DOING NONIDEAL THEORY ABOUT GENDER IN GLOBAL CONTEXTS

Ideal and nonideal theory: A conceptual overview

Filozofija i drustvo ◽

10.2298/fid1302151t ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 24 (2) ◽

pp. 151-173

Author(s):

Milica Trifunovic

Keyword(s):

John Rawls ◽

Ideal Theory ◽

Nonideal Theory ◽

Law Of Peoples ◽

Theory Of Justice ◽

Conceptual Clarification ◽

The Law ◽

Conceptual Overview

The article gives conceptual clarification on a distinction between ideal and nonideal theory by analyzing John Rawls? theory as presented in his books ?A Theory of Justice? and ?The Law of Peoples.? The article tries to show the importance of ideal theory, while at the same time pointing out that the distinction, ideal and nonideal, needs further qualification. Further, the article also introduces the distinction of normative and descriptive into ideal and consequently nonideal theory. Through this four-fold distinction it is easier to establish the function of each theory and the separation of work-fields between philosophers, politicians and lawyers.

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Transnational Feminisms, Nonideal Theory, and “Other” Women’s Power

Feminist Philosophy Quarterly ◽

10.5206/fpq/2016.3.1 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 3 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Serene J Khader

Keyword(s):

Amartya Sen ◽

Gender Justice ◽

Nonideal Theory ◽

Epistemic Practices ◽

Just Culture ◽

Multiple Strategies ◽

Women's Power ◽

Women's Oppression ◽

The Right ◽

Key Questions

Postcolonial and transnational feminists’ calls to recognize “other” women’s agency have seemed to some Western feminists to entail moral quietism about women’s oppression. Here, I offer an antirelativist framing of the transnational feminist critiques, one rooted in a conception of transnational feminisms as a nonideal theoretical enterprise. The Western feminist problem is not simple ethnocentrism, but rather a failure to ask the right types of normative questions, questions relevant to the nonideal context in which transnational feminist praxis occurs. Instead of asking which forms of power are gender-justice-enhancing, Western feminists are fixated on contrasting “other” cultures to an idealized Western culture. A focus on ideal theorizing works together with colonial epistemic practices to divert Western feminist attention from key questions about what will reduce “other” women’s oppression under conditions of gender injustice and ongoing imperialism. Western feminists need to ask whether “other” women’s power is resistant, and answering this question requires a focus on what Amartya Sen would call “justice enhancement” rather than an ideal of the gender-just culture. I show how a focus on resistance, accompanied by a colonialism-visibilizing hypothesis and a normative vision that allows multiple strategies for transitioning out of injustice, can guide Western feminists toward more appropriate questions about “other” women’s power.

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Ideal, Nonideal, and Empirical Theories of Social Justice

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190236953.013.59 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Naomi Zack

Keyword(s):

Public Policy ◽

Social Justice ◽

Real Life ◽

Ideal Theory ◽

Direct Approach ◽

Nonideal Theory ◽

Theory Of Justice ◽

Principles Of Justice

Ideals of justice may do little toward the correction of injustice in real life. The influence of John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice has led some philosophers of race to focus on “nonideal theory” as a way to bring conditions in unjust societies closer to conditions of justice described by ideal theory. However, a more direct approach to injustice may be needed to address unfair public policy and existing conditions for minorities in racist societies. Applicative justice describes the applications of principles of justice that are now “good enough” for whites to nonwhites (based on prior comparisons of how whites and nonwhites are treated).

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Ideal and Nonideal Theory in Political Philosophy

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics ◽

10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.1383 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Christopher Thompson

Keyword(s):

John Rawls ◽

Social Institutions ◽

Comparative Judgment ◽

Ideal Theory ◽

Nonideal Theory ◽

Theory Of Justice ◽

The Status ◽

Just Society ◽

Methodological Concern ◽

The Many

The distinction between ideal and nonideal theory is an important methodological concern in contemporary political theory. At issue is the extent to which political theorizing is a practical endeavor and, consequently, the extent to which real-world facts should either be factored into political theorizing or else be assumed away. The distinction between ideal theory and nonideal theory was first introduced by John Rawls in his classic A Theory of Justice. Rawls’s ideal theory is an account of the society we should aim for, given certain facts about human nature and possible social institutions, and involves two central assumptions. First, it assumes full compliance of relevant agents with the demands of justice. Second, it assumes that historical and natural conditions of society are reasonably favorable. These two assumptions are individually necessary and jointly sufficient for his ideal theory. For Rawls, nonideal theory primarily addresses the question of how the ideal might be achieved in practical, permissible steps, from the actual, partially just society we occupy. The account of ideal and nonideal theory advanced by Rawls has been subject to criticism from different directions. Amartya Sen accepts Rawls’s distinction between ideal and nonideal theory but argues that Rawlsian-style nonideal theory is too ideal. Given the many and severe injustices we face we do not need to know what ideal (or “transcendental”) justice looks like; our focus should not be on how to transition toward this ideal. Instead, the advancement of justice requires a comparative judgment which ranks possible policies in terms of being more or less just than the status quo. G. A. Cohen, by contrast, argues that Rawlsian-style ideal theory is not really ideal theory as such, but instead principles for regulating society. Our beliefs about normative principles should, ultimately, be insensitive to matters of empirical fact; genuine ideal theory is a form of moral epistemology (an exercise of identifying normative truths).

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Idealization and Abstraction in Models of Injustice

Hypatia ◽

10.1111/hypa.12317 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 32 (2) ◽

pp. 329-346

Author(s):

Leif Hancox‐Li

Keyword(s):

Political Philosophy ◽

Philosophy Of Science ◽

Political Theory ◽

Ideal Theory ◽

Formal Models ◽

Nonideal Theory ◽

Political Theories ◽

Gender Based ◽

And Gender

Charles Mills has argued against ideal theory in political philosophy on the basis that it contains idealizations. He calls for political philosophers to do more nonideal theory, namely political theory that pays more attention to the most visible oppressions in society, such as those based on race, gender, and class. Mills's argument relies on a distinction between idealization and abstraction. Idealizations involve adding false assumptions to one's model, which is unacceptable, whereas abstractions merely leave out details without undermining descriptive power. By studying formal models of injustice, I argue that the idealization/abstraction distinction is unhelpful. Either the distinction exists only relative to one's modeling purposes, or all models in political theory contain idealizations. Either way, the distinction does not help Mills's cause. Furthermore, there are arguments from philosophy of science for the epistemic benefits of idealizations. However, Mills's call for greater emphasis on the most visible mechanisms of oppression can be supported without relying on an idealization/abstraction distinction. I provide three alternative reasons for why we should prefer political theories that place more emphasis on race‐, class‐, and gender‐based oppression.

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Idealizing Morality

Hypatia ◽

10.1111/j.1527-2001.2010.01125.x ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 25 (4) ◽

pp. 797-824 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

Lisa Tessman

Keyword(s):

Moral Agent ◽

Moral Dilemmas ◽

Normative Theory ◽

Nonideal Theory ◽

Moral Failure ◽

Normative Expectations ◽

Action Guidance

Implicit in feminist and other critiques of ideal theorizing is a particular view of what normative theory should be like. Although I agree with the rejection of ideal theorizing that oppression theorists (and other theorists of justice) have advocated, the proposed alternative of nonideal theorizing is also problematic. Nonideal theorizing permits one to address oppression by first describing (nonideal) oppressive conditions, and then prescribing the best action that is possible or feasible given the conditions. Borrowing an insight from the “moral dilemmas debate”—namely that moral wrongdoing or failure can be unavoidable—I suggest that offering (only) action-guidance under nonideal conditions obscures the presence and significance of unavoidable moral failure. An adequate normative theory should be able to issue a further, non-action-guiding evaluative claim, namely that the best that is possible under oppressive conditions is not good enough, and may constitute a moral failure. I find exclusively action-guiding nonideal theory to be both insufficiently nonidealizing (because it idealizes the moral agent by falsely characterizing the agent as always able to avoid moral wrongdoing) and meanwhile too strongly adapted to the nonideal (because normative expectations are lowered and detrimentally adapted to options that, while the best possible, are still unacceptable).

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