Toward A Non-Ideal Philosophy Of Language

For at least a decade, political philosophy and political science have been entangled in a debate about “ideal theory” versus “non-ideal theory.” The goal of ideal theory is to contrast different versions of an ideal state in an effort to discover the ideal principles of justice. Such a project makes various idealizations—that citizens of the candidate ideal states are willing and able to abide by mutually agreed upon principles and policies, that, in short, citizens are willing to work together toward implementing a common vision of a just state. What is excluded by the idealizations of ideal theory is not obviously relevant to its aim, which is to use intuitions to decide on the structure of the ideal state. Nonideal theory, by contrast, explores questions that arise when these idealizations do not obtain—such as our actual political condition. The debates that have roiled political philosophy and political science concern, among other things, the relative priority of ideal and non-ideal theory. And since non-ideal theorizing has been to some extent marginalized, questions about the shape and form of non-ideal theory in political philosophy and political science are also relevant.