Abstract:This article provides a conceptual map of the debate on ideal and non-ideal theory. It argues that this debate encompasses a number of different questions, which have not been kept sufficiently separate in the literature. In particular, the article distinguishes between the following three interpretations of the 'ideal vs. non-ideal theory' contrast: (i) full compliance vs. partial compliance theory; (ii) utopian vs. realistic theory; (iii) end-state vs. transitional theory. The article advances critical reflections on each of these sub-debates, and highlights areas for future research in the field.

It is often remarked that contemporary liberal egalitarian conceptions of justice are developed in 'ideal theory'. In spite of its popularity, the notion of ideal theory tends to be employed somewhat loosely, to indicate any theory constructed under false, that is, idealised, assumptions, which make social reality appear significantly 'simpler and better' than it actually is. 1 Admittedly general, this definition accurately characterises most contemporary liberal egalitarian accounts of justice. Just to mention a couple of examples, John Rawls famously simplifies the problem of social justice by assuming that society is self-contained, populated with fully capable adults and exists under favourable natural and historical conditions. 2 He also improves the moral features of society by assuming full compliance on the part of the agents falling under the purview of his principles. 3 Similarly, Ronald Dworkin's theory of equality of resources is developed in what he calls 'the ideal ideal world'. 4 That is, it assumes away both the technical limitations we encounter in actual societies, and the fact that human beings often lack the political will to follow principles of justice.However popular, this idealising trend has become an object of concern among political theorists: there is a worry that the gap between liberal egalitarian ideal theories and our non-ideal circumstances might be unbridgeable. Principles designed assuming ideal conditions, so the worry goes, are ill-suited to guide action in the real world, where such conditions do not hold. Given that a capacity for guidance is widely considered a necessary attribute of any sound normative theory, the 'guidance critique' seems to pose a serious threat to liberal egalitarian thinking as a whole. 5 Even more troubling, responding to this threat by giving up ideal theorising does not look like a viable option. There is indeed a sense in which resort to ideal theory is inescapable: How could we

Much recent philosophical work on social freedom focuses on whether freedom should be understood as non-interference, in the liberal tradition associated with Isaiah Berlin, or as non-domination, in the republican tradition revived by Philip Pettit and Quentin Skinner. We defend a conception of freedom that lies between these two alternatives: freedom as independence. Like republican freedom, it demands the robust absence of relevant constraints on action. Unlike republican, and like liberal freedom, it is not moralized. We showcase the virtues of this conception and offer a novel map of the logical space in which different conceptions of freedom are located.

In his recent bookThe Idea of Justice, Amartya Sen suggests that political philosophy should move beyond the dominant, Rawls-inspired, methodological paradigm – what Sen calls ‘transcendental institutionalism’ – towards a more practically oriented approach to justice: ‘realization-focused comparison’. In this article, I argue that Sen's call for a paradigm shift in thinking about justice is unwarranted. I show that his criticisms of the Rawlsian approach are either based on misunderstandings, or correct but of little consequence, and conclude that the Rawlsian approach already delivers much of what Sen himself wants from a theory of justice.

In his article `Facts and Principles', G.A. Cohen attempts to refute constructivist approaches to justification by showing that, contrary to what their proponents claim, fundamental normative principles are fact- insensitive. We argue that Cohen's `fact-insensitivity thesis' does not provide a successful refutation of constructivism because it pertains to an area of meta-ethics which differs from the one tackled by constructivists. While Cohen's thesis concerns the logical structure of normative principles, constructivists ask how normative principles should be justified. In particular, their claim that justified fundamental normative principles are fact-sensitive follows from a commitment to agnosticism about the existence of objective moral facts. We therefore conclude that, in order to refute constructivism, Cohen would have to address questions of justification, and take a stand on those long-standing meta-ethical debates about the ontological status of moral notions (for example, realism versus anti-realism) with respect to which he himself wants to remain agnostic.