates mutual recognition among diverse agents, situated within institutions, allowing all to participate in the social bond. By the same token, it opens up the possibility of building a new pluralistic order that acknowledges the conflictual plurality of values.
This philosophical exploration aimed to demonstrate the relevance of Ricœur’s thought in articulating a framework for an ethics of compromise, highlighting that both contestation and cooperation are vital to democratic life.
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Laure Gillot–Assayag is a political scientist specializing in compromise and democracy. She is an associate researcher at EHESS and a Democratic Vistas postdoctoral fellow at Goethe University Frankfurt. A former Fulbright Scholar at UC Berkeley, she has held visiting positions at McGill University, Columbia University, Academia Sinica, and Keio University. She was awarded the Paul Ricoeur Excellence Prize.
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