Special issue on ideal and non-ideal theories of justice

by Ingrid Robeyns on August 15, 2008

Political philosophers/theorists may be interested in the latest issue of “Social Theory and Practice”:http://www.fsu.edu/~philo/STP/index2.html , which is a special issue devoted to the debate on ideal and non-ideal theories of justice. This special issue is a selection of papers from a wonderful ECPR workshop which Adam Swift and I organised in Helsinki in 2007. There has been quite a bit of debate on this topic in recent years, and Harry and I have been mentioning in some of our posts that we should have that debate here too – Well, I wait till my copies have arrived. The journal sells single issues for a mere ten dollars (plus shipping for outside the USA); scroll down on “the journal’s homepage”:http://www.fsu.edu/~philo/STP/index2.html for instructions in case you’re interested.

{ 29 comments }

1

cervantes 08.15.08 at 2:57 pm

How about cluing us math majors in on what constitute ideal vs. non-ideal theories of justice? It’s not exactly the hot water cooler topic around here.

2

Chris Bertram 08.15.08 at 5:44 pm

#1 On one way of cutting the territory up, an ideal theory of justice is one for a world where people are committed to the principles the theory generates and willing and able to comply with what those principles demand. A non-ideal theory specifies what principles there should be in a world with a bunch of people, some of whom don’t agree with the principles, aren’t motivated to comply etc. By tweaking the details (how bad are the baddies and how many? how good are the goodies, ditto?) you can generate endless inbetweeny variants. And for some people (G.A.Cohen) for example, Rawlsian ideal theory (see above) is still a shoddy compromise with real-world limitations, and so not really ideal at all.

3

Colin Farrelly 08.15.08 at 7:51 pm

I look forward to reading this special issue of the journal.

Re: #1, I think the Ideal and nonideal theory debate is a dispute concerning how *fact-sensitive* a theory of justice (be it domestic or global) ought to be. And this reflects a larger methodological dispute concerning what it is that normative theorists are doing when deriving and assessing a theory (and principles) of distributive justice.

Those inclined to engage in ideal theory enjoy invoking very abstract thought experiments (e.g. imagine there are only 2 people in the world, they have equal talents, etc.) and then these kinds of abstractions play a prominent role in their deliberations concerning what the fundamental principles of justice are. Luck egalitarianism is a prime example of this. So if you ask a luck egalitarian: “In the big picture of things, what would a just distributive outcome look like?” The answer is: “The only inequalities that would exist are ones that can be traced back to the choices individuals have made (rather than circumstances beyond their control)”. And thus when luck egalitarians gaze upon the real world they inhabit they are mortified by the pervasive existence of unchosen inequalities.

At the other end of the spectrum are those who pay attention to human history (how did we arrive at the current situation in the first place?) and a wide range of real-world constraints (e.g. what impedes us from achieving a particular patterned principle, etc.). One constraint is the fact of non-compliance, which Chris mentioned above. But many other factors could also be invoked- like that fact that even the richest countries have pervasive forms of disadvantage (like disease, natural disasters, accidents, etc.), scarcity, limited cognitive capacities (e.g. imperfect and incomplete information) not to mention patriarchy, racism, etc. Some of these facts are down to the fact that some people are goodies and others baddies, but other facts reflect the reality that humans are intrinsically vulnerable, that we begin from a position of ignorance concerning what a decent government can actually achieve and what it cannot, that we are temporal, social beings, etc. And so theorists partial to non-ideal theory put much more emphasis on human history and the findings of social science, rather than abstract thought experiments.
Cheers,
Colin

4

Ben Saunders 08.15.08 at 11:17 pm

I’m not sure that putting in terms of fact sensitivity is the most helpful way of explaining the debate to a newcomer. After all, Rawls adheres to ideal theory as he defines it (i.e. full compliance), but he’s the guy Cohen’s criticizing for fact sensitivity.

Of course, you could say compliance levels are simply one fact (among others) for a theory to be sensitive to, but I don’t think it’s the most helpful way of introducing the matter. (Then again, often I’m not sure what is going on, since so many people seem to be making their own distinction).

5

Ingrid Robeyns 08.16.08 at 4:54 am

One of the thing the papers in the special issue do is to examine (and defend) various proposals on how to define ideal vs. non-ideal theory (in fact, some would say there is no non-ideal theory, only ideal theory which can then be applied in non-ideal circumstances (I’m not one of those). It is my impression too that political philosophers tend to ‘very roughly’ agree on what the distinction is (the terms are used frequently), but when they nail it down, their definitions/distinctions differ in subtle but important ways.
In any case, I hope that the definitions offered above give a rough hunch to those from other fields what the debate is about; for those who are interested in the details I’d proppose to wait for a more indepth-discussion till the journal has arrived in the libraries (and I have my copy! )

6

Rick Dubin 08.16.08 at 4:20 pm

Justice, I know it when it happens to me.

At the risk of simplifying a complex subject I would posit that justice is dependent upon your role. As a police officer, one might consider justice the solving of crime and the sentencing of the guilty , as a social worker, the equitable distribution of services to those in need thereof. To a citizen of a nation aware of the impact of that nation on the rest of the world or the role of her govt in dispensing such internally we get a more tenuous grasp of this question.

Perhaps we overcomplicate things too much. Maybe justice should be tied more firmly to fairness, to equitable dispensing of resources to those in need rather than to those in power. Perhaps I am failing to grasp the nuance at work here, ideal justice theory / non-ideal theory….I am a nuts and bolts sort of guy and think , when the word justice leaps up, that far too many are denied justice and far too many maniplualte the system to obtain a sort of justice that is not that at all.

7

abb1 08.16.08 at 4:52 pm

Maybe justice should be tied more firmly to fairness…

I don’t think it helps, because ‘fairness’ (or, rather, ‘un-fairness’) is also something we only notice when it happens to us. Or a blond child. Or a cute puppy.

8

roy belmont 08.16.08 at 11:08 pm

Or something that hits those same places of notice, which isn’t always cuteness or blondeness, in everyone. Recognizing the unfair treatment of the unattractive, or even the repulsive, is an attribute of the larger heart.

9

abb1 08.17.08 at 7:59 am

But “recognizing the unfair treatment” is exactly what defines an “unfair treatment”; there is no other ‘justice’ than statistical presentation of emotional awareness of individuals. This particular emotion is extremely subjective and varies dramatically over time and cultural/socioeconomic space. So, to have any logical ‘theory of justice’ you would have to first define a rigid doctrinal framework; any minor modification of your doctrine likely causing dramatic change in your brand of ‘justice’. Doctrines in this world are a dime a dozen, so what is the value of this theory?

10

David Reidy 08.17.08 at 3:48 pm

It is easy to conflate two distinctions here. One is between ideal and nonideal theory. There the distinction is roughly between the specification of what we can reasonably hope and thus ought to practically work for under favorable conditions and the specification of what we ought to do under less than favorable or even very pressing conditions. Another concerns the way in which we specify what we can reasonably hope and thus ought to practically work for. Here the distinction is roughly between what we might call an institutionalist approach (one that takes historically given institutional forms as a starting point for a critical normative reconstruction) and a rationalist approach (one that aims to reason solely from universal truths about human nature, conceptual necessities, and so on, and without appeal to existing or given institutional relations, self-understandings, and so on). One reason why the debate over ‘ideal theory’ rages (there is more than one reason) is that readers of Rawls have run these two distinctions together in characterizations of his methodological commitments.
(Rawls emphasizes the need for and priority of ideal theory (it frames nonideal theory), but takes an institutionalist approach to doing ideal theory (which many readers miss, treating Rawls as a paradigmatic rationalist, in the sense set out above).

11

Roy Belmont 08.17.08 at 4:04 pm

Being human is subjective. There’s missing links all over the place, some in political office. The clamor for definitional centrality.
“No, we’re the real true humans!”
Abandoning the assertion of higher human qualities because defining human qualities is subjective in the first place is weak and does not serve.

Everything can be defined away, literally everything right down to the structural materials in the room you’re in. All atoms and molecules shifting and indeterminate and not solid at all. Then because that solidity’s an illusion…the cartoon, Wiley Coyote still furiously sprinting in place, the cliff edge some way behind him, nothing but air for thousands of feet below…

Accusations of absurdity in the insistence on fair play calls up Englishmen in croquet whites on tropical lawns back in the 1920’s, for me.
For others maybe it’s the 1880’s. Or simple-minded Americans in loud shirts.
Or the nice but lame and undynamic kids back in high school.

None of that changes the fact that some very important things exist only because we assert them.
And that in turn doesn’t undermine the value or validity of those things. To us.
In the face of indeterminate reality and the plain fact of subjectivity life becomes an assertion. Rights and principles come after.
Reason proceeds out of the nebulous.
The Cartesian “sum”. Recursive identifiers identifying themselves through mirrors of recognition.
It all starts some place like that.
Just because.

12

abb1 08.17.08 at 5:15 pm

Maybe everything is subjective, I don’t know, but some things certainly are a lot more subjective than others. I mean, we have ‘beauty pageants’, but not ‘theories of beauty’, as far as I know.

13

Righteous Bubba 08.17.08 at 5:49 pm

14

dick rubin 08.17.08 at 6:09 pm

am i the only one here who has no idea what dubin, abb1 and belmont are on about? get off the shrooms, boys.

15

geo 08.17.08 at 6:37 pm

What about approaching the definition of justice a little more inductively? As in: (nearly) all of us agree that A is unjust; let’s compare our reasons for thinking so. For example: I’m currently bilious about the fact that hundreds of millions of children sleep in houses without windows or screens, so a million or two of them die each year of malaria, while the Christmas bonuses handed out at a single Wall Street investment bank would easily cover the expense of insecticide-treated screens for all of them. Is this unjust?

Well, would it be unjust to let your child die for lack of a tiny expenditure if you had pots of money? Of course. Your sister’s child? Your neighbor’s child? A child across town? Across the country? Across the world? In each case, why? I know there are lots more steps to the rich world’s failure to provide those screens, but wouldn’t proceeding stepwise like this be useful? Or is this what moral philosophers commonly do?

16

geo 08.17.08 at 6:38 pm

What about approaching the definition of justice a little more inductively? As in: (nearly) all of us agree that A is unjust; let’s compare our reasons for thinking so. For example: I’m currently bilious about the fact that hundreds of millions of children sleep in houses without windows or screens, so a million or two of them die each year of malaria, while the Christmas bonuses handed out at a single Wall Street investment bank would easily cover the expense of insecticide-treated screens for all of them. Is this unjust?

Well, would it be unjust to let your child die for lack of a tiny expenditure if you had pots of money? Of course. Your sister’s child? Your neighbor’s child? A child across town? Across the country? Across the world? In each case, why? I know there are lots more steps to the rich world’s failure to provide those screens, but wouldn’t proceeding stepwise like this be useful? Or is this what moral philosophers commonly do?

17

geo 08.17.08 at 6:38 pm

Sorry, hit the “Submit” button twice.

18

abb1 08.17.08 at 7:19 pm

This website used to be able to detect and reject a double-post; decay and fall everywhere.

And no, plenty of people would say that it’s unjust to take from (coerce) an investment bank and give to children, that’s the whole point.

What’s striking here is that the two groups holding these diametrically opposite views on ‘justice’ (must take a little from the bank – mustn’t take anything from the bank) are of the same general persuasion – liberals. Like I said before: minor doctrinal disagreements, yet their understandings of ‘justice’ are dramatically different. And now think about liberals vs. socialists (who would simply expropriate the bank) or nationalists (who don’t care about any children outside their country/race/ethnicity), or countless combinations of various degrees of these main doctrines.

19

abb1 08.17.08 at 7:20 pm

This website used to be able to detect and reject a double-post; decay and fall everywhere.

And no, plenty of people would say that it’s unjust to take from (coerce) an investment bank and give to children, that’s the whole point.

What’s striking here is that the two groups holding these diametrically opposite views on ‘justice’ (must take a little from the bank – mustn’t take anything from the bank) are of the same general persuasion – liberals. Like I said before: minor doctrinal disagreements, yet their understandings of ‘justice’ are dramatically different. And now think about liberals vs. soc1al1sts (who would simply expropriate the bank) or nationalists (who don’t care about any children outside their country/race/ethnicity), or countless combinations of various degrees of these main doctrines.

20

Roy Belmont 08.17.08 at 7:48 pm

Tom O’Roughley

‘Though logic-choppers rule the town,
And every man and maid and boy
Has marked a distant object down,
An aimless joy is a pure joy,’
Or so did Tom O’Roughley say
That saw the surges running by.
‘And wisdom is a butterfly
And not a gloomy bird of prey.

‘If little planned is little sinned
But little need the grave distress.
What’s dying but a second wind?
How but in zig-zag wantonness
Could trumpeter Michael be so brave?’
Or something of that sort he said,
‘And if my dearest friend were dead
I’d dance a measure on his grave.’

W.B Yeats

21

Dave 08.18.08 at 5:14 pm

What better way to end a discussion about political philosophy than a ‘retort-via-dead-reactionary-poet.’

22

Dave 08.18.08 at 5:19 pm

For the record, there are clearly two Daves getting at you, Roy. That wasn’t me.

23

Roy Belmont 08.18.08 at 7:10 pm

Well hey, thanks for that clarification, Dave-who-is-not-the-Dave-that called-Yeats-a-dead-reactionary-poet.

24

Dave 08.18.08 at 7:26 pm

Indeed, I should hate to have you think that I would make such a shallow judgment of a major literary figure.

25

roy belmont 08.18.08 at 9:54 pm

Well hey, Dave-whom-I’m-assuming-is-the-Dave-who-is-not-the-Dave-who-called-Yeats-a-dead-reactionary-poet, the latter Dave henceforward to be known as DwcYadrp.
Since the only distinction between either Dave so far available to me is that Yeatsian calumny, I’m afraid I haven’t much of a sense of where to put that thought, the “that I would make such a shallow judgment of a major literary figure” thought, whether alongside other, previous, more objectionable unprincipled statements from the first-encountered Dave, whether yet DwcYadrp and DwintDwcYadrp, contradistinct from the less perspicacious Dave, or revelatory of heretofore hidden reserves of integrity in the more dubious Dave, and therefore in its own category.
You see the dilemma, I’m sure.

26

A mere 10 dollars 08.18.08 at 11:33 pm

Come on, why isn’t this journal open access? As someone who struggles to do research at a university that can’t afford resources I need, I can’t believe scholars keep giving up their work to journals to subsidize the rentiers who scoop up all the profits from the current system.

27

Dave 08.19.08 at 8:43 am

And that’s why I love the internet…

28

djw 08.19.08 at 4:45 pm

Of course, by the standards of philosophy journals, this is probably about as cheap as they get. I make a point of sending pdf attachments of journal articles to people who want them but don’t have access; the system is ridiculous and awful but those of us with access can make it better by being generous.

geo, that’s a pretty standard method for a lot of moral/political philosophers, but of course it only gets you so far. Sometimes it works better in the resverse direction, to demonstrate that principles that sound reasonable and compelling lead to bizarre moral judgments no one would accept. That doesn’t finish the job of refuting that view, of course, but it can help stimulate thought on what might be wrong with the proposed principle after all.

29

engels 08.19.08 at 10:21 pm

$15 including shipping is a nice price. It would probably cost you more than that to print the PDFs.

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