philosophy in a world of injustice

En savoir plus sur le livre

Recently, many social and political philosophers have expressed doubts about an "ideal theory" of a perfectly just society and whether it is useful or necessary for identifying how we should address existing injustices. Dissatisfied with the apparent irrelevance of ideal theory for urgent real-world problems, such as racial inequality, global poverty, or state oppression, some philosophers have sought to find ways of constructing a theory of justice that would more effectively illuminate the nature of current injustices and tell us how to respond to them.1 Conversely, others have argued that ideal theory is helpful and even essential for knowing how to remedy unjust social arrangements.2 Despite their differences, however, all these philosophers can be understood as sharing a fundamental concern, namely, how to develop a "nonideal theory" that justifies our duties regarding how we are to deal with present injustices. In other words, they are interested in discovering a sound philosophical methodology or moral epistemology that would enable them to gain knowledge about how we should act in our unjust world