'Going Evaluative' to Save Justice From Feasibility -- A Pyrrhic Victory

Philosophical Quarterly 64 (255):301-307 (2014)
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Abstract

I discuss Gheaus's (2013) argument against the claim that the requirements of justice are not constrained by feasibility concerns. I show that the general strategy exemplified by this argument is not only dialectically puzzling, but also imposes a heavy cost on theories of justice -- puzzling because it simply sidesteps a presupposition of any plausible formulation of the so-called "feasibility requirement"; costly because it it deprives justice of its normative implications for action. I also show that Gheaus's attempt to recover this normative force presupposes an epistemic dimension to the feasibility requirement that most proponents of that requirement would reject.

Author's Profile

David Wiens
University of California, San Diego

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