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Here are a few other fairly central examples of things I agree with Estlund on: “Anti-moralism”, to the extent that I understand it, is for the most part just clearly confused (Chapter 3); The distinction between standards (contents of the principles of justice), and things like conventional or social rules (Chapter 4); The feeling that in cases like that of Prof. Procrastinate we know what we want to say, so there’s no deep philosophical puzzle, and (here this is more me than Estlund speaking) the rest of the work is for semanticists (167); There is no reason to think that non-ideal theory, just because more realistic in some sense, is also more tractable (330). I note other points of agreement throughout this paper.
“Against Utopianism: Noncompliance and Multiple Agents”, Philosophers’ Imprint 18 (16) (2018), 5.
“Against Utopianism”, 12–13. There (18) I also discuss parts of political philosophy—like just war theory—that don’t seem to remain at all interesting under idealization and full compliance.
And here’s what Estlund says about robust prime justice—that is, the standards of ideal theory, if there are any, that remain true even for non-ideal circumstances; “There is, then, also this kind of distinction enjoyed by robust prime justice, if there is such a thing: it is right not only for flawed people like us (though it is fully right also in that way given how we are). It is also not altered or bent to fit our crooked shape, since it has the same shape it would have even if we were morally straight.” (194).
This is the thesis I call, in “Against Utopianism”, merely circumstances. See the discussion there for more details, references, support, and several qualifications. See especially the restriction of merely circumstances to violations by bystanders (7).
There’s some unclarity in Estlund’s use of the term “concessive theory” that’s relevant here. In addressing my objections in “Against Utopianism”, Estlund (22) follows his earlier work in reserving the term for intra-personal cases, cases like that of Prof. Procrastinate, where the expected violation is by the same agent as the action considered. If so, what Slice ought to do given that Patch won’t patch is not a matter of concessive theory at all. (This is how I think of multiple-agent cases in “Against Utopianism”). Later on (e.g. 190), though, he seems to apply the term “concessive theory” also to judgments about what one agent ought to do given the expected violations of another. Now, the term “concessive theory” is technical, and what’s more, it’s Estlund’s, so he is entitled to use it as he sees fit (as long as he does so consistently). The interesting question here is not terminological, but about underlying rationales: Are interpersonal cases like Slice and Patch relevantly similar to intra-personal cases like Prof. Procrastinate? If the rationale is the one discussed in the text here—of proclaiming an action right just because something else is wrong—then the answer is “yes”. If the rationale, however, is that in intra-personal cases we don’t want the person to be off the hook simply in virtue of the fact that he—the same person—will not comply, then the answer is “no” (because if Slice refrains from slicing because she knows Patch won’t patch, Slice is off the hook). I think that Estlund is sensitive to both these considerations. Hence the unclarity.
This is why the restriction of merely circumstances to bystanders is so important. Again see “Against Utopianism”.
I think that all do, except for the most basic, or fundamental, moral principles. Those don’t (here I’m in agreement with Jerry Cohen, as well as with Estlund’s reading of Cohen (106-7)). Wait—so am I not here conceding that the concessive judgment about Slice is not after all fundamental? Sure, but not in the sense relevant to Estlund. The judgment about what Slice ought to do is not fundamental, in the sense that it’s not a fundamental moral principle, but a judgment that applies such principles to a specific set of facts. In that sense, much of ideal theory is also not fundamental. So this is not the sense that distinguishes between aspirational and concessive theory.
Here I go beyond merely circumstances as defended in “Against Utopianism”.
Still, the following difference remains: In multiple-agent cases, non-concessive theory will include plural obligations. Estlund offers a rather complicated account of those (220), according to which a plural obligation is a combination of conditional agential obligations and an evaluative ought. This complexity—absent in the single-agent case—makes the claim about the fundamentality of the non-concessive even less plausible.
The fact that Estlund finds it necessary to argue for this claim—over many pages, using examples from mathematics and science—suggests that his apologetics here are aimed at non-philosophers, perhaps people on the more practical side of political science departments?.
Estlund’s account—presented perhaps most clearly on p. 319—ties achievement of such knowledge with virtue. This makes it sound as if only good political philosophers—and what’s more, only good political philosophers who get things right—can be fully virtuous. This can’t be right. In response, Estlund can insist that the kind of knowledge and understanding of the ideal of justice needed for virtue does not require full success as a political philosopher—perhaps, for instance, it can be only partial, partially implicit, and so on. This line of thought sounds plausible, but it can no longer vindicate doing Estlund’s kind of political philosophy (for if you don’t need to do that kind of political philosophy in order to be fully virtuous, his virtue account can’t justify doing political philosophy). Either way, this part of his apologia for political philosophy fails.
I don’t think that the line of thought in the text shows that thinking about the ideal is necessary for theory construction, or that the only way of thinking about comparative judgments (juster than) without thinking about the ideal is “the eyeball method” (266).
I think this is what Estlund has in mind when he says “even if choice ought to be conservative, it doesn’t follow that theory ought to be conservative.” (268).
And of course, if we’re talking about the context of discovery rather than the context of justification, then ideal theory may be useful in that way as well. But of course, anything may be useful in the context of discovery. For the distinction between the two contexts, see Jutta Schickore (2018) “Scientific Discovery”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, here: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-discovery/#DisBetConDisConJus, section 5.
At the end of the paragraph on p. 289 from which I quote in the text, Estlund says: “… it cannot be assumed that free speech (one of the other medications in the valuable set) is still valuable [in the real world] rather than worthless or even dangerous.” This conclusion—not that freedom of speech is not of value in the real world, but that it cannot be assumed that it is—does follow. See also some formulations on p. 292.
Let me emphasize, as I already have, that I have no problem with doing ideal theory. I just don’t think starting with ideal theory is a promising way of making progress on non-ideal theory.
The quotes that Estlund brings are often far from conclusive in showing otherwise. For instance, Estlund brings textual evidence from Anderson, Nagel and Rawls (87), which is far from conclusive—they clearly have anti-Utopian concerns, but at least the parts Estlund quotes easily lend themselves to other interpretations, perhaps along the lines of the other anti-Utopian concerns I get to later in this section.
For several more possible interpretations—for instance, in terms of claims about the job description of the political philosophers, or of the right allocation of philosophical resources from the point of view of philosophy central command—see the appendix in my “Against Utopianism”.
For instance, one of the quotes Estlund brings (88) from Nagel’s Equality and Paritality states: “If real people find it psychologically very difficult or even impossible to live as the theory requires, or to adopt the relevant institutions, that should carry some weight against the ideal” (my italics).
For the most part, Estlund does not explicitly distinguish between the two thoughts expressed in the two sentences quoted above from page 26. But it is often rather clear that he wants the stronger thesis. Here’s another example: “However, it [the standard of prime justice] might be [unrealistic], and I contend that that would not count against it.” (241, italics are mine). It’s just that his arguments can only support the weaker one.
I thank Lije Millgram for this suggestion.
Whether or not this counts as doing concessive theory depends on the issues discussed above, in footnote 6.
“Indeed, I think that this way of putting things fully captures the intuitive worry that many have about, say, Marxism not being sufficiently realistic or failing to take into account facts about human nature: The problem is that regulating the actions of institutions (one set of agents) by rules that ignore the likely noncompliance of citizens (another set of agents) is unwise.”.
Consider: “When theorists seem to believe otherwise [that justice is constrained by realistic expectations about people’s motivations], it is possible that they are not sufficiently distinguishing the question of what would be a just social structure, from the question of what ought institutionally to be done…” (82) Yes, this is a possibility, but this won’t be a very charitable understanding of what’s going on, and sometimes it won’t be plausible either (as when the writer interpreted is a good philosopher). Isn’t it sometimes more plausible to understand them as talking about multiple-agent cases?
I say something about the masses, the elites, and where political philosophers fit in, in my “The Masses and the Elites: Political Philosophy for the age of Brexit, Trump, and Netanyahu”, Jurisprudence 8 (2017), 1–22.
Estlund’s chosen motto for the book—from James Baldwin—is further indication that this is so: “… the moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.”
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For comments on a previous version, I thank Doug Portmore and Nic Southwood.
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Enoch, D. Just because it’s a phobia doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be afraid. Philos Stud 178, 2425–2437 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-020-01533-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-020-01533-9