Rawls and Realism

Realist political philosophers argue that the abstract character of Rawlsian political philosophy has left it floating free of any connection with
real politics. Bernard Williamss political realism is premised on the
rejection of political moralism, which Williams understands as the idea
that the moral is prior to the political and that political philosophy is
applied morality.1 Raymond Geuss concurs, directing his critique of
moralism at Rawls in particular and specifically at Rawlss Kantian
conception of ideal theory. Geuss concludes that the putative failure of
ideal theory to provide guidance for how to negotiate real politics is
not a criticism of some individual aspect of Rawlss theory, but a basic repudiation of his whole way of approaching the subject of political
philosophy.2
Of course criticism of the abstract and idealistic character of
Rawlss political philosophy is not new; it featured prominently in
communitarian critiques of Rawls. But when such criticism has been
acknowledged as having force, it has often been taken to imply that
theories of justice should be contextualist rather than universalist, not
as challenging the fundamental aspirations of normative theorizing.3
The realist critique cuts deeper because it calls into question the relevance, and thereby the coherence, of the project of normative political
theorizing in whatever form. It is important because it prompts political
philosophers to consider reflexively the relationship between theory
and practice. Underlying Williamss critique of political moralism is
the broader contention that analytical philosophy has been notably illequipped among philosophies ... for reflexively raising questions of its
own relations to social reality.4 A fundamental theme in the work of
1

Bernard Williams, Realism and Moralism in Political Theory, in In the Beginning was the Deed: Realism and Moralism in Political Argument, ed. Geoffrey Hawthorn (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005), chap. 1.
2
Raymond Geuss, Philosophy and Real Politics (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 2008).
3
See, e.g., David Miller, Two Ways to Think About Justice, Politics, Philosophy
& Economics 1 (2002): 5-28.
4
Bernard Williams, Political Philosophy and the Analytical Tradition, in Phi Copyright 2012 by Social Theory and Practice, Vol. 38, No. 1 (January 2012)

55

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James Gledhill

Williams and Geuss, and of John Dunn, is that a political theory cannot
achieve the same kind of objectivity as a scientific theory.5 Since politics is not, and cannot be, a neutral vehicle for putting moral judgments
into practice, political judgment cannot be a matter of subsuming individual cases under moral principles, but is rather a matter of the actions
of real political actors within real institutional contexts.
My concern in this article is with whether and how those who are
sympathetic to Rawlsian political philosophy can respond effectively to
the realist critique. This will involve making sense of Rawlss claim in
Justice as Fairness: A Restatement that, in its focus on ideal theory,
justice as fairness is realistically utopian and probes the limits of the
realistically practicable. Furthermore, it will involve examining Rawlss
emphasis on the fact that, as a political conception, justice as fairness is
concerned with the special case of the basic structure of a modern democratic society. It aspires to provide nothing more or less than a political (albeit still moral) framework that can guide the judgments of political practitioners. Realist political philosophers are united in their opposition to the idea that political philosophy is applied moral philosophy, but on the basis of these two points, Rawls argues that justice as
fairness is not applied moral philosophy.6 I will defend a Kantian conception of theory according to which it is precisely by offering general
principles that are abstracted from immediate realities that theory is fit
to guide practice through providing a framework for practical judgment. Since I wish to defend the capacity of such theorizing to provide
guidance for negotiating political reality, I focus on the idea of realistic
utopianism associated with Rawlss later work. I will go on to argue,
however, that there is no basic incompatibility between this idea of realistic utopianism and Rawlss earlier conception of ideal theory. While
many realist concerns will not be addressed, I will contend that the
realist characterization of Rawlss approach to political philosophy as
an exercise in applied morality that is irrelevant to real politics cannot be sustained. While not a conclusive refutation of the realist case,
rebutting this fundamental claim is an essential step in clarifying the
terms of debate between realists and their opponents.
I begin by elaborating the key points that can be extracted from the
losophy as a Humanistic Discipline, ed. A.W. Moore (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 2006), chap. 14, p. 159.
5
See Richard Bourke and Raymond Geuss (eds.), Political Judgement: Essays for
John Dunn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), esp. the editors introduction, Geuss, What is Political Judgement? and Bourke, Theory and Practice: The
Revolution in Political Judgement.
6
John Rawls, Justice as Fairness: A Restatement, ed. Erin Kelly (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001), pp. 12-14, 182.

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57

realist critiques of Williams and Geuss. On this basis, I proceed to clarify Rawlss conception of ideal theory by distinguishing it from the
enactment and structural models of political moralism that Williams
criticizes. In so doing, I demonstrate how justice as fairness is intended
to provide a moral framework for the basic structure of society that can
guide the judgments of political practitioners. I will argue that seen in
this way, Rawlss realistically utopian conception of ideal theory is not
only consistent with the hermeneutical model of political philosophy
that Williams endorses, but not fundamentally at odds with Geusss
emphasis on the importance of political judgment. However, this understanding of ideal theory raises a puzzle about what Rawls means by
referring to nonideal theory. On the basis of a survey of Rawlss discussions of problems of nonideal theory, I will show how on Rawlss
view problems of nonideal theory do not require an ancillary philosophy theory, but rather demand the exercise of political judgment. I conclude that while Rawlss ideal theory approach can be defended against
the charge that it sees political philosophy as applied moral philosophy,
legitimate questions remain about its capacity to guide political judgment under changing political circumstances. Those sympathetic to the
Rawlsian project should not, however, look to a shift towards nonideal
theory, but pursue more, and better, ideal theory.
1. Realism Against Moralism
The realist critique of political moralismor the idea that political philosophy is applied moral philosophymay be unpacked into three key
propositions.7 First, realists argue that ideal moral theorizing is blind to
the essential and ineliminable characteristics of politics. Political moralism imposes upon politics a moral framework of categories of justice, equality, and rights rather than beginning from the categories of
power, interests, and legitimacy that are inherent to politics. Second,
ideal theory goes wrong in advocating a deductive model of the application of moral principles to politics modeled on the technical application of scientific theories. There are, realists argue, no algorithms that
can determine the application of moral principles. What is required is
an act of practical judgment, and such judgment is a matter not of ideal
7

In addition to the works of Williams and Geuss cited above, see, inter alia, Williams, In the Beginning was the Deed (chap. 2) and The Liberalism of Fear (chap.
5) in In the Beginning was the Deed; Geuss, Liberalism and Its Discontents (chap. 1)
and Neither History nor Praxis (chap. 2) in Outside Ethics (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2005); and Geuss, Moralism and Realpolitik (chap. 3) and On the
Very Idea of a Metaphysics of Right (chap. 4) in Politics and the Imagination (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010).

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James Gledhill

prescription but of action, not of words but of deeds. Third, practical

judgment must be political judgment, that is, the activity of judgment
must be understood in a manner that is sensitive to the circumstances of
politics.8 While political practitioners do in some minimal sense apply normative ideas in acting, such ideas must make sense within
particular social, institutional, and historical contexts. If political philosophy is to be sensitive to the requirements of political judgment it
must therefore be reflexive, reflecting on both its capacity to guide the
actions of political practitioners and the normative authority it claims in
seeking to do so. Before considering whether Rawlss ideal theory approach is vulnerable to these criticisms, in the following two sections I
will first differentiate Rawlss view from the enactment and structural
models of political moralism that Williams criticizes.
2. The Enactment Model
According to the enactment model of the relationship of morality to
politics, political philosophy formulates principles, concepts, ideals
and values; and politics (so far as it does what the theory wants) seeks
to express these in political action, through persuasion, the use of power and so forth.9 As Williams describes it, the enactment model typically involves a division of labor between philosophers and politicians
and an intermediate activity in which the concerns of philosophy and
politics meet. This intermediate activity involves tailoring moral principles to existing political realities as part of devising programs for
practical improvement. This is a three-level model of the relationship
of morality to politics, and Geusss understanding of political moralism
may also be understood in these terms, the idea being that Pure ethics as an ideal theory comes first, then applied ethics, and politics is a
kind of applied ethics.10
A clear elucidation and defense of the enactment model is offered
by Adam Swift and Stuart White in their analysis of the division of labor between political theory, social science, and real politics.11 Accord8

I borrow the term circumstances of politics from Jeremy Waldron, Law and
Disagreement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).
9
Williams, Realism and Moralism in Political Theory, p. 1.
10
Geuss, Philosophy and Real Politics, p. 9.
11
Adam Swift and Stuart White, Political Theory, Social Science, and Real Politics, in David Leopold and Marc Stears (eds.), Political Theory: Methods and Approaches (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), chap. 3. See also Adam Swift, The
Value of Philosophy in Nonideal Circumstances, Social Theory and Practice 34
(2008): 363-87; Zofia Stemplowska, Whats Ideal About Ideal Theory? Social Theory and Practice 34 (2008): 319-40.

Rawls and Realism

59

ing to this model, fact-independent ideal theory of the sort advocated

by G.A. Cohen seeks the truth about values such as justice. In nonideal
theory, social scientific knowledge is introduced in order to translate
these fundamental principles into a policy program. Facts become relevant in devising, in Cohens sense, applied principles of justice, or,
more broadly, optimal rules of regulation for the promotion of fundamental fact-independent principles.12 Finally, in a third step, a democratic politician may seek to put such rules of regulation into practice.
Such a model assumes a deductive relationship between moral principles and their application to particular political issues. As Cohen puts
it, facts belong to minor premises the truth of which it is not my business to evaluate.13 Political philosophy, then, is tasked with establishing the normative major premise. Nonideal theory introduces social
scientific facts as minor premises that help to establish what conclusions follow from normative principles in particular circumstances. It is
then the job of the politician to put these conclusions into practice.
As Williams points out, utilitarianism is the paradigmatic example
of a moral theory that implies an enactment model of the relationship
between morality and politics. Indeed, one can presume that in describing the enactment model, Williams has in mind Henry Sidgwicks
analysis of the relationship between ethics and politics in general and
Sidgwicks particular analysis of the utilitarian method of ethics. Williams famously characterizes Sidgwicks outlook as Government
House utilitarianism, a morality for colonial administrators who are
the workaday successors to Platos philosopher kings. While Williams
criticizes the antidemocratic implications of this outlook, the fact that it
is indifferent to the values of social transparency, his fundamental
point against the enactment model per se is that an institutional divide
is a consequence of a gap or dislocation between theory and practice.
Sidgwick simply follows to its logical conclusion the question of
whether there is anywhere in the mind or in society that a theory of
this kind can be coherently or acceptably located?14 Since factindependent principles transcend facts about persons and society, they
cannot provide a public, social basis of justification.
Considering further Sidgwicks approach will help to clarify the na12
G.A. Cohen, Rescuing Justice and Equality (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2008), pp. 263-68, 274-92, 323-27.
13
G.A. Cohen, Equality as Fact and as Norm: Reflections on the (Partial) Demise
of Marxism, Theoria 83/84 (1994): 1-11, p. 1.
14
Bernard Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (London: Fontana, 1985),
pp. 109, 107-8. See also Williams, The Point of View of the Universe: Sidgwick and
the Ambitions of Ethics, in Making Sense of Humanity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), chap. 13.

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James Gledhill

ture of the enactment model; furthermore, I will argue that Rawlss

conception of ideal theory can be seen as a defense of a Kantian approach that Sidgwick rejects. Sidgwick defines politics as concerned
with what the purposes of government ought to be and ethics as aiming
to determine what ought to be done by individuals.15 Distinguishing
between positive law and ideal law, the role of political theory according to Sidgwick is to lay down principles for ideal law, or law as it
ought to be. There remains the question of how citizens are to behave
in relation to existing positive laws. Here a subset of ethics will be devoted to political questions. These concern both citizens political obligations to obey positive law and other commands of government, and
the more general political duties that can be expected of good citizens.
When considering the relationship between ethics and politics from the
perspective of utilitarianism, Sidgwicks description clearly conforms
to Williamss characterization of the enactment model: Utilitarian Ethics naturally seems independent of Politics, and naturally prior to it; we
first consider what conduct is right for private individuals, and then to
how much of this they can advantageously be compelled by legal penalties.16 In Sidgwicks terms both political theory and ethics are ideal
in being concerned with what ought to be rather than with what is. Political philosophy is most fundamentally concerned with the desirable;
asking what is feasible is a separate and subsequent question.
Cohens defense of the desirability of socialist equality, which extends to ethical questions and not just questions of political theory in
Sidgwicks sense, is a particularly striking example of the enactment
model, and provides a basis for comparing alternative conceptions of
ideal theory.17 For Cohen, what remains living in the Marxian tradition
is a set of socialist values and a set of economic designs for realizing
those values.18 As with the utopian socialism from which Marxism once
sought to distinguish itself, theory is developed independently of the
world, and practice is the attempt ... to make the world conform to the

15

Henry Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1981), pp. 15-22.
Ibid., p. 457.
17
Philip Pettit is an example of a political theorist who confines his focus to political theory in Sidgwicks sense, concerned with the purposes of government and with
how society should be organised in an ideal world. Pettit, Judging Justice: An Introduction to Contemporary Political Philosophy (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul,
1980), p. xii. Pettit argues for a shift away from ideal theory and towards an increased
concern with the feasibility of desirable ideals in Geoffrey Brennan and Philip Pettit,
The Feasibility Issue, in Frank Jackson and Michael Smith (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), chap. 10.
18
G.A. Cohen, If Youre an Egalitarian, How Come Youre So Rich? (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000), p. 103.
16

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61

demands of theory.19 Cohen addresses the question of whether socialism is desirable by employing a thought experiment in which social
cooperation takes place in a world that is ideal in the sense of being
removed from the factual circumstances of modern capitalist economies.20 This involves considering the norms of equality and reciprocity
that it would naturally seem desirable to adopt on a camping trip. The
point of the camping trip thought experiment is not to provide an ideal
model that can be approximated in the real world, but to serve as a heuristic for identifying ideal principles of equality and community. Although they may inspire action, these principles are not themselves directly action-guiding.21 The nonideal theory of socialist economists is
required in order to design the social technology that can translate desirable socialist values into feasible policies.
My purpose in setting out the structure of the enactment model is
not so much to mount a critique as to establish a model of political
moralism against which Rawlss ideal theory approach may be compared. However, it will aid the latter task to consider briefly in what
sense the enactment model is vulnerable to realist criticisms. In seeing
the role of nonideal theory as being to translate fundamental principles
into practical policy prescriptions, there are grounds for seeing the
enactment model as understanding rules in the algorithmic sense that
realists reject. At the very least, practical judgment plays the purely
instrumental role of putting into practice policy prescriptions that promote desirable values. That being said, proponents of the enactment
model have a ready response to the charge that the moralistic categories
of ideal theory fail to make contact with real politics. Indeed, Swift
and White admit that the pendulum may have swung too far towards
ideal theory and argue that the balance needs to be redressed through a
greater concern with nonideal, or applied, political theory. This response is unlikely to satisfy realist critics, however. Ambiguities persist
about whether the enactment model represents a stable understanding
of the relationship between ethics and politics, theory and practice. Following the realist diagnosis, these ambiguities may be traced to the
enactment models assumption of a Platonic methodological framework
and consequent ambivalence about the relationship of philosophy to
politics.22 The enactment model remains torn between the desire for
19

Ibid., p. 74.
G.A. Cohen, Why Not Socialism? (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009).
21
Cohen notes that Rawlsians are in one way more Utopian than I, for as constructivists they believe it is possible to achieve justice, whereas for Cohen justice
is an unachievable (although a nevertheless governing) ideal. Cohen, Rescuing Justice
and Equality, p. 254.
22
See Bourke and Geuss, Introduction, in Political Judgement, pp. 8-12. Lea Ypi
20

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James Gledhill

revolutionary change and pragmatic criticism of the status quo. Thus on

the one hand there is Cohens portentous Platonic idea of retreating to
justice in its purity to figure out how to institute as much justice as
possible inside the cave, while on the other hand Swift and White seek
to rebut the charge that philosophers who seek to do so are aspiring to
the status of philosopher kings.23 The job of instituting as much justice
as possible in the cave belongs to the democratic politician who will
have to dilute the truth when the feasibility set of grubby electoral
politics demands it.24
Can political philosophers coherently combine an understanding of
themselves as both democratic underlaborers and as tasked with ensuring that the truth does not slip out of sight, as Swift and White propose? I will not explore this point any further, since when one turns to
Rawlss most extensive remarks on the nature of political philosophy
one finds him criticizing the enactment model in terms strikingly similar to those of Williams. Rawls rejects a Platonic model where political philosophys knowledge of the truth authorizes it to shape, even to
control, the outcome of politics, by persuasion and force if necessary.25 What Rawls takes issue with is not simply the inference that
Swift and White seek to forestall, that such a model legitimizes Platos
philosopher kings or Lenins revolutionary vanguard, but, like Williams, its very methodological structure. It is the assumption that there
is an independent question about the truth of justice separate from the
question of whether a conception of justice could be freely understood
and accepted that Rawls rejects. Rawls adopts instead a democratic
view of political philosophy that appeals not to the authority of philosophical truth but rather to the authority of shared human reason. Political philosophy takes its place within the background culture of a democratic society, its authority resting upon the collective judgment of
citizens.
Rawlss contrasting view of the relationship between theory and
practice can be clarified by interpreting it as an attempt to vindicate a
Kantian account of the relationship between morality and politics in
opposition to Sidgwicks enactment model. Sidgwick considers, only to
reject, the idea that moral theory should be doubly ideal. On this
traces the origins of ideal theory, understood in terms of the enactment models division of labor between the desirable and the feasible, to Platos Republic. See On the
Confusion between Ideal and Non-Ideal in Recent Debates on Global Justice, Political Studies 58 (2010): 536-55.
23
Cohen, Rescuing Justice and Equality, p. 291.
24
Swift and White, Political Theory, Social Science, and Real Politics, p. 67.
25
John Rawls, Remarks on Political Philosophy, in Lectures on the History of
Political Philosophy, ed. Samuel Freeman (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 2007), p. 3.

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63

view, moral theory not only prescribes what ought to be done as distinct from what is, but what ought to be done in a society that itself is
not, but only ought to be.26 However, according to Sidgwick,
it is too paradoxical to say that the whole duty of man is summed up in the effort to
attain an ideal state of social relations; and unless we say this, we must determine our
duties to existing men in view of existing circumstances ... The inquiry into the morality of an ideal society can therefore be at best but a preliminary investigation, after
which the step from the ideal to the actual, in accordance with reason, remains to be
taken.27

This idea of a duty to act in accordance with the morality of an ideal

society brings to mind Kants conception of the kingdom of ends, the
point of view of which Rawlss original position seeks to interpret in a
manner fit for a democratic society.28 Contrary to the enactment model,
the Kantian argument is not the consequentialist one that we should
take whatever means will most likely bring about the ideal moral
world, or best approximate it, but that we should live now as if we
were in an ideal moral community, ignoring the fact (for purposes of
moral decision at least) that not everyone is conscientious.29
Proponents of the enactment model tend to read Rawlss ideal
theory assumption of strict compliance with principles of justice as licensing a search for fact-independent principles.30 But Rawlss assumption of strict compliance takes its character from a second assumption
that characterizes Rawlss ideal theory approach. Rawlss principles of
justice define a perfectly just societywhich for Rawls is a society
well-ordered by the principles of justice as fairnessgiven favorable
conditions. These are conditions that allow for the priority of liberty,
that is, for the lexical priority of the principle of equal basic liberties
over the second principle of justice.31 Such favorable conditions make
26

Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics, p. 18.

Ibid., pp. 19-20.
28
Sidgwicks immediate target is Herbert Spencers view of an absolute ethics
for a utopian ideal society as opposed to a relative ethics for the present imperfect
social conditions (ibid., pp. 177-78 n.1). I leave it open whether the clear inspiration
that Rawls takes from Sidgwick extends to inspiring Rawlss alternative conception of
ideal theory. See, further, Marcus G. Singer, The Methods of Justice: Reflections on
Rawls, Journal of Value Inquiry 10 (1976): 286-316.
29
Thomas E. Hill, Jr., Moral Purity and the Lesser Evil, in Autonomy and SelfRespect (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), chap. 6, p. 73.
30
As Ingrid Robeyns notes, however, the assumption of strict compliance does not
of itself imply anything about the relationship between a conception of justice and the
status quo. See Ideal Theory in Theory and Practice, Social Theory and Practice 34
(2008): 341-62, pp. 344-45.
31
John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, revised ed. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999), pp. 214-20.
27

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James Gledhill

possible a democratic practice of social cooperation founded on a public political conception of justice that citizens can endorse on the basis
of their sense of justice. The priority of liberty excludes appeal to truths
about moral values considered as independent of what can be endorsed
by free and equal citizens. Theories of the rejected kind are indifferent
to the value of publicity. They cannot conceivably be seen as a reflection of citizens sense of justice and therefore cannot conceivably find a
social location as the focus of a well-ordered practice of social cooperation. Reasonably favorable circumstances are, according to Rawls, determined by a societys culture, its traditions and acquired skills in
running institutions, and its level of economic advance (which need not
be especially high).32
Some limitations of political liberties may have been justifiable in
what are today liberal societies in order to facilitate their development
into liberal societies, and it may be necessary to forgo some political
liberties if nonliberal societies are to develop into societies in which all
the basic liberties can be fully enjoyed.33 But Rawls goes on to argue
that in the United States, and we may presume many other societies,
conditions favorable to the priority of liberty do obtain, even if the political will to achieve a well-ordered society does not. It is these reasonably favorable conditions that license working in strict compliance
theory and mean that it can reasonably be presumed that the parties in
the original position are capable of a sense of justice and that this fact
is public knowledge among them. Reasonably favorable conditions are
ones in which it is not unreasonable to expect all citizens to act in accordance with their sense of justice. The role of political philosophy is
to fashion the will to achieve the well-ordered society that reasonably
favorable conditions make possible.
Rawls can therefore be understood as arguing against Sidgwick that
political philosophy should be concerned with the duty to achieve an
ideal state of social relations. It remains to be seen whether Rawls can
respond adequately to Sidgwicks argument that this can only be a preliminary investigation that must be supplemented by nonideal theorys
consideration of how the morality of an ideal society may be applied to
our nonideal world. I will begin to examine this issue in the next section as part of assessing the second species of political moralism that
Williams criticizes.

32
John Rawls, Political Liberalism, expanded ed. (New York: Columbia University
Press, 2005), p. 297.
33
Rawls, A Theory of Justice, pp. 217-18.

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65

3. The Structural Model

The structural model of the relationship between morality and politics,
which Williams associates with the Kantian approaches of Rawls and
Ronald Dworkin, is one where theory lays down moral conditions of
co-existence under power, conditions in which power can be justly exercised.34 Rawls does indeed describe the role of a realistic utopia as
setting limits to the reasonable exercise of power.35 However, it is far
from self-evident that Rawls foresees the exercise of power being limited by moral conditions laid down, or legislated, in the manner of a
Kantian sovereign. As I have described it, Rawlss doubly ideal Kantian alternative to Sidgwicks enactment model of ideal theory takes its
inspiration from Kants moral philosophy rather than Kants political
philosophy. It involves both the idea of an ideal morally perfect world
and the duty of persons to act as if they were self-legislating free and
equal citizens of such a world. This second idea differentiates Rawlss
view of how a theory is realized in practice from other Kantian approaches like Dworkins with which it is often associated.
Dworkin employs a three-level model, analogous to the enactment
model, to explain how principles of equality of resources for an ideal
world can be translated into a form where they can be approximated in
the real world. In terms of Onora ONeills distinction between abstraction (bracketing known truths) and idealization (denying known truths),
I take it that both Rawls and Dworkin offer abstract rather than idealized accounts of practical agency.36 The next question is whether the
structural framework within which practical agency is seen as being
exercised in ideal theory is understood in an idealized sense.37 Here I
will argue that while for Dworkin ideal principles are fit to guide action
only in an ideal world, Rawls denies this. Rawls seeks to overcome a
Kantian dualism of the ideal and real worlds in order to render more
realistic Kants view of the relationship between ideal moral theory and
practice, in which theory directly guides practical judgment. Therefore,
as I will show in section 4, unlike ONeill, Rawls does not abstract
away from the circumstances of our social world, constructing principles that are fit to guide political judgment. It is through such a revised Kantian two-level model of the relationship between theory and
34

Williams, In the Beginning was the Deed, p. 1.

John Rawls, The Law of Peoples (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
1999), p. 6 n.8.
36
Onora ONeill, Towards Justice and Virtue (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1996), pp. 39-44.
37
Here my concerns are similar to those of Laura Valentini, On the Apparent
Paradox of Ideal Theory, The Journal of Political Philosophy 17 (2009): 332-55. However, I work with a different understanding of how normative theory guides action.
35

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James Gledhill

practice that Rawls can hope to respond to Sidgwicks skepticism about

the self-sufficiency of ideal theory. In sum, while Dworkins departure
from the enactment model is limited to adopting a Kantian view of
theory as practical, Rawls makes both this move and the further Kantian move of understanding practical judgment as the key to realizing a
theory in practice.
Contrasting with the enactment models concern with desirable values, then, for Kant, and for Rawls and Dworkin, a moral theory is by
definition a set of practical or action-guiding rules. Such rules of theory
are general in nature and abstract away from empirical circumstances,
circumstances that nonetheless become relevant again in the practical
application of these rules. Practice (praxis), on the other hand, for Kant
(and, I will argue, for Rawls) consists in action in accordance with procedural principles. This requires practical judgment, for Kant takes it to
be obvious that
between theory and practice there is required, besides, a middle term connecting them
and providing a transition from one to the other, no matter how complete a theory may
be; for, to a concept of the understanding, which contains a rule, must be added an act
of judgment by which a practitioner distinguishes whether or not something is a case of
the rule; and since judgment cannot always be given yet another rule by which to direct
its subsumption (for this would go on to infinity), there can be theoreticians who can
never in their lives become practical because they are lacking in judgment.38

The key point to note is that Kant rejects the idea that practical rules
can aspire to the same algorithmic status as natural scientific rules. This
is because whereas natural scientific theories are intended to fit the
world, moral theories are intended to guide practice, thereby fitting the
world to the theory. Putting a moral theory into practice involves not
the application of ideal principles to particular problems, but rather
practicing, enacting, or instantiating ideal principles under existing circumstances.39 In Rawlss terms, while theoretical reason is concerned
with knowledge of given objects, practical reason is concerned with the
production or perfection of objects in accordance with a conception of
those objects.40 An example of this is political action in accordance
with the conception of a well-ordered society represented by the procedural principles that could be agreed to in an original position of freedom and equality.
38

Immanuel Kant, On the Common Saying: That May Be Correct in Theory, But
It Is of No Use in Practice, in Practical Philosophy, ed. Mary J. Gregor (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 279.
39
See Onora ONeill, Experts, Practitioners, and Practical Judgement, Journal of
Moral Philosophy 4 (2007): 154-66, and Normativity and Practical Judgment, Journal of Moral Philosophy 4 (2007): 393-405.
40
Rawls, Political Liberalism, p. 93.

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67

Ideal theory has been described as establishing an ideal world in the

form of a mythical Paradise Island, and indeed Dworkins theory of
equality of resources imagines a hypothetical resource auction between
shipwreck survivors on a desert island in the ideal ideal world of fantasy.41 Unlike Cohens camping trip, Dworkins thought experiment is
intended to guide action, not simply identify desirable values, by establishing a framework of principles that can guide the establishment of an
ideal institutional framework. But Dworkins ideal principles cannot
guide action directly. The hypothetical resource auction for an ideal
ideal world forms the basis for a theory of egalitarian improvement in
the ideal real world, which involves a hypothetical insurance scheme.
In turn, the insurance scheme can be used to judge performance in the
real real world, with legislators seeking to approximate its anticipated
outcomes through redistributive taxation. Dworkins ideal resource
auction might be seen as an unobjectionable, and useful, exercise of
abstraction, for it might be thought to function like the idea of a frictionless plane in physics: it abstracts from real-world facts, which have
to be brought back in as the theory is applied, but the more closely the
real real world resembles the ideal ideal world, the more closely it
will approximate the auction ideal of equality of resources. However,
there are reasons to question this analogy. Joseph Heath concludes that
the relationship between equality and efficiency that the auction realizes
obtains only at the level of ideal theory. The thought experiment cannot be used to derive any conclusions about how actual markets work
in the world or how actual resource-egalitarian allocations can be
achieved.42 It is not simply that at the level of redistributive taxation
we are concerned with second-best compromises of our ideal in the
real world, but that the general theory of the second best undermines
the analogy between the auction mechanism, with its assumption of
perfect competition, and a frictionless plane. The step from the ideal to
the actual requires a mediating nonideal theory since the ideal principles are for an ideal ideal world and cannot be directly enacted under the structural constraints of the real world.43
41
Robeyns, Ideal Theory in Theory and Practice, pp. 344-45; Ronald Dworkin,
Sovereign Virtue: The Theory and Practice of Equality (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 2000).
42
Joseph Heath, Dworkins Auction, Politics, Philosophy & Economics 3 (2004):
313-35, p. 331.
43
Thomas Pogges interpretation of Rawls adopts a similar approach to which a
similar point applies. For Pogge, Rawlss theory could be used to design a blueprint
of ideal institutions that would be perfectly just, but [o]ur responsibility ... in no way
depends on whether such a fully just scheme is practicable or realistically attainable ...
much more important for now is its role in the comparative assessment of alternative
feasible institutional schemes. Justice as fairness must be brought down to earth, the

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James Gledhill

In contrast to Dworkins three-level model, interpreting Rawls as

seeking to overcome the Kantian dualism of the ideal world and the
real world, in order to vindicate the Kantian idea that ideal procedural
principles can provide a framework for practical judgment, suggests an
alternative view of the relationship between theory and practice. The
point of view of the original position should not be understood in utopian terms as the standpoint of an ideal ideal world. Rawls detaches
Kants conception of autonomy from Kants two-world metaphysics by
applying it to the choice of principles for giving an ideal form to the
basic structure of a democratic society. The original position provides
an ideal standpoint for viewing the basic structure of our social world,
not for choosing principles of justice for a perfect world. Indeed, Rawlss
focus on the basic structure is integral to his conception of ideal theory:
A conception of justice must specify the requisite structural principles and point to the
overall direction of political action. Thus ideal theory, which defines a perfectly just
basic structure, is a necessary complement to nonideal theory without which the desire
for change lacks an aim.44

Dworkin pursues a more retail level approach designed to be of more

concrete practical use to legislators and judges.45 Rawlss aspirations,
on the other hand, are confined to proposing a framework for guiding
the judgments of political practitioners. And while Rawls suggests this
might be of assistance to judges, justice as fairness is addressed not so
much to constitutional jurists as to citizens in a constitutional regime
who seek guidance on fundamental political questions.46
The original position, then, provides a reasonable moral framework
for choosing a conception of justice that in turn provides a reasonable
moral framework for guiding reform of the basic structure of society.
But what does it mean to realize Rawlss principles of justice? Thomas
Pogge argues that Rawls does not merely seek to construct the ideal of
a perfectly just well-ordered society and then have us use intuition and
instrumental rationality for muddling through toward this ideal.47
However, I think this is almost exactly what Rawls does, and should,
intend when he describes a theory of justice as a guiding framework. It
will not, though, be quite what Rawls intends if one understands Rawlss
key to this being an intermediate philosophical theory that tailors ideal principles to
existing realities. Thomas Pogge, Realizing Rawls (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1989), pp. 12, 9, 136.
44
Rawls, Political Liberalism, p. 285.
45
Herlinde Pauer-Studer (ed.), Ronald Dworkin: Law, Morality, and Equality, in
Constructions of Practical Reason: Interviews on Moral and Political Philosophy
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002), pp. 128-47, at p. 139.
46
Rawls, Political Liberalism, p. 369.
47
Pogge, Realizing Rawls, p. 136.

Rawls and Realism

69

conception of our intuitive capacities as not restricted to the instrumental pursuit of pre-defined ends but as encompassing a Kantian capacity
for practical judgment. For Rawls, what is required in practice by the
ideal of a perfectly just well-ordered society is ultimately a matter of
political judgment guided by theory, good sense, and plain hunch.48
But while the measure of departures from the ideal is left importantly
to intuition, our judgment is guided by the priority of the principle of
equal basic liberties.49 I return to this point in section 5, but we may
conclude that:
We must not ask too much of a philosophical view. A conception of justice fulfills its
social role provided that persons equally conscientious and sharing roughly the same
beliefs find that, by affirming the framework of deliberation set up by it, they are normally led to a sufficient convergence of judgment necessary to achieve effective and
fair social cooperation.50

The Rawlsian understanding of ideal theory that I have been arguing

for is one in which ideal theory is concerned with constitutive rules of
social cooperation, or ideal practice rules, for the basic structure of society. The role of such rules or principles is to construct actions-asrealizations-of-ideals rather than to identify preexisting actions that
serve as means of promoting goals.51 I have therefore contrasted twolevel views of the relationship between theory and practice, where action in accordance with ideal practice rules realizes the ideal of a perfectly just well-ordered society, with three-level views in which nonideal theory is required to identify feasible means for promoting or approximating desirable goals. The role of a conception of justice in constructing actions-as-realizations-of-ideals is evident in the role of public reason in providing a framework for guiding the political judgments
of judges, legislators, and, most importantly, citizens. The idea of public reason includes the idea of a political conception of justice for the
basic structure of society. When voting, a reasonable citizen will seek
to frame the reasons on the basis of which they vote for a candidate for
public office, and the policies the candidate supports, within the terms
of public reason. In doing so, ideally citizens are to think of themselves as if they were legislators, considering whether policies and
supporting reasons meet a criterion of reciprocity.52 When citizens act
48

Rawls, A Theory of Justice, p. 246.

Ibid., p. 216.
50
Rawls, Political Liberalism, p. 368.
51
Tamar Schapiro, Kantian Rigorism and Mitigating Circumstances, Ethics 117
(2006): 32-57, p. 57.
52
Rawls, The Idea of Public Reason Revisited, reprinted in Political Liberalism,
pp. 435-90, at p. 445. Rawls notes in this context a resemblance between the criterion
of reciprocity in public reason and Kants principle of the original contract.
49

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James Gledhill

in accordance with procedural principles of public reason, principles

represented through the original position, their actions are constructed
as the realization of the ideal of public reason, an ideal of democratic
reciprocity that characterizes a well-ordered society.
4. The Hermeneutical Model and Realistic Utopianism
Williams recognizes that justice as fairness is a political conception of
justice whose subject is the basic structure of society. As Rawls puts it,
political values arise in virtue of certain special features of the political relationship, as distinct from other relationships.53 But such political values remain a subset of moral values, and Williams therefore
maintains his view that Rawls takes the moral to be prior to the political and sees a political conception of justice as the application of a
moral conception to a particular subject matter. If Rawls may see the
role of a conception of justice as being to provide a moral framework
for the basic structure that can guide practical judgment, it has not yet
been shown that this framework takes account of the circumstances of
politics and is able to provide a framework for political judgment.
In order to address this question, it is necessary to consider the political realism that Williams contrasts with Rawlss supposed political
moralism. In Williamss succinct formulation, liberalism should be regarded as the conjunction of the requirements of legitimacy (LEG) and
the circumstances of modernity: LEG + Modernity = Liberalism. In
order to be legitimate, a society must provide an acceptable solution to
a Basic Legitimation Demand. It must answer in a way that is acceptable to us the first political question posed most clearly by Hobbes,
concerned with the securing of order, protection, safety, trust, and the
conditions of cooperation. While this may be a moral idea, it is a morality that is not prior to politics but rather inherent in there being such
a thing as politics.54 An acceptable solution to the Basic Legitimation
Demand, such as to render a state legitimate, will be a structure of authority that makes sense to those it claims to govern as an authoritative structure. The idea of what makes sense is for Williams a quasitechnical category: a category of historical understanding, or a hermeneutical category. What we take to be a justification of political authority for our own practices will be grounded in reasons internal to
those practices and Williams takes this to vitiate political moralisms
attempt to apply external moral principles to politics.
The distance between the apparently contrasting methodological
53

Rawls, Political Liberalism, p. 182.

Williams, Realism and Moralism in Political Theory, pp. 3, 5.

54

Rawls and Realism

71

approaches of Rawls and Williams would be closed if Rawlss political

conception of justice for the basic structure of society could be seen as
also relying upon just such a hermeneutical justification. A hermeneutical political theory understands its relationship to practice in a different
way to a political theory that follows the structure of natural science:
while natural science theory also transforms practice, the practice it transforms is not
what the theory is about. It is in this sense external to the theory. We think of it as an
application of the theory. But in politics, the practice is the object of theory. Theory
in this domain transforms its own object.55

On such a hermeneutical view, practices of social cooperation are constituted by citizens normative self-understandings. The impetus towards
political philosophy arises from a sense of the inadequacy of these constitutive self-understandings, and in turn a political theory is validated by
its capacity to provide more adequate guidance. Rawls can be seen as
following just such a model. Rather than withdrawing from society and
the world to construct principles for an ideal world that then have to be
brought down to earth, political philosophys work of abstraction is set
in motion by deep political conflicts.56 Political philosophy is concerned
with ideal social practice rules that through guiding practitioners political judgments can reconstruct existing social practices.57
A clearer understanding of how Rawls follows such a hermeneutical
model can be gained by considering the place of ideal theory within the
realistically utopian role Rawls allots to political philosophy. That ideal
theory should be understood in relation to realistic utopianism is suggested by Rawls when he says that discussion of the nature and content
of principles of justice for the basic structure of a well-ordered society
is referred to in justice as fairness as ideal, or strict compliance, theory. Strict compliance means that (nearly) everyone strictly complies with, and so abides by, the principles of justice. We ask in effect what a perfectly just, or nearly just, constitutional
regime might be like, and whether it may come about and be made stable under the
circumstances of justice ... and so under realistic, though reasonably favorable, conditions. In this way, justice as fairness is realistically utopian: it probes the limits of the
realistically practicable, that is, how far in our world (given its laws and tendencies) a
democratic regime can attain complete realization of its appropriate political values
democratic perfection, if you like.58
55

Charles Taylor, Political Theory and Practice, in Christopher Lloyd (ed.), Social Theory and Political Practice (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), p. 74.
56
Rawls, Political Liberalism, pp. 44-45.
57
This idea of hermeneutical circularity is implicit in Frank Michelmans analysis
in On Regulating Practices with Theories Drawn from Them: A Case of Justice as
Fairness, in Ian Shapiro and Judith Wagner DeCew (eds.), Theory and Practice
(NOMOS XXXVII) (New York: New York University Press, 1995), chap. 11.
58
Rawls, Justice as Fairness, p. 13. Justice as Fairness: A Restatement derives
from lectures given in the 1980s, suggesting a clear continuity between Rawlss con-

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James Gledhill

This important passage indicates ideal theorys concern with ideal social
practice rules in the idea that the strict compliance with which Rawls is
concerned is compliance with the principles of justice as fairness that
would achieve a realizable and stable well-ordered society. Ideal theory
is for our world, not a perfect world, and its aspiration for democratic
perfection involves seeking to completely realize the political values appropriate to social cooperation in a constitutional democratic regime.
There are, though, three further elements here that require discussion.
First, what is realistic about a realistically utopian conception of justice?
Second, in what sense are realistic conditions also reasonably favorable
conditions, conditions that allow a realistically utopian conception of
justice to probe, rather than take as positivistically given, the limits of the
realistically practicable? And third, why should we be concerned with
whether a perfectly just well-ordered society can achieve a stable practice of social cooperation?
A realistically utopian conception of justice is realistic because it
excludes no general facts about the circumstances of justice, or what
Rawls calls more generally the circumstances of the social world.
These include circumstances like the fact of reasonable pluralism that
reflect the historical conditions under which modern democratic societies exist.59 Principles of justice are constructed against the background of what is feasible given the circumstances of the social world.
Since the role of principles of justice is to reconstruct the constitutive
understandings of our social practices, justice as fairness draws upon
the fundamental constitutive ideas implicit in our democratic social
practices, most fundamentally the central organizing idea of society as
a fair system of social cooperation, which is cashed out with reference
to the idea of citizens as free and equal persons and the idea of a wellordered society.
In what sense, though, are realistic conditions also reasonably favorable? It is here that Rawls departs from the assumption that led
Sidgwick to reject doubly ideal theory for a perfect society. Sidgwick
argues that moral theory must take the moral habits, impulses, and
tastes of men as a material given us to work upon no less than the rest
of their nature. Given that change in these factors is both unlikely and
unpredictable, if we want practical guidance for real politics it will,
Sidgwick argues, be little use to set about constructing an ideal morality for men conceived to be in other respects as experience shows
them to be, but with their actual morality abstracted.60 Rawlss realisception of ideal theory in A Theory of Justice and his later concern with realistic utopianism.
59
Rawls, Political Liberalism, p. xxi; Rawls, Justice as Fairness, p. 84.
60
Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics, pp. 468-69.

Rawls and Realism

73

tic utopianism, by contrast, follows Rousseaus maxim of taking men

as they are and laws as they might be. It is important here that taking
persons moral and psychological natures as they are involves understanding human potentiality, or how persons natures might be within a
framework of political and social institutions organized as they should,
or ought, to be.61 As Rawls puts it, the limits of the possible are not given by the actual, for we can to a greater or lesser extent change political
and social institutions and much else.62 Rawlss ideal conception of citizenship for a constitutional democratic regime, given by public reason,
presents how things might be taking people as a just and well-ordered
society would encourage them to be, providing a realistically utopian
ideal to guide our political judgment under existing circumstances.63
Williamss idea that tenable justifications of political authority must
make sense on the basis of reasons that are internal to existing political
practices parallels his neo-Humean commitment to motivational internalism in moral philosophy.64 But in objecting to Williamss motivational
internalism, Rawls asks: How is one to fix limits on what people might
be moved by in thought and deliberation and hence may act from?65 In
other words, how can we know in advance that citizens cannot and will
not be moved by the conception-dependent desire to act in accordance
with the procedural principles that could be agreed to in an original position of freedom and equality? If conception-dependent desires are part
of the public political culture, and are learned by persons from this culture, thereby becoming part of their subjective motivational sets, then
the supposed bright line between Humean internal reasons and Kantian external reasons becomes blurred. If philosophy for Rawls begins
in mediis rebus, seeking to reform political practices on the basis of
moral ideas implicit in those practices, then in what sense is the moral
prior to the political, or the political prior to the moral?66 The problem is
rather one of starting from where we are and asking what it would
mean for our societies to more perfectly realize the publicly professed
ideals upon which the legitimacy of political authority depends.
Both Williams and Geuss emphasize the need for political philosophy to take up reflexively the question of its own relation to social reality. However, before turning to this issue we should consider the reflex61

Rawls, The Law of Peoples, p. 7.

Ibid., p. 12; Rawls, Justice as Fairness, p. 5.
63
Rawls, Political Liberalism, p. 213.
64
Bernard Williams, Internal and External Reasons, in Moral Luck (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1981), chap. 8.
65
Rawls, Political Liberalism, p. 85.
66
Burton Dreben, On Rawls and Political Liberalism, in Samuel Freeman (ed.),
The Cambridge Companion to Rawls (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003),
chap. 8, pp. 322-23.
62

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James Gledhill

ivity built into the practices that political philosophy takes as its object.
In one sense this means nothing more than that citizens in liberal democratic societies take an interest in reflecting upon the terms of their
political relationship. More fundamentally, though, it is essential to the
very idea of modernity in which social practices are constantly examined and reformed in the light of incoming information about those
very practices, thus constitutively altering their character.67 Here it is
Williams and Geuss who can be faulted for a lack of hermeneutical historical thinking. Putting it in Rawlss terms, we could say that we only
have access to the concept of Williamss basic legitimation demand
through a particular conception of that concept. For citizens of liberal
democratic societies, the fusion of the basic legitimation demand and
modernity is not optional. Neither is it fixed, but must be continually
reconstituted. Indeed, we may suppose that in a democratic society it
makes sense to citizens that what makes sense will change: Williams himself accepts that it is part of our social practices to criticize,
and therefore go beyond, our existing social practices.68 There is therefore no moralistic veneer to be stripped away to reveal the nature of
real politics, but rather an original modern problem of securing stable
social cooperation that has become for us a normative problem of continually re-elaborating the normative conceptions that have become
constitutive of the democratic self-understandings of our societies. It
might indeed be necessary to keep running to even stand still.
Rawlss view that a conception of justice may reasonably assume
that citizens in modern democratic societies are prepared to revise their
political commitments upon reflection, and in accordance with moral
conceptions, is not implausible. But on the hermeneutical model, such a
conception must still consider reflexively its capacity to guide citizens
political judgments and the authority it claims in aspiring to do so.
Rawlss concern with the problem of stability in A Theory of Justice
responds to the demand that
a theory should present a description of an ideally just state of affairs, a conception of a
well-ordered society such that the aspiration to realize this state of affairs, and to maintain it in being, answers to our good and is continuous with our natural sentiments.69

Including the fact of reasonable pluralism among the feasibility constraints of the circumstances of justice threatens the tenability of this
stability argument. This prompts Rawlss clarification that the normative authority claimed by justice as fairness is that of a political concep67

Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990), p. 38.
68
Williams, In the Beginning was the Deed, pp. 24-25.
69
Rawls, A Theory of Justice, pp. 417-18.

Rawls and Realism

75

tion of justice rather than a comprehensive doctrine. One aim of Political Liberalism is to show that reasonable pluralism is not a nonideal
condition and that including it among the feasibility constraints of the
circumstances of justice does not affect the possibility, or realizability,
of a perfectly just well-ordered society. Indeed, reasonable comprehensive doctrines provide the basis on which reasonable persons can endorse a reasonable political conception of justice, as we see when we
reflect on the fact that a reasonable pluralism of such doctrines is itself
encouraged by such a conception.70 Fundamentally, then, where Rawls
differs from Williams is not in his rejection of a hermeneutical model
of the relationship between morality and politics; rather, it is in positing
a double hermeneutic in which political philosophy reflexively takes
as its object, and seeks to reconstruct, social practices that are themselves reflexive and constantly being reconstructed.71
5. Nonideal Theory or Political Judgment?
Political realism presents itself as the application of a requisite hardheadedness in the face of the philosophical temptation to build ideal
castles in the air. But as Susan Neiman has argued, the demand to get
real and decrease ones moral expectations of politics cannot pretend
to philosophical neutrality. There are different ways to view reality,
and realism represents one such worldview, which in order to legitimate itself has to screen out the reality of the fact that persons are often
moved to act in accordance with ideals.72 I will not pursue any further
the deeper questions of epistemological realism versus idealism that
this raises, nor the affinities between the latter and more naturalistic
philosophical views according to which empirical content is organized
by conceptual schemes. My aim in this final section is limited to analyzing what Rawls says about problems of nonideal theory in order to
call into question the view that Rawlss distinction between ideal and
nonideal theory supports a distinction between ideal theory for an ideal
world and nonideal theory for our actual, real, nonideal world.
70
For the distinction between feasibility and realizability, see James Bohman,
Critical Theory, in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2010 Edition),
ed. Edward N. Zalta, http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2010/entries/critical-theory/.
71
On the idea of a double hermeneutic, see Anthony Giddens, New Rules of Sociological Method, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1993), and The Constitution of Society (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1984).
72
Susan Neiman, Moral Clarity: A Guide for Grown-Up Idealists (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2008). There are clear parallels between Neimans Kantian
idea of grown-up idealists and Rawlss realistic utopianism. On the motivations behind
Rawlss realistic utopianism, see Susan Neiman, Evil in Modern Thought (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2002), pp. 310-14.

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James Gledhill

Ideal theory
(Strict compliance theory)
First part

TJ

Second part

Principles of justice chosen in the original

position

Stability (on the basis of a comprehensive

doctrine)

PL A political conception of justice

represented through the original position

Stability (overlapping consensus of reasonable

comprehensive doctrines)

LP The Law of Peoples for a Society of

Liberal Peoples

Realization through extension to decent

hierarchical peoples

Nonideal theory
Partial compliance
Tolerable

TJ

Intolerable

Unfavorable conditions
Changeable

1. Civil
1. Theory of punishment Historical limitations
disobedience 2. Compensatory justice
2. Conscientious 3. Weighing of institurefusal
tional injustices
4. Doctrine of just war
5. Curbing liberties of intolerant and rival sects

Permanent

Natural limitations
and historical contingencies, e.g. regulation of liberties for
public order and
limitation of scope of
majority rule

Unreasonable doctrines
PL Reasonable
comprehensive
doctrines within
the wide view of
public political
culture

Reasonable comprehen- Natural limitations

sive doctrines under
and historical continnonideal conditions, e.g. gencies
slavery in antebellum
South and 1960s civil
rights movement

LP Toleration of
decent nonliberal peoples

Duty of assistance to
burdened societies

Just war against outlaw

states

Natural limitations
and historical contingencies

Table 1. Rawlss distinction between ideal and nonideal theory

Rawls and Realism

77

In the previous section we saw that Rawls understands ideal theory to

have two parts: first, the construction of a conception of justice and
second, reflection on its motivational stability and its realizability.73 For
there to be a reasonable duty for practitioners to conform their judgments
to a conception of justice, such a conception must be realistically utopian
or realizable. An analogous two-part structure, concerned first with construction and then realizability, is evident in the two parts of ideal theory
in The Law of Peoples. The specific details of these two parts of ideal
theory in Rawlss three major works are summarized in the upper part of
Table 1. Rawls therefore implicitly rejects Sidgwicks claim that after
inquiring into the morality of an ideal society we need a new, mediating
nonideal theory to make the transition from the ideal to the actual. But if
this is the case, how are we to understand Rawlss references to nonideal
theory? It is to this puzzle that I now turn.
The account of ideal theory that I have given follows A. John Simmons in viewing Rawlss conception of ideal theory from the perspective of the perennial problem of the relationship between philosophical
theory and political practice, and as tasked with providing an integrated
structural end that we can strive to realize.74 But I depart from Simmons in my understanding of nonideal theory. For Simmons, ideal
theory dictates the objective, nonideal theory dictates the route to that
objective (starting from whatever imperfectly just conditions a society
happens to occupy).75 On this view, nonideal theory provides the transitional principles of justice for individuals that are required to move
towards a goal, drawing on both philosophical and social scientific
judgments.76 But as Rawls defines it, ideal theory develops the conception of a perfectly just basic structure and the corresponding duties
and obligations of persons under the fixed constraints of human life.77
Nonideal theory then takes up problems of partial compliance and unfavorable conditions. The idea of transitional principles of justice is
vulnerable to the problem of infinite regress to which Kants discussion
73

As I interpret it, Rawls does not offer an ideal theory of justice; rather, principles of
justice are constructed in ideal theory. For the contrary view, see Michael Phillips, Reflections on the Transition from Ideal to Non-Ideal Theory, Nos 19 (1985): 551-70,
esp. p. 568 n.4.
74
A. John Simmons, Ideal and Nonideal Theory, Philosophy & Public Affairs 38
(2010): 5-36.
75
Ibid., p. 12.
76
Simmons understands Rawlss idea of local justice as a subpart of principles for
individuals. However, Rawlss reference to Jon Elsters work in this context suggests a
view according to which social science does not contribute to working out how the
goals of ideal theory can be pursued, but rather offers explanatory theories set within a
normative framework. See Rawls, Justice as Fairness, p. 11; Jon Elster, Local Justice
(New York: Russell Sage, 1992), esp. pp. 14-16.
77
Rawls, A Theory of Justice, p. 216 (emphasis added).

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James Gledhill

of theory and practice draws attention: where the anticipated, and to

that extent ideal, conditions envisaged by the nonideal transitional
theory do not hold, we will need a nonideal nonideal transitional theory
to get us to the point where the nonideal transitional theory can be applied, and so on. As Kant argues, for a theory with practical intent to
actually be put into practice it must be practiced, and this requires
judgment on the part of practitioners.
Rawlss discussions of nonideal theory, summarized in the remainder
of Table 1, support this interpretation. In section 2, I outlined Rawlss
view of how existing conditions are favorable to the priority of liberty,
allowing a practice of well-ordered social cooperation supported by
citizens sense of justice. Historical limitations that applied to liberal
societies in the past or apply to nonliberal societies today and that necessitate unequal liberty must be clearly distinguished from natural
limitations, such as the regulation of liberty for public order, that necessitate less extensive liberty. Such natural limitations are one of the
problems with which nonideal theory is concerned, and they obtain in
even the most favorable historical conditions.78 The other concern of
nonideal theory is partial compliance. Here a distinction needs to be
drawn between tolerable, because potentially justifiable, noncompliance and intolerable, or unjustifiable, noncompliance. The examples
of noncompliance that Rawls discusses in most detail, civil disobedience and conscientious refusal, need to be understood in relation to
the idea that the stability of social cooperation is not fixed but developmental. A conception of justice must be able to guide judgments
about how political practices should change. Noncompliance may succeed in showing that laws do not comply with principles of justice,
meaning that a general disposition to engage in justified civil disobedience introduces stability into a well-ordered society, or one that is
nearly just.79 The wide view of public political culture in political liberalism, which allows the introduction of comprehensive doctrines into
public reason provided that in due course political reasons can be introduced, responds to an equivalent problem. It is an expansion of the inclusive view of public reason under which the introduction of comprehensive doctrines by the abolitionists and the civil rights movement
was seen by Rawls as justified as a response to the unfavorable nonideal conditions of slavery and institutionalized discrimination. Like
civil disobedience, the inclusive view may strengthen the forces working for stability.80 A similar developmental rationale can be seen as
implicit in Rawlss argument in The Law of Peoples for the toleration
78

Ibid., p. 215.
Ibid., p. 336.
80
Rawls, Justice as Fairness, p. 90.
79

Rawls and Realism

79

of decent nonliberal peoples.

There remain questions about whether ideal theory can provide
guidance for addressing cases of intolerable noncompliance and permanent natural limitations. The relationship that Rawls envisages here between political philosophers and political practitioners comes out particularly clearly in The Law of Peoples. The student of philosophy
looks to the real interests of a well-ordered society, and, on this basis,
first sets out a conception of justice and second considers its realizability. Turning to nonideal theory, the student of philosophy must say
enough to show that the principles of ideal theory provide guidelines
that can and should inform addressing problems of nonideal theory.
But, Rawls argues, citing Kants Critique of Judgment, it is the task of
the statesman, not the student of philosophy, to discern these conditions and interests in practice and to convince public opinion of the
importance of following the nonideal theory duties of just war and assistance to burdened societies.81
Just war is also referred to as one of the problems of partial compliance theory in A Theory of Justice, although Rawls spends most time
discussing the theory of punishment and religious intolerance. When it
comes to the theory of punishment, on the one hand, given the normal
conditions of human life, ideal theory requires an account of penal
sanctions as a stabilizing device.82 But ideal theory seeks only to provide guidelines for how the partial compliance theory problem of punishment is to be addressed in practice. It is limited to consideration of
principles that justify sanctions according to the principle of liberty and
its priority. In like manner, with respect to restricting liberty when
faced, for example, with rival religious sects, all arguments must proceed from the ideal theory assumption of the priority of liberty, and to
this degree the priority of liberty carries over to partial compliance
theory.83 The priority of liberty also guides the regulation of liberties
for public order and limitation of the scope of majority rule, understood
as natural limitations that require not unequal but less extensive liberty.
In Kantian terms, this is not to compromise the ideal of liberty in the
face of real-world facts; rather, liberty can be restricted only for the
81

Rawls, The Law of Peoples, p. 97.

Rawls, A Theory of Justice, p. 212 (emphasis added). This renders problematic
Jon Mandles interpretation of the ideal/nonideal theory distinction as a distinction
between distributive and retributive justice (Mandle, Justice, Desert, and Ideal Theory, Social Theory and Practice 23 (1997): 399-425). It also makes clear that Rawls
does not conceive of a perfect society in the terms in which Sidgwick dismisses the
idea as involving no such thing as punishment (Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics, p.
470).
83
Rawls, A Theory of Justice, p. 213.
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sake of liberty itself.84

It is of course true, as Rawls says, that nonideal theory addresses the
pressing and urgent problems we are faced with in everyday life.85 But
on Rawlss conception of political philosophy, that is where such problems ought to be tackled: in everyday life. In consigning skeptical concerns about partial compliance to the domain of nonideal theory, Rawls
asks his readers to suspend skepticism, evinced by Sidgwick, about the
motivational potential of an ideal of social relations for a perfect society, splitting his inquiry into ideal theory and nonideal theory. However,
when we reach the problems of nonideal theory we find that ideal principles remain relevant: what is required is political judgment in order to
enact ideal principles in existing circumstances. Rawls has relocated
problems of nonideal theory from the domain of a mediating philosophical theory to the domain of the political judgment of political practitioners. As Rawls concludes, while the principles of justice belong to
the theory of an ideal state of affairs, they are generally relevant.86
Indeed, on a Kantian conception, it is precisely in being abstract that
political philosophy is able to guide practice. If we turn to political philosophy when the constitutive understandings of our political practices
have become uncertain, then the turn towards abstraction is not a theoretical escape form real politics, but a practical search for a more
adequate framework for guiding political judgment.87
Conclusion
Radically different interpretations of the significance of Rawlss work
can be given depending upon whether one emphasizes Rawlss substantive principles of justice or the realistically utopian approach to political philosophy within which these principles are articulated. The former interpretation might lead one to think that Rawls sought to prescribe a timeless snapshot of an ideal world.88 By contrast, I have
emphasized the role of a realistically utopian political philosophy in
orientating our political practice, the view that, in Samuel Freemans
words, it is

84

Ibid., p. 214.
Ibid., p. 8.
86
Ibid., p. 216.
87
See, further, Carlos Thiebaut, Rereading Rawls in Arendtian Light: Reflective
Judgment and Historical Experience, Philosophy and Social Criticism 34 (2008): 13755.
88
Mark Jensen, The Limits of Practical Possibility, The Journal of Political Philosophy 17 (2009): 168-84, p. 184.
85

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81

not so much the role of moral and political philosophy to tell us how to live our lives or
arrange social and political institutions ... Rather its role is to provide new ways to
understand longstanding moral and political traditions and principles, and new ways to
argue for (or against) and justify these positions in terms that are amenable to contemporary moral and political consciousness.89

What this means, however, is that being faithful to the methodological

spirit of Rawlss approach will require moving beyond the specific
terms of Rawlss theory. In this respect, Williams makes a fundamental
criticism when he argues that even a theory that is maximally reflexive
about its relationship to practice must acknowledge that it will not be
able to render its relation to practice fully transparent. A theory will
seem to make sense, and will to some degree reorganize political
thought and action, only by virtue of the historical situation in which it
is presented, and its relation to that historical situation cannot fully be
theorized or captured in reflection.90 This raises questions that extend
beyond a critique of political moralism to embrace the complex but
fundamental issue of the relationship between philosophy and history.
One implication of this criticism for the present discussion is that reflection on the continuing capacity of Rawlss theory to serve a guiding
role must extend not only to considering the adequacy of Rawlss understanding of citizens conception-dependent desire to achieve an
ideal form of social cooperation, but to Rawlss understanding of the
role of substantive philosophical conceptions in contributing to the
fund of political ideals in the public political culture. However, following Kants fundamental lesson about the relationship between theory
and practice, we should not conclude that justice as fairness works in
theory but doesnt work in practice, and that we need nonideal theory to
bridge the gap, but that we need more, but better, ideal theory.91
The disagreement between realists on the one hand and realistic
89

Samuel Freeman, Rawls (London: Routledge, 2007), p. 459.

Williams, In the Beginning was the Deed, p. 25.
91
Interestingly, Williams endorses Jrgen Habermass aspiration to locate political
theory between facts and norms. See Realism and Moralism in Political Theory,
pp. 9-10. In recent writings, Habermas has employed Rawlss terminology of realistic
utopianism and noted that his reconstructive approach could be said to steer a course
between ideal and nonideal theory, where this is seen as a distinction between
moralism and realism. See Jrgen Habermas, The Concept of Human Dignity and the
Realistic Utopia of Human Rights, Metaphilosophy 41 (2010): 464-80, and Reply to
My Critics, in James Gordon Finlayson and Fabian Freyenhagen (eds.), Habermas
and Rawls: Disputing the Political (New York: Routledge, 2011), chap. 12, p. 291. I
contrast the relationship between theory and practice in Rawlss constructivism and
Habermass method of rational reconstruction in James Gledhill, Procedure in Substance and Substance in Procedure: Reframing the Rawls-Habermas Debate, also in
Finlayson and Freyenhagen (eds.), Habermas and Rawls: Disputing the Political, chap.
7.
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utopians on the other concerns not so much a profound methodological

dispute between those who see political philosophy as applied moral
philosophy and those who reject this model, but a substantive dispute
about the nature of politics and the political relationship. Williams is at
one with Rawls in arguing that we should give up the aspiration to
reorder politics through the application of a comprehensive moral doctrine. But if expecting too much of politics is likely to lead to cynicism
and disappointment, there is just as much danger that expecting too little will do likewise. Here realistic utopianism takes forward Kants idea
of the role of critical philosophy, seeking to curb the pretensions of
theoretical reasonsuch as the realist claim that we need to get real
about what we can expect from politicsin order to argue for the necessity of using our practical reason, whose limits are not subject to
empirical determination.92 The positive role of philosophy lies not so
much in prescribing a substantive ideal of what ought to be, but in directing our attention towards the possibility of more fully realizing
ideals that inform existing practices. The lesson to be drawn from
Rawlss conception of ideal theory for an ideal society is not that we
live in a nonideal, imperfect world, but that what separates us from realizing a more perfect society is forging the collective practical political
will to do so.93
James Gledhill
Department of Government
London School of Economics
j.s.gledhill@lse.ac.uk

92

Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Norman Kemp Smith (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), pp. 17-37 (Bvii-xliv).
93
My thanks to Katrin Flikschuh and Elizabeth Frazer for both their comments and
their encouragement over the years. Thanks also to two anonymous reviewers for their
helpful comments, and to Edward Hall and Pietro Maffettone for helpful discussion. A
precursor to this paper was presented at graduate conferences at the University of
Manchester and the University of Pavia, and at the Manchester Workshops in Political
Theory. I am grateful to the participants for comments and discussion, particularly
Dimitris Efthimiou, Robert Jubb, and Federico Zuolo.