Ideal theorists aim to describe the ideally just society. Problem solvers aim to identify concrete changes to actual societies that would make them more just. The relation between these two sorts of theorizing is highly contested. According to the benchmark view, ideal theory is prior to problem solving because a conception of the ideally just society serves as an indispensable benchmark for evaluating societies in terms of how far they deviate from it. In this paper, I clarify the benchmark view, argue that existing criticisms of it are unsuccessful, and develop a novel redundancy objection to the benchmark view and the claim of priority it allegedly entails. I then consider the extent to which ideal theory might facilitate problem solving without being prior to it and argue that it can only play a modest role in this regard. The upshot is that ideal theory is neither required for nor especially relevant to problem solving—but it is not completely irrelevant either. It facilitates problem solving to some limited degree, but no more, say, than theorizing about dystopia.

中文翻译：

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偏离理想

理想理论家的目标是描述理想的公正社会。问题解决者的目标是确定对实际社会的具体改变，使社会更加公正。这两种理论之间的关系备受争议。根据基准观点，理想理论先于问题解决，因为理想公正社会的概念是评估社会偏离社会程度的不可或缺的基准。在本文中，我澄清了基准观点，认为对其现有的批评是不成功的，并对基准观点及其所谓的优先权主张提出了一种新颖的冗余反对意见。然后，我考虑理想理论在不先于问题的情况下可以在多大程度上促进问题解决，并认为它在这方面只能发挥有限的作用。结果是，理想理论对于解决问题既不是必需的，也不是特别相关的，但它也不是完全无关的。它在一定程度上促进了问题的解决，但最多不过是对反乌托邦的理论化。