Abstract
Are institutional principles of justice subject to a minimal realism constraint to the effect that, to be valid, they must not make demands that are wildly unrealistic in the sense that there is no chance (or a vanishingly small chance) that they will ever be met because we are robustly disposed to fail to set out to do some of the things that meeting the demands would require? Many of us say “yes.” David Estlund says “no.” However, while Estlund holds that 1) institutional principles of justice are not subject to a minimal realism constraint, he accepts that 2) institutional principles of justice are subject to an attainability constraint to the effect that, to be valid, they must not make demands we are unable to meet; and 3) what he calls “institutional proposals” are subject to a minimal realism constraint. I argue that these three theses do not represent a plausible combination given Estlund’s account of the principle/proposal distinction. Given this account, Estlund is either wrong to reject a minimal realism constraint on institutional principles of justice, or wrong to accept an attainability constraint on institutional principles of justice and/or a minimal realism constraint on institutional proposals.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Philip Pettit (2012, p. 126) puts the objection well when he suggests that certain theories of justice “seem like moral fantasies: manuals for how God ought to have ordained the order of things… rather than real-world manifestos for what the state should do in regulating the affairs of its citizens” (Pettit 2012, p. 126). Examples of theories that are commonly objected to on grounds of being wildly unrealistic include certain radical socialist theories, radical egalitarian theories, certain cosmopolitan theories, and certain radically participatory democratic theories.
Notice that if I have interpreted Estlund correctly, it means that some of his remarks about the “subject of justice” are not right. For example, he writes: “I will assume that what it is for a society to be just is for its basic structure to be the way it ought to be in certain respects” (Estlund 2020, p. 14). This cannot be right. If principles of justice involve plural requirements and assuming that what it is for a society to be just is for it not to violate any valid principle of justice, then it follows that a society’s basic structure could be the way it ought to be in the relevant respects and yet the society not count as just (because some of its members violate their conditional deontic duties).
A possible response is that the distinction between claims about what ought to be the case and claims about what we ought to do collapses when we are talking about the basic structure. This is suggested by Estlund’s remark that the “focus on social structure as the subject of justice … fits with my treatment of social justice as a requirement over actions (in a plural fashion)—so long as the basic structure of a society is, in the end, really just certain patterns and orientations of action” (Estlund 2020, p. 14).
However, we have good reason to reject this response. First, the idea that the basic structure is nothing over and above “certain patterns and orientations of action” is deeply implausible. At the very least, the basic structure surely also includes patterns of attitudes. Estlund appears to agree when he writes: “As understood here, the basic social structure is partly constituted by certain prevalent attitudes, motivations, and patterns of behaviour” (Estlund 2020, p. 14: italics added). Second, even if the basic structure were nothing over and above certain patterns of behaviour, claims to the effect that we ought to do certain things are obviously quite different from, and do not collapse into, claims to the effect that it ought to be the case that we do certain things. The former have addressees and make demands of the addressees: to the effect that they do the things in question. The latter do have addressees and, hence, do not make demands, at all. One way to see this is to observe that when we fail to do what we ought to do, it follows that we have flouted a demand and, hence, gone wrong. By contrast, when we fail to do what it ought to be the case that we do, it does not follow that we have flouted a demand or gone wrong; all that follows is that the world is not as it ought to be.
We might wonder whether it is really wildly unrealistic (as opposed to merely unlikely) for Bill to refrain from dumping his rubbish properly (see Wiens 2016). But I shall grant Estlund his description of the case in what follows.
Of course, we can also imagine different versions of the case where it would indeed be inappropriate: say, where advising or enjoining him to dump his rubbish properly would lead him to dump his rubbish all over your garden; or to call his biker friends and terrorise the neighbourhood. But notice that, even in these cases, the explanation for why it would be inappropriate has nothing to with whether his dumping his rubbish properly is wildly unrealistic. Rather, it is simply due to the unsavoury consequences of advising or enjoining him to dump his rubbish properly. Making wildly unrealistic demands does not seem to be inappropriate as such.
Notice that I am assuming for the sake of argument an account of the aim of recommendation according to which it is at least prima facie plausible to suppose that appropriate recommendations cannot make wildly unrealistic demands. However, David Wiens made the very good point that there are other accounts of the aim of recommendation according to which this does not seem even prima facie plausible. For example, suppose that the aim of recommendation is “simply to provoke further thought about one's actions in a way that prompts one to improve upon the status quo.” Achieving this aim can obviously be consistent with doing something other than what's being recommended. If we accept this, then it's easy to see why appropriate recommendations need not be subject to a minimal realism constraint. A wildly unrealistic recommendation, if taken to be worth serious reflection, might provoke the kind of reflection and deliberation that leads us to improve upon the status quo. For example, a wildly unrealistic recommendation for dealing with climate change might prompt people to recognize the scale of the emergency and do what they can to mitigate it.
Notice that whereas (2*) and (3*) plausibly entail (2) and (3) (assuming that i) principles of justice involve ought claims of the relevant sort and ii) valid institutional proposals involve appropriate recommendations), (1*) does not entail (1). That’s because it is consistent with (1*) that principles of justice involve special ought claims for which being minimally realistic is a constraint. However, I shall set aside this complication for the time being.
Estlund himself disavows the idea that institutional principles involve the deliberative ought (see Estlund 2020, p. 349, n. 14). In spite of this, it is with considering whether the idea might help him.
I am not saying that this is Estlund’s view. Rather, my claim is that, given his account of the distinction between principles of justice and institutional proposals, and at least insofar as he wants to vindicate theses (1), (2), and (3), he is committed to either a) this view or b) the view discussed in the previous section.
A possible response is that, even if non-compliance cases don’t give us quite what we were after, namely thesis (3**), they do give us something interesting in the ballpark of thesis (3**). They do not show that being minimally realistic is a constraint on claims involving the ought of public policy—and, hence, on institutional proposals. But, arguably, they do show that it is a constraint on claims involving the ought of public policy—and, hence, on valid institutional proposals—that compliance with the relevant institutions be minimally realistic. That’s because they might seem to show that any claim to the effect that a state ought to implement some institution—and, hence, any institutional proposal—must be false insofar as and because compliance with the institution is wildly unrealistic.
But even this is not right. To be sure, it will presumably often be a very bad idea to build institutions with which individuals are robustly disposed not to comply. This is because the value of building certain institutions often depends on the institutions securing at least a minimal level of compliance. In some cases, the very existence of valuable institutions depends on such compliance. On the other hand, there can surely be value in building institutions that individuals are robustly disposed not to comply with: either because there is value in approximating compliance and it is not wildly unrealistic to suppose that compliance will be approximated (think of the value of imposing speed limits on highways); or because there is value that does not depend (wholly) on compliance (think of the expressive value of introducing certain anti-discrimination legislation). In such cases it might be the case that the state ought to build certain institutions even if it would be wildly unrealistic to suppose that the citizens will comply with them. So not even the thesis in the ballpark of thesis (3**) can credibly be maintained.
Of course, many theorists will insist that such cases are cases where the state is unable to implement the institutional arrangement, but I shall set this aside given that it is not what Estlund means by “unable.”.
That Estlund is sensitive to this charge and the importance of avoiding it can be seen by his frequent disparaging remarks about certain forms of what he calls “utopian” thinking, especially in chapter 1.
References
Anderson, E. S. (1999). What is the point of equality? Ethics, 109, 287–337.
Brennan, G., & Southwood, N. (2007). Feasibility in Action and Attitude. In T. Rønnow-Rasmussen, B. Petersson, J. Jonefsson, & D. Egonsson (Eds.), Hommage à Wlodek: Philosophical Papers Dedicated to Wlodek Rabinowicz (pp. 1–25). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Broome, J. (2007). Requirement. In T. Rønnow-Rasmussen, B. Petersson, J. Jonefsson, & D. Egonsson (Eds.), Hommage à Wlodek: Philosophical Papers Dedicated to Wlodek Rabinowicz (pp. 1–41). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Estlund, D. (2020). Utopophobia: on the limits (If Any) of political philosophy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Gilabert, P. (2011). Feasibility and socialism. The Journal of Political Philosophy, 19, 52–63.
Gilabert, P. (2017). Justice and feasibility: a dynamic approach. In K. Vallier & M. Weber (Eds.), Political utopias: Contemporary debates. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Gilabert, P., & Lawford-Smith, H. (2012). Political feasibility: A conceptual exploration. Political Studies, 60, 809–825.
Jackson, F., & Pargetter, R. (1986). Oughts, options, and actualism. The Philosophical Review, 95, 233–255.
Kiesewetter, B. (2018). The Normativity of Rationality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Nussbaum, M. (2000). Women and human development. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Pettit, P. (1997). Republicanism: A theory of freedom and government. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
Pettit, P. (2012). On the People’s terms: A republican theory and model of democracy. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Rawls, J. (1971). A theory of justice. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.
Schroeder, M. (2011). Ought, agents, and actions. The Philosophical Review, 120, 1–41.
Sinnott-Armstrong, W. (1984). ‘Ought’” conversationally implies ‘can’. Philosophical Review, 93, 249–261.
Southwood, N. (2016a). ‘Does ‘ought’ imply ‘feasible’’? Philosophy & Public Affairs, 44, 7–45.
Southwood, N. (2016b). ‘The thing to do’ implies ‘can’. Noûs, 50, 61–72.
Southwood, N. (2018). The feasibility issue. Philosophy Compass, 13, 1–13.
Southwood, N. (2019). Feasibility as a constraint on ‘ought all-things-considered’, but not on ‘ought as a matter of justice’? Philosophical Quarterly, 69, 598–616.
Stemplowska, Z. (2016). Feasibility: Individual and collective. Social Philosophy and Pollcy, 33, 273–291.
Walzer, M. (1983). Spheres of justice: A defense of pluralism and equality. New York: Basic Books.
Wiens, D. (2015). Political ideals and the feasibility frontier. Economics and Philosophy, 31, 447–477.
Acknowledgements
I am very grateful to David Wiens for excellent written comments and to David Estlund for many fascinating and enlightening conversations about the topic of the paper over the course of the last 10 years. Research for the article was supported by an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship FT160100409.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Southwood, N. The possibility of wildly unrealistic justice and the principle/proposal distinction. Philos Stud 178, 2403–2423 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-020-01532-w
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-020-01532-w