Nonideal Theory as Ideology

In the wake of the nonideal theory turn in political philosophy, few have paused to ask: Is nonideal theory a form of ideology? And perhaps even fewer have paused to ask: Is the debate between ideal/nonideal theorists itself a form of ideology? To the first question, I argue that nonideal theory is ideological in virtue of the fact that it rules out more utopian ways of theorizing by methodological fiat, and in so doing, risks entrenching an unjust status quo. To the second question, I argue that the debate between ideal/nonideal theorists is itself a form of ideology, one which serves to reinforce the status quo by convincing political philosophers/theorists that the most pressing problems are problems about what we should think about what we are doing. But this is false. An upshot of my argument is that we ought to abandon the ideal/nonideal theory debate and address the pressing problems of political philosophy head-on in pluralist fashion, oscillating back and forth between these two modes of theorizing without a decision procedure to tell us when we should take up one perspective or the other.