Is Ideal Theory Useless for Nonideal Theory?

Ever since the debate between ideal and nonideal theory emerged in political theory, a “strong position” has been defended, which holds that ideal theory is useless for theorizing what ought to be done to make our actual societies more just. Varieties of this position have been put forward, but the...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Journal of politics 2022-01, Vol.84 (1), p.525-540
Main Authors: Erman, Eva, Möller, Niklas
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Criticism
Political science theories
Political theory
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Summary:Ever since the debate between ideal and nonideal theory emerged in political theory, a “strong position” has been defended, which holds that ideal theory is useless for theorizing what ought to be done to make our actual societies more just. Varieties of this position have been put forward, but the criticism has been underdeveloped. In the last couple of years, however, the strong position has been defended in a more systematic way and on other grounds than previous proposals. It is argued that ideal theory is entirely uninformative for theorizing nonideal principles. It is this version of the strong position that is scrutinized in the present paper. We make two claims. First, we argue that the arguments put forward fail to demonstrate that ideal theory is uninformative in the intended sense. Second, we sketch plausible ways in which ideal theory may be informative in construing principles for our current conditions.
ISSN:0022-3816
1468-2508
DOI:10.1086/714764