Suchergebnisse

Introduction. Locating a nonideal theory in Kant's political thought: a systematic approach -- History and politics: political history and cosmopolitanism -- A matter of orientation -- Historical patterns, political aims -- Nature, culture, and politics: political anthropology and cosmopolitanism -- Organisms, bodies politic, and progress -- Political Zweckmässigkeit, or from nature to culture -- Nature and politics: political geography and cosmopolitan right -- Teleology and peace on earth -- Peace, hospitality, and the shape of the earth -- Conclusion. Theorizing the lawfulness of the contingent in politics: a defense of teleology.

This paper examines the various ways in which nonideal theory responds to noncompliance with ideal principles of justice. Taking Rawls' definition of nonideal theory as my point of departure, I propose an understanding of this concept as comprising two subparts: Complementary nonideal theory responds to deliberate and avoidable noncompliance and consists mainly of theories of civil disobedience, rebellion, and retribution. Substitutive nonideal theory responds to nondeliberate and unavoidable noncompliance and consists mainly of theories of transition and caretaking. I further argue that a special case of substitutive nonideal theory may arise when noncompliance is a result of a lack of motivation among citizens. This situation, I suggest, calls for nonideal theorizing (1) when our aim is to evaluate the political actions undertaken by specific members of a society (in particular the ruling elite) whose set of feasible options is constrained as a result of others' lack of motivation and (2) when a situation of mutually reinforcing distrust and noncooperation—sometimes called a "social trap"—constrains the feasible option set of the entire population. The main advantage of the twofold conceptualization of nonideal theory is that it bridges the theoretical gap between actor-oriented and situation-based accounts of justice: It allows us to preserve the term ideal justice for justice under minimal feasibility constraints, while recognizing that a situation where all agents comply with their duties must in some sense be characterized as just.

Recent revelations of Iran's hitherto undisclosed uranium enrichment programs have once again incited western fears that Tehran seeks nuclear weapons' capability. Their fears seem motivated by more than the concern for compliance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). Rather, they seem strongly connected to the western moral assumptions about what kind of government or people can be trusted with a nuclear arsenal. In this paper, I critically examine the western assumptions of the immorality of contemporary nuclear proliferation from an international ethical stance that otherwise might be expected to give it unequivocal support – the stance of Kantian nonideal theory. In contrast to the uses of Kant that were prominent during the Cold War, I advance and apply a sketch of a Kantian nonideal theory that specifies the conditions (althoughstrictconditions) under which nuclear proliferation for states like Iran is morally permissibleeven thoughthe NPT forbids it.

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.

Abstract:This essay discusses the relation between ideal theory and two forms of political
moralism identified by Bernard Williams, structural and enactment views. It
argues that ideal theory, at least in the sense Rawls used that term, only makes
sense for structural forms of moralism. These theories see their task as
describing the constraints that properly apply to political agents and
institutions. As a result, they are primarily concerned with norms that govern
action. In contrast, many critiques of ideal theory are structured and motivated
by their commitment to an enactment model of political theorizing. This instead
sees political agents and institutions as instruments for producing or promoting
better states of affairs. Enactment models treat the evaluations that rank
different states of affairs as justificatorily basic, rather than norms
governing action on which structural models focus. This reveals an important
feature of debates about ideal theory. Whether ideal theory is capable of
appropriately guiding action will depend on what the criteria for appropriately
guiding action are, about which different theorists have importantly different
views. For example, some popular strategies for defending ideal theory fail,
while it may be much less clear that some alternatives to ideal theory can
provide action guidance than their advocates claim.

Abstract:This essay discusses and criticizes the claim that normative political theory can be (justifiably and fruitfully) divided into two parts—a part having to do with ideal theory which assumes full compliance and abstracts away from issues having to do with implementation and, contrasting with this, a nonideal part having to do with implementation and with rules and institutions appropriate for conditions of partial compliance. On this conception of ideal theory, empirical facts about human behavior and motivation, connected to issues surrounding compliance and implementation, are irrelevant to ideal theory, although such facts can be relevant to the nonideal part of normative theory. I argue against this conception, holding instead that such empirical facts are relevant to most or all of normative political theory, including "fundamental" normative principles.

Part 1. Nonidealized Methodologies -- Chapter 1. Feminist Approaches to Bioethics -- Chapter 2. Decolonial and/or Postcolonial Approaches to Bioethics -- Chapter 3. Queer Approaches to Bioethics -- Chapter 4. Narrative Methodology as a Nonideal Approach to Bioethics -- Part 2. Nonidealized Applications to Bioethical Research & Practice -- Chapter 5. Epistemology and Knowing in Bioethics -- Chapter 6. Conceptualizing Concepts of Autonomy, Rationality, Risk/Benefit -- Chapter 7. Clinical Ethics Consultation and Moral Stress/Hazard -- Part 3. Policy Implications of Nonidealized Theory in Bioethics -- Chapter 8. U.S. Policy -- Chapter 9. Specific Other Policy Analysis/Recommendations -- Part 4. Global Bioethics Through a Nonidealized Lens -- Chapter 10. Justice and Fairness in Global Research and Medical Practices -- Chapter 11. Priorities in Global Research and Medical Practices -- Chapter 12. Topical Issues.

In the past decade, the value of so-called ideal theory has become a major point of dispute among political theorists. While critics of ideal theory accuse this approach of "idle utopianism", its advocates fault the critics for conceding to "cynical realism". This dissertation examines two charges against ideal theory. The demandingness charge states that ideal theory fails to acknowledge the constraints on justice set by the empirical conditions that prevail in our world, and that it therefore produces invalid principles. The uselessness charge states that ideal theory, even if it tells us what justice would require under exceptionally favorable circumstances, offers no information valuable for guiding action in the nonideal circumstances characteristic of today's societies. The two charges target the idealized assumptions made in ideal theory, in particular the assumption of full compliance. By assuming full compliance, the critics argue, ideal theory ignores the way real-world agents' motivational limitations render the pursuit of its proposed principles infeasible or undesirable. In four free-standing articles, I examine when and why noncompliance due to motivational limitations puts constraints on justice, and how this affects the status and usefulness of ideal theory. I argue that motivational limitations constrain justice in ideal theory if we hold that justice is action-guiding in the sense that it confers actual duties on individual agents, and that the distribution of collective duties to individuals requires reasonable expectations of others' compliance. In nonideal theory, adopting an actualist standpoint will lead us to conclude that not only the noncompliance of others, but also our own foreseeable noncompliance constrains what justice can demand. I further argue that how this affects the usefulness of ideal theory depends, on the one hand, on how we interpret crucial concepts such as "action-guidance", and, on the other, on which task we expect political theory to perform. My findings shed new light over the complex conflict lines that underlie the current dispute, and urge debaters to render explicit and argue for the assumptions upon which they rest their judgments about ideal theory.