Marxism & Psychology Research Group (MPRG)

CALL FOR PAPERS

Workshops in Political Theory Sixth Annual Conference
Manchester Metropolitan University
2-4 September 2009

WHEN SHOULD PHILOSOPHY BE PRACTICAL?

ON IDEAL AND NON-IDEAL THEORY

Conveners:
Robert Jubb, DPhil candidate, Department of Politics, University of Oxford

James Gledhill, PhD candidate, Department of Government, London School of Economics

Two, perhaps competing, critiques of the prevailing post-Rawlsian methodological paradigm of political philosophy have recently become prominent in the literature. The first of these claims that such philosophising does not offer sufficient practical guidance, while the second argues that it involves acquiescing in too many of the injustices which characterise our world. Both raise questions of the relationship that we should expect our political philosophising to bear to practical possibility, by asking how far from and in what relationship to the realities we are faced with political philosophy should stand. The distinction between ideal and non-ideal theory purports to offer a conceptual framework for addressing this question. However, despite increasing work in this area, definitions of ideal and non-ideal theory, and the nature of the relationship between them, are not yet settled.

This panel aims to further explore this distinction and set up a potentially fruitful dialogue between a number of different approaches to the question of what role, if any, the bounds of political possibility should play in the understanding of normative ideals. Of particular interest is the relationship between ideal and non-ideal theory. Is ideal theory necessary for non-ideal theory? Is non-ideal theory necessary for ideal theory? What relations do the demands of justice in each bear to the demands of justice in the other? By pursuing these questions we hope to further understand the relationship between what is possible and we ought to do.

500 word abstract or full paper, suitable for presentation in 30 minutes, to robert.jubb@politics.ox.ac.uk and j.s.gledhill@lse.ac.uk by 1 May 2009.

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