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Article Excerpt
One of the main tasks that occupies political theorists, and arouses intense debate among them, is the construction of theories--so-called ideal theories--that share a common characteristic: much of what they say offers no immediate or workable solutions to any of the problems our societies face. This feature is not one that theorists strive to achieve but nor can it be described as an accidental one: these theories are constructed in the full knowledge that, whatever else they may offer, much of what they say will not be immediately applicable to the urgent problems of policy and institutional design. Since this may seem puzzling, and has been subjected to severe criticism, the main task of this paper is to ask what is the point of ideal theory and to show the nature of its value. I will also argue that, while the debate over the point of ideal theory can be productive, it will only be so if we avoid treating ideal and nonideal theories as rival approaches to political theory.
My argument will unfold as follows. I begin in section 1 by sketching the background of the debate over the distinction between ideal and nonideal theory. In doing so I will concentrate on two recent critiques of ideal theory developed by Colin Farrelly and Charles W. Mills, hoping to show that they miss their target. (1) I will then, in section 2, suggest why we may want to define ideal theory as theory that fails to issue recommendations for how to improve our society that are applicable for us here and now. I will argue there that while ideal and nonideal theory can be profitably distinguished, many, if not all, theories of justice, such as Rawls's theory of domestic justice, operate simultaneously at the ideal and nonideal level. In section 3 I will review and reject an alternative suggestion for distinguishing between ideal and nonideal theory and defend ideal theory from the criticism that good normative theory should eschew relying on false assumptions. Finally, in section 4, I will explain the point of ideal theory that does not issue recommendations for how to improve our society that are applicable for us here and now.
1. The Ideal/Nonideal Distinction
What is ideal theory in the context of normative political theory? One straightforward understanding of the term states that a theory is ideal if it helps itself to the assumption of so-called full compliance. (2) Such a theory assumes that people, at least generally speaking, do what the theory demands of them. Such a theory is ideal in the sense that it assumes an idealized (untrue) version of reality: in the actual (nonideal) world, people do not always comply with what is required of them. The problem with such a straightforward definition of ideal theory is that even if assuming full compliance is a sufficient condition for a theory to qualify as an ideal theory, it is unclear if it can serve as a necessary condition. After all, there is no shortage of other features of the actual (nonideal) world that could potentially be bracketed off. What if we were to bracket off the fact that in the nonideal world people need access to food and water to survive? Would theories based on the assumption that people can live on air have enough in common with theories assuming full compliance to allow us to make common statements about their usefulness?
As recent work on ideal theory demonstrates, a number of theorists have tried to move beyond the understanding of ideal theory as based solely, or primarily, on the assumption of full compliance. Farrelly, for example, in a recent contribution to the debate, suggests (or implies) that all of the following might bear on whether a theory ought to be classified as ideal: (inappropriate) fact insensitivity; taking into account abstract hypotheticals; a cost-blind approach; ignorance of constraints; idealization; and ignorance of what is feasible. (3) This is a long list of features and Farrelly does not explore in any detail how they are all related to one another. Ultimately, however, he suggests that we see (inappropriate) insensitivity to facts as the main defining characteristic of ideal theory. (4) Specifically, the type of fact insensitivity that lies at the heart of ideal theory, according to Farrelly, involves idealization. (5) Here Farrelly draws on a distinction between idealization and abstraction introduced by Onora O'Neill: abstraction, according to O'Neill, consists in ignoring some complexities of a given problem without, however, assuming any falsehoods about them; idealization, on the other hand, consists in theorizing that makes some false assumptions. (6) Thus, for example, recommending that people be held responsible for their choices on the basis of the assumption that they can all choose wisely would involve idealization (since we are assuming a falsehood about a number of people), while recommending that people be held responsible for their choices because it often has positive incentive effects--whether or not they can choose wisely--would involve mere abstraction from the complex reality in which some can and some cannot choose wisely. (7) It is precisely because ideal theory involves idealization, according to Farrelly, that it ends up being "impotent" as normative theory; on his view we must turn to nonideal theory if we want to make progress with normative questions. (8)
Farrelly's distinction between ideal and nonideal theory echoes that of Mills, who has also argued that ideal theory involves idealization. Mills, however, explicitly sets up the contrast between idealization and its lack in starker terms than O'Neill does herself. We engage in idealization, according to Mills, when we build a model of some P, which is not descriptive of what the P is like, but rather models, on the basis of assumptions that are significantly false, what an ideal P should be like (where "should" can refer to a host of values: moral, prudential, to do with efficiency, and so on). (9) Ideal theory, then, according to Mills, stipulates significantly false attributes to individuals and/or groups and their interactions. (10) The conclusion that Mills reaches about the use of ideal theory is similar to that reached by Farrelly: according to Mills, ideal theory cannot illuminate normative problems precisely because it involves assuming what is significantly false. (11)
My outline of the views of both theorists has, of course, been only rudimentary (I will revisit their views in more detail in section 3 below), but the discussion should already have brought to the fore one fundamental question: how would we know if we arrived at a good definition of ideal theory and, by implication, a good account of the distinction between ideal and nonideal theory? Or, to put it differently: what is the distinction supposed to capture? Neither Farrelly nor Mills in their accounts offers explicit answers to these questions. Farrelly does not consider objections to his construal of the category of ideal theory and it seems at times as if the category of ideal theory was constructed specifically in order to map onto the useful/useless distinction. Mills avoids the impression that he is simply setting out to map "ideal" onto "useless" by building his interpretation of what "ideal theory" is on the basis of an exploration of how we can interpret the word "ideal." (12) But he too does not try to defend his categorization of ideal theory against alternative formulations. Admittedly, he suggests a hypothesis for how theorizing in the light of significantly false assumptions could attract enough theorists to emerge as a "type." Such theorizing, he explains, serves the interests of those who happen to approximate the false assumptions made by the theory. Thus, for example, the assumption that all people relate to each other in an autonomous way, according to Mills, serves the interests of "middle-to-upper-class white males--who are hugely over-represented in the professional philosophical population." (13) So the ideal/nonideal theory distinction proposed by Mills serves the purpose of distinguishing those whose engagement in political theory is relatively uncritical from those who succeed in constructing theories that reflect more than their own interests. (14)
Disagreement over the distinction in question will, clearly, to some extent depend on the purposes that the distinction is supposed to serve. And, of course, the theorists who construct the ideal/nonideal labels might seek to further diverse ends with their labels. For example, the primary purpose of a theorist trying to distinguish ideal from nonideal theory may well be to reserve the label "ideal theory" for "useless theory" and then to try to identify and persuade us of what makes a theory useless. So in order to agree on a distinction, we will have to agree on the purpose(s) it is supposed to serve. To say more about the purposes of the distinction, however, let me first examine what this thing is whose typology is in question: normative theory.
2. The Structure of Normative Theory
A theory--whether normative or positive--can be understood as a systematic account of our knowledge about a given dimension of reality (where the latter is broadly construed) that satisfies the criteria of what constitutes knowledge appropriate for that dimension. For example, a theory that systemizes our knowledge about climate fluctuations may need to meet criteria relating to falsification that would not apply to a theory dealing with the problem of theodicy. Importantly, all such theories have structures: that is, they have inputs, such as assumptions, outputs, such as final principles, and rules regulating the derivation of the output...
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