The paper deals with the methodological clash between idealism and anti-idealism in political philosophy, and highlights its importance for public reason (PR) and public justification (PJ) theorising. Upon reviewing the broader context which harks back to Rawls’s notion of a realistic utopia, we focus on two major recent contributions to the debate in the work of David Estlund (the prototypical utopian) and Gerald Gaus (the cautious anti-utopian). While Estlund presents a powerful case on behalf of ideal theorising, claiming that motivational (...) incapacity and other non-ideal features of “human nature” – the so-called bad facts – do not normally refute the desirability of highly utopian theories of justice, we show that Gaus is correct in stressing the importance of feasibility considerations, including empirical knowledge about human societies. Because moral disagreement is to be expected even among cognitively and morally excellent reasoners, we argue that Estlund’s search for Truth about justice must idealise away normative diversity as just another bad fact. This methodological dispute has important ramifications for current debates about PR and PJ as the grounds of liberal legitimacy. Because consensual approaches rely on strong idealisation which results in exclusion of numerous comprehensive doctrines from consideration, we conclude that convergence-based liberal political theory has distinct advantage as regards exploiting normative diversity to the advantage of everyone. (shrink)

Many normative theorists want to contribute to making the world a better place. In recent years, it has been suggested that to realise this ambition one must start with an adequate description of real-life practices. To determine what should be done, however, one must also fundamentally criticise existing moral beliefs. The method of reflective equilibrium offers a way of doing both. Yet, its practical usefulness has been doubted and it has been largely ignored in the recent practical turn of normative (...) theorising. This paper offers a complementary methodology to the method of reflective equilibrium, referred to as Rawlsian constructivism, which brings forth its practical merits. With the support of Rawlsian constructivism, the method of reflective equilibrium becomes a tool for public reasoning about practical problems which aims to facilitate shared solutions. The process of reflective scrutiny is used, not in the search of moral truth, but rather to highlight what stands in the way of solutions to problems agents face in different domains of social life. The practical value lies in scrutinising reasons for action that are taken for granted, explicating new rationales for action and highlighting neglected points of agreement. The paper exemplifies this approach with a process of justifying individual obligations to combat climate change. Normative theorists who share the practical agenda have correctly noted the importance of bottom-up investigations of subject domains. This paper argues that the next step should be to utilise this version of the method of reflective equilibrium to explore the potential for morally progressive solutions to these problems. (shrink)

We are responsible for some things but not for others. In this thesis, I investigate what it takes for an entity to be responsible for something. This question has two components: agents and actions. I argue for a permissive view about agents. Entities such as groups or artificially intelligent systems may be agents in the sense required for responsibility. With respect to actions, I argue for a causal view. The relation in virtue of which agents are responsible for actions is (...) a causal one. I claim that responsibility requires causation and I develop a causal account of agency. This account is particularly apt for addressing the relationship between agency and moral responsibility and sheds light on the causal foundations of moral responsibility. (shrink)

Bioethics has increasingly become a standard part of medical school education and the training of healthcare professionals more generally. This is a promising development, as it has the potential to help future practitioners become more attentive to moral concerns and, perhaps, better moral reasoners. At the same time, there is growing recognition within bioethics that nonideal theory can play an important role in formulating normative recommendations. In this chapter we discuss what this shift toward nonideal theory means for ethical curricula (...) within healthcare education. In particular, we contend that more attention to the particularities of historical and social context needs to be incorporated into bioethics training. To make this argument, we focus on two examples: teaching units on race and medicine and those that focus on stigma and coercion in mental health. For both, we show how a pedagogical approach in which educators focus on social injustice could influence how practitioners engage in ethics in the clinic. This chapter, then, demonstrates what a commitment to nonideal theory can mean practically when it comes to bioethics education. (shrink)

Social scientists, political scientists and philosophers debate key concepts such as democracy, power and autonomy. Contested concepts like these pose questions: Are terms such as “democracy” hopelessly ambiguous? How can two theorists defend alternative accounts of democracy without talking past each other? How can we understand debates in which theorists disagree about what democracy is? This paper first discusses the popular strategy to answer these questions by appealing to Rawls’s distinction between concepts and conceptions. According to this approach, defenders of (...) rival conceptions of, e.g. justice can disagree without talking past each other because they share the concept of justice. It is argued that this idea is attractive but limited in application and that it fails to do justice to the dynamic and normative aspects of concept formation. Reflective equilibrium is then suggested as an alternative approach. It replaces the static contrast between a conceptual ‘core’ and competing conceptions by a dynamic perspective of concept formation as a partly normative undertaking: pre-theoretic language use and commitments can provide a shared starting point for developing alternative accounts which yield different concepts of, e.g. justice. This perspective provides a new understanding of how it is possible that different theorists defend rival accounts of, e.g. justice, without talking past each other. (shrink)

Can the global poor wage a just redistributive war against the global rich? The moral norms governing the use of force are usually considered to be very strict. Nonetheless, some philosophers have recently argued that violating duties of global justicecanbe a just cause for war. This paper discusses redistributive wars. It shows that the strength of these arguments is contingent on the underlying account of global distributive justice. The paper focuses on the “doing harm argument,” under the assumption that the (...) alternative “allowing harm argument” is a more difficult route to justify redistributive wars. After highlighting several preliminary problems, the paper breaks down and assesses in depth the “doing harm argument”: the empirical premise, the rights violation that constitutes the wrong, liability and degrees of responsibility, and the conditions for justified self-defense. By drawing on principles reflected in criminal law, this paper argues that a general “doing harm argument” for redistributive wars is unconvincing, while a reinterpretation of that argument could theoretically give rise to a just cause for war. (shrink)

It is often claimed that in normative political theory political imagination should remain unaffected by real-world contingencies: our idea of how the world “ought to be” should be independent from how the world “actually is”. According to the practice-dependent thesis, instead, “[t]he content, scope, and justification of a conception of justice depends on the structure and form of the practices that the conception is intended to govern”. This methodological approach conceives the relationship between theory and practice as an interplay: normative (...) theory applies to practice, but practices are also able to affect the content of normative theory. In this paper, I argue that the interplay between theory and practices that the practice-dependent method generates has not been fully understood. Though it may – at a superficial look – appear as a method compliant with the status quo, I will show that this method implies an idea of political theory as an activity of continuous critical engagement. Given an extended account of the method, political imagination has boundaries but these are not fixed nor easilydefinable: the real-world fact that constrains practice-dependent principles is the point and purpose of the practice they are meant to apply to, but this fact in itself is partly shaped and critically assessed by the theorist. (shrink)