Theory, Practice, and Utopia: A Critique of Ideal and Nonideal Theories of Justice

The contemporary debate between ideal theory and nonideal theories of justice (largely) centers on the extent to which political methodologies should be influenced by social and political practices. Whereas ideal theorists most often ground their principles of justice in an ahistorical and transcendent methodology, nonideal theorists methodologically determine the principles of justice in light of (1) the institutions and practices which condition the possibilities of political agents and/or (2) historical injustices and the conditions that manifest them. My dissertation engages in this debate by criticizing the presupposed relationship between theory and practice within each camp. By demonstrating the extent to which (i) all ideals and principles of justice are conditioned by social and political practices, and that (ii) their practice-conditioned normativity depends on the presupposition that these ideals and principles must extend beyond these same social and political practices, I argue that the normative nature of political philosophy is simultaneously situated and utopian. This means that we ought to understand the relationship between theory and practice as dialectically constituted.