Jacob Levy writes-
In the realm of political philosophy, or of theorizing about justice, there is no such thing as ideal theory.
This is nonsense. In the realm of stupidity, stupid shit of any and every description exists because ex falso quodlibet.
Jurisprudence and Political Theory may not be particularly important. But they can and do serve a didactic purpose by encouraging students who may become lawyers, judges or politicians, to cleave to certain ideals and hold to certain fixed moral principles. At the very least, they should pay such things lip service.
Levy, a Professor of Political Theory, for a foolish reason, takes a different view-
The idea of a categorical distinction, the kind that could allow for a sequencing of stages of theorizing, is misconceived.
Categorical distinctions arise in any protocol bound, buck stopped, juristic or other ratiocinative decision procedure. If a type of reasoning can have univalent foundations, then category theory applies. This is true of Maths as much as any other type of discourse. If no such foundations are supplied, there is a halting problem. This is not to say that even the most scrupulous 'sequent calculi' in a shite subjects might not themselves be shite- but that reflects the shite nature of the discipline.
The idea of a normative political theory that is ideal in some absolute sense is a conceptual mistake,
No. Socrates uses the term 'synoida' for direct awareness of a truth. It is by his own 'synodia emauto' that he knows he knows nothing.
It is part of the primitive notion of Knowledge that there are some things 'known with one self' and this gives rise to the notion of synderesis as hegemonikon- a principle attaining hegemony merely by reason of inner awareness. This 'synoida' is certainly an 'absolute'. It is an imperative. It may be a categorical imperative. Yet it may be wholly defeasible.
No conceptual mistake arises in the intuition that an ideal normative political theory exists. Furthermore, if a concept, generalizing from that intuition, is couched in terms of Tarskian primitives- lack of which would saddle it with impredicativity and infinite regresses- then it would be impossible to show, conceptually, that that concept was faulty. Everything else might be. But we can't be sure.
the equivalent of taking the simplifying models of introductory physics (Òf frictionless movement in a vacuum) and trying to develop an ideal theory of aerodynamics.
Nonsense! Political theory is about Schelling focal solutions to coordination games and the discoordination games this gives rise to. It features John Muth type Rationality- i.e. everybody expects the predictions of the correct economic theory. There is a wide difference between Physis and Nomos. Telling a rock to go to a concert is not as effective as telling a person to go to a rock concert.
Like aerodynamics, political life is about friction; no friction, no politics or justice.
Rubbish! Politics and Jurisprudence can be positive sum games. Resources invested in either activity should have a multiplier effect. The total energy of the system should grow not dissipate.
Or, to take an analogy closer to our disciplinary home: ideal normative political theory is not like microeconomic models with their assumptions of perfect competition and perfect information, radically simplifying assumptions that can be useful in important ways.
No. It is precisely like microeconomic models which feature Knightian Uncertainty, regret minimization, Muth Rational Expectations, Schelling focal points, the folk theorem of repeated games and the 'reverse game theory' which is Mechanism Design based on the 'Revelation Principle'.
The fact is neither Politics nor Jurisprudence need be the exclusive preserve of cretins. We can all be better off if we have 'ideal theories' of both because this gives us cheap Schelling focal solutions to coordination problems. This also drives the 'chrematistics' of discoordination games.
It is rather like microeconomics with added assumptions of superabundance and the impossibility of scarcity: a confused muddle, because microeconomic choice is a way of thinking about choice among limited goods
Microecon has a notion of 'free goods'. So long as Time is unidimensional, opportunity cost still arises. There are chrematistic mathematical models which feature exotic things like negative probabilities.
On the other hand, the market for educational signals affirming stupidity and sycophancy of a high minded sort means that there is a small market for Rawlsian shite.
There are meaningful differences between more and less idealizing theories of justice, and productive debates to be had about which is more useful, when.
Productive debate! Hilarious.
It is useful to distinguish between Structural Causal Models such that the Mechanisms they motivate can be compared before resources are committed to finding out which works best. However, Tardean mimetics is cheaper and better than theorizing.
Still, simply to solve a coordination problem, one can have a theory based taxonomy. Spectrums are useful because they can become the basis of a multiplicative update weighting algorithm of a Hannan Consistent or regret minimizing type.
But such a spectrum is incompatible with the business of categorical distinctions and a sequence of stages.
No. Categories are needed for univalent foundations. Sequent calculi arise in category theory.
It is always incumbent on normative theorists to identify which features of the world they take to be reformable,
But normative theories, too, are a feature of the world. We may want to change a normative theory which uses racist and misogynist terms. That too is 'reform'. After all, if there is a market for that shite, why not make it marginally less repugnant? The same point can be made about updating its default Econ model.
which idealizations they are making, which they do not and are not, and why.
Very true! We should slap Confucius and Lord Buddha silly for not making clear which idealizations they are making. Christ and Muhammad should be made to go sit in a corner wearing a dunce's cap. It is not the case that it is up to us to recast their teaching in the light of what works in current Mechanism Design.
The idea of 'ideal theory' creates one spot on the spectrum of idealization that is thought not to be subject to those questions, and this is illusory.
Nothing wrong with having illusions- or pretending to- if that eases Social Life. Looking at me, few people would be under any illusions regarding my character or capacity for civilized behavior. But pretending to have illusions in this regard can actually elicit a slightly smaller quanta of boorishness from me- till the Babycham goes to my head.
Plausible ideal theories necessarily smuggle in non-ideal premises in order to justify the need for politics and justice altogether.
No. A plausible ideal theory is like porn. It gives us a hard on for the type of activity it idealizes. We picture ourselves in the role of Statesman, or Judge, or tortured Musical Genius, or- my personal favorite- Pizza delivery boy with such a small schlong that he gets promoted to Manager because he met all his delivery targets whereas his rivals, with larger schlongs, have to service horny supermodels.
Those that fail to do so also fail to be plausible, collapsing into an ungrounded moral theory that lies across an unbridged gap from an articulation of political ideals of justice
Moral theories should be ungrounded. That way you can easily pick them up and beat horny supermodels over the head with them.
As for the articulation of political ideals of justice, that's the ambition of every Pizza boy who got into Management, thanks to a diminutive schlong.
There's money to be made in the philosophical equivalent of delivering pizzas without having to put out- thanks to your micro-dick. This is because horny super-models are the main customers of pizza delivery companies. I know this because of my extensive internet research. Coincidentally, pizza delivery is the one field where I may be currently employable. But I could make more money as a politician who delivers Justice as Fairness but it turns out to be just the Pizza the horny supermodels paid for without any pornographic sex.
The primary sense of ideal theory at stake in current debates was first developed by Rawls.
Rawls wanted to deliver the pizza of Kantian shite without having to fulfil the porn fantasy of actual Socialism which involves a big schlong jizzing in the face of horny supermodels. Or so my intensive internet research would suggest.
Rawls understood himself to be doing ideal theory, developing a conception of justice that came prior to such problems in the world as a theory of punishment, compensatory justice, or a theory of just war.
Back in the late Sixties, lots of people thought that the masses preferred equality to a higher standard of living. Then, the Seventies happened. It turned out peeps don't give a shit about equality. They just want more cool shiny stuff.
But he also gave ideal theory a privileged place within his methodological framework. “I examine the principles of justice that would regulate a well-ordered society.
Rawls makes two assumptions not uncommon among credialised cretins at the time
1) The whole of Society bakes the cake- i.e. production is independent of distribution
2) Equity is the canonical solution to the cake cutting problem- i.e the guy who does the slicing gets last pick.
Harsanyi immediately pointed out one elementary mistake Rawls had made but the larger problem was Knightian Uncertainty. Fairness does not matter. Regret Minimization means you want risk pooling and incentive compatible collective insurance.
'Though justice may be, as Hume remarks, the jealous, cautious virtue,
Hume meant 'akribeia'- a narrow legalism, insisting on one's rights and entitlements- but came to see that Justice could be 'economia'- suave, discretionary, accomodation.
;we can still ask what a perfectly just society would be like.'
But the answer is always analogous to a pizza delivered to horny supermodels by a guy with a tragically small schlong. In other words, the thing is a disappointing waste of time though the Pizza Boy might get promoted to Management and save up enough to go to Business School.
'Thus I consider primarily what I call strict compliance as opposed to partial compliance theory… The latter studies the principles that govern how we are to deal with injustice… The reason for beginning with ideal theory is that it provides, I believe, the only basis for the systematic grasp of these more pressing problems. At least, I shall assume that insight can be gained in no other way, and that the nature and aims of a perfectly just society is the fundamental part of the theory of justice.”
The odd thing is that, at the margin, Rawl's two principles are operationalizable. But they can't be the basis of a substantive solution because, by the early Seventies, Econ 101 had the 'anything goes' Sonnenshein Mandel Debreu theorem.
In other words, everybody, behind the veil of ignorance, would know Rawl's solution was imbecilic. Still this could be a partial compliance theory- like comparative statics in Econ- which gestures towards the sort of General Equilibrium which would exist if there were no hedging or income effects.
Indeed, when I was a student, Rawls was seen as a refinement to Hicks-Kaldor & we imagined ourselves presiding over Cost Benefit Tribunals apportioning efficiency gains. Then the Maths got complicated. Incomplete Contract theory took off. Thus Eighteenth Century Contractarianism was simply obsolete. One might as well speak of phlogiston or the aether.
In considering candidate theories of justice, Rawls supposed, his hypothetical choosers would construe each of them on the assumptions of strict compliance and universal endorsement.
Which creates no problems if you permit dialethia or just defeasibility. Philosophy may not like this. But Justice is about Judging- which is different from Knowing or Believing.
They aimed to understand and to choose what justice demands, what the just society would be. Nonideal considerations are eligible to be considered only in a subservient way. In the face of departures from justice as that was specified at the ideal stage—in the face of crimes, unjust laws, uncompensated historic wrongs, or unjust present restrictions on liberty—one should worry about how to best approximate just conditions.
Yup. This sort of retarded shite typified the Welfare Econ of the period. Then there was the Second Best theorem and the Gibbard Satterthwaite theorem and Djikstra Concurrency and the discovery that Walrasian solutions are in in a higher Time Class and so on and so forth. This may be difficult to believe now, but Econ was once the Queen of the Social Sciences. A Nobel Prize for it was instituted at precisely the same time that Maths was showing it was shit.
Mimetics matter, Models don't matter except in so far as they motivate useful tinkering with Mechanisms.
Tardean Mimetics does involve ideals, not realities. I can never be Beyonce. But I can twerk like her best self- at least in my own estimation. Any day now, I'll go viral on Tik Tok. Next stop Hollywood. Then my own talk-show. I'll be bigger than Oprah. Who says there aint no Justice?
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