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Article Excerpt
1. Introduction
In the post-Rawlsian literature on theories of justice, most of the work done by mainstream political theorists and philosophers is part of what is known as "ideal theory." John Rawls explicitly defined his work as ideal theory, which he described as a conception of a fully just society. He acknowledged that, with the exception of his analysis of civil disobedience, he would not pursue nonideal theory. Rawls thought he prioritized ideal theory for good reasons: "the reason for beginning with ideal theory is that it provides, I believe, the only basis for the systematic grasp of these more pressing problems [that we are faced with in everyday life]." He went on to claim that "the nature and aims of a perfectly just society is the fundamental part of the theory of justice." (1) Rawls believed that we cannot develop nonideal theory without first working out ideal theory. Post-Rawlsian theories of justice have broadly endorsed this view about the need for theorists of justice to prioritize ideal theory, and the current literature on social justice is mainly concerned with working out, revising, refining, and debating the relative merits of different ideal principles of justice, and the justification of those principles.
In recent years, however, a growing number of political philosophers have expressed worries about the nature of ideal theory and its dominance in the literature on social justice. Jonathan Wolff has argued that "ideal thinkers who want to have some impact on reality should pay more attention to issues of transition." Amartya Sen considers ideal theory (which he calls "transcendental theory") neither necessary nor sufficient to guide justice-enhancing policies. He strongly criticizes what he takes to be the "all or nothing extremism" of ideal theory, and argues for moving the theory of justice outside that "little comer." Charles Mills contends that ideal theory "is really an ideology, a distortional complex of ideas, values, norms, and beliefs that reflect the nonrepresentative interests and experiences of a small minority of the national population--middle-to-upper-class white males--who are hugely over-represented in the professional philosophical population." Colin Farrelly has also staged a fierce attack on ideal theory, claiming it to be "inherently flawed." (2)
What is one to make of these strong criticisms of ideal theory? What are the merits and limitations of ideal and nonideal theory, and what is their proper role? These are the broad questions that I will address in this essay. (3) Yet before we can embark on that task, we have to confront the problem of the rather different and often conflicting definitions that are given to "idealize," "ideal theory," and "nonideal theory." I will therefore first clear the ground by proposing a set of definitions and descriptions, together with a simple typology of the different types of work that can be distinguished in the normative social justice literature. One of the key questions when defining ideal theory is the question of how it relates to idealizations. I will distinguish ideal theory from idealizations and discuss how they relate. I will suggest how we could distinguish useful idealizations from bad idealizations. The last part of the paper briefly discusses the implications for the practice of ideal theorizing. I will argue that the role of ideal theory is limited, perhaps more so than generally acknowledged in the literature, and that these limitations should be much more explicitly discussed by ideal theorists. I will defend the view that ideal theory does have a role to play, but that in the daily practice of theorizing about justice at least three changes are needed: more attention should be paid to filtering out bad idealizing assumptions, the academic profession should correct the current academic bias towards ideal theorizing by re-evaluating nonideal theory, and much more theoretical work remains to be done on the questions of how to bridge the gap between ideal and nonideal theory, and on clarifying what makes them good rather than bad theories.
2. Normative Social Justice Analysis: A Typology
What are the different types of normative social justice research that we can distinguish? (4) There are, in my view, three different layers of research that need to be distinguished: ideal theory, nonideal theory, and action design and implementation. The last two categories form the nonideal work in normative social justice research--but they are distinguished by the fact that action design and implementation is primarily empirical research, in contrast to nonideal theory.
In the following typology, I am not including the radically fact-insensitive kind of "pure" ideal theory that is best known from the work of G.A. Cohen. (5) This kind of theory does not start from a concern with addressing social ills and contributing to justice-enhancing practice, but rather with an interest in knowledge for the sake of knowledge. The corresponding conceptions of justice may therefore never be realizable, not now, not in the near future, and not even in any future that is consistent with established facts of the biophysical sciences, such as the fact of gravity or human mortality. Cohen is very clear about his view: "the question for political philosophy is not what we should do but what we should think, even when what we should think makes no practical difference." (6) One could question whether such a "pure" view of the concept of justice should be considered normative at all. Such a view may have an inspirational and pure philosophical functioning, but one can raise serious doubts whether it has any relevance for the practice of justice beyond such an inspirational role. This kind of hyper-ideal fact-insensitive "pure" theory raises questions that are even more difficult than the questions raised by other types of ideal theory. An analysis of hyper-ideal fact-insensitive "pure" theory will therefore have to wait for another occasion, and we will ignore this category in the typology that follows. (7)
2.1. Ideal theory
The aim of ideal theory is to work out the principles of justice that should govern a society, that is, to propose and justify a set of principles of justice that should be met before we would consider a certain society just. In Rawls's words, we ask "what a perfectly just society would be like." (8) When defending and justifying the ideal principles of justice, we assume full compliance with those principles. However, the often heard shortcut among political philosophers that "ideal theory equals full compliance" is not very accurate and is potentially misleading, since full compliance may also hold for principles of justice that do not lead to a just society. When defining ideal theory, it should therefore be stressed that it is not about full compliance with any kind of principles of justice, but full compliance with those principles of justice that are morally required in order for society to be completely just.
Ideal theory can be comprehensive or partial. If an ideal theory of justice is truly comprehensive, then that theory would tell us what conditions should be met before each and every instance of injustice is removed. That is one extreme on a continuum where perhaps no contemporary theory is situated. Rather, some ideal theories are more comprehensive than others. Partial ideal theory can be partial in several ways. First, it may be partial if it specifies the minimal principles of justice, while leaving open the possibility that if these principles are met, further principles of justice would need to be achieved. An example is Martha Nussbaum's capabilities approach, which argues that threshold levels of ten central human capabilities should be met as the first priority of justice, while leaving open what justice requires once these thresholds are achieved by all. (9) A second way in which ideal theory can be partial is by focusing on one domain of justice, such as justice in health, family justice, gender justice: we may defend principles of justice telling us what is required for complete gender justice, while remaining silent on all other domains of justice. Or ideal theory may be partial in a geopolitical sense, for example, by specifying the conditions that should be met for justice to be achieved within a nation-state, thereby disregarding justice between nation-states or on a global scale. Ideal theory may also be partial by restricting itself to spelling out the principles of political justice only, that is, describing what justice requires from the political institutions and agents, thereby disregarding what justice may require within private associations such as universities, religious organizations, or families. Partial ideal theory could also combine several of these partialities, for example, by specifying the principles required in order to achieve a threshold level of justice in health within the borders of one country.
What is the goal of ideal theory so defined? Ideal theory functions as a mythical Paradise Island. We have heard wonderful stories about Paradise Island, but no one has ever visited it, and some doubt that it truly exists. We have a few maps that tell us, roughly, where it should be situated, but since it is in the middle of the ocean, far away from all known societies, no one knows precisely where it is situated. Yet we dream of going there, and ask ourselves how we could get there, and in which direction we should be moving in order to eventually reach Paradise Island.
Paradise...
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