LEGAL THEORY WORKSHOP SERIES
LTW 2008 – 2009 (6)
presents
A. John Simmons
University of Virginia
Ideal Theory and the One-State World
Friday, February 6, 2009
12:30 – 2:00
Solarium (room FA2), Falconer Hall
84 Queen’s Park
One of the many distinctions introduced in John Rawls’ monumental work, A Theory of Justice, was that between (what he called) the ideal and the nonideal theories of justice. Like many of Rawls’ dichotomies, this one has come to frame much subsequent discussion in moral, political, and legal philosophy. Unlike many of his other distinctions, however, the ideal-nonideal distinction has received relatively little serious attention from philosophers or from legal or political theorists and where it has received attention, I argue, this attention has been largely either superficial or misguided. This paper explores the variety of ways in which we can understand both the ideal in question and the relation between that ideal and the rules of nonideal theory, as it tries to identify what is plausible and what is problematic in the Rawlsian version of that distinction. According to Rawls, ideal theory embodies the principles that would govern the basic institutions of a perfectly just political society, given full compliance with those principles. Nonideal theory embodies the principles that should be followed in responding to partial- or non-compliance with ideal principles. Rawls’ critics have challenged the nature of the ideal that Rawls describes, denied that ideal theory should have priority over nonideal theory, and rejected his conception of the relation of nonideal to ideal theory. I argue that Rawls can persuasively answer these simple and familiar criticisms, and that in fact Rawls lays out the best version of the ideal-nonideal theory distinction for political philosophy. The serious weakness in Rawls’ case, I argue, lies not in his version of this distinction, but rather in the way that his original position model for understanding the principles of ideal theory in fact begs foundational questions of ideal theory.
A. John Simmons is Commonwealth Professor of Philosophy and Professor of Law at the University of Virginia, where he has taught since 1976. He has been an editor of the journal Philosophy & Public Affairs since 1982. He is the author of Moral Principles and Political Obligations (Princeton, 1979), The Lockean Theory of Rights (Princeton, 1992), On the Edge of Anarchy: Locke, Consent, and the Limits of Society (Princeton, 1993), Justification and Legitimacy: Essays on Rights and Obligations (Cambridge, 2000), Is There a Duty to Obey the Law? For and Against (with C.H. Wellman)(Cambridge, 2005), Political Philosophy (Oxford, 2008), and many other publications on topics in moral, political, and legal philosophy. Two of his articles have been selected for inclusion in The Philosopher’s Annual. He has edited the books International Ethics (Princeton, 1985) and Punishment (Princeton, 1995). Professor Simmons has chaired the University of Virginia’s Philosophy Department and its Program on Political and Social Thought, and he received Virginia’s All-University Teaching Award in 1992-93 (in the inaugural year of that award). He taught Ethics as a special consultant for six years at the F.B.I. National Academy.
A light lunch will be served.
For more workshop information, please contact Nadia Gulezko at n.gulezko@utoronto.ca
