Theoretical and Practical Ideals in Political Theory

What role can ideals have in political theory given the increasing diversity of methodologies within the discipline? This paper addresses the question through two related claims. The first is a general methodological claim that it is useful to think about political theory in relation to political judgment. The paper takes a minimal understanding of political judgment as a kind of practical judgment asking ‘what should be done?’, but which is political so does this in a collective context. The first claim of this paper is that thinking about how political theory is supposed to relate to political judgment so understood is useful for thinking about its methodological structure. The first claim is bold, and it is not the purpose of this single paper to fully justify it. It is, however, a presumption of the second claim this paper makes. The second claim is that thinking about ideals in political theory in relation to political judgment allows us to delineate two very different ways of conceiving the role of ideals in political theory. So, whilst this paper cannot justify the first claim in full, the second claim serves as an example of the methodological utility of thinking about political theory in relation to political judgment. The first conception of ideals is that which operates in classical ideal theory. In ideal theory, ideals are formed and justified in abstract philosophy. They are third-personal yet are claimed to be universally binding. Political judgment plays a subordinate role and is exercised in trying to realise the ideal. For ideal theory, ideals are taken orientate political judgment. Call this conception of ideals ‘theoretical ideals’. There is a second way of conceiving of the role of ideals in political theory. Rather than a theoretical ideal that orientates political judgment, the ideal takes its orientation from political judgment. On this conception, an ideal is formulated not abstractly and third-personally, but as a response to prior political judgments and commitments. The ideal takes a subordinate place within political theorising, though still serves as guide for political action. Call this conception of ideals ‘practical ideals’. Why is this distinction between theoretical and political ideals useful? The final part of this paper makes two suggestions. First, it allows for different interpretations of the same political theory depending on the kind of ideal one takes to be in play. This is illustrated through a discussion of John Rawls and his ideal for the basic structure of society. Second, the distinction allows us to see commonalities in the normative components of the political theory of figures seemingly opposed on fundamental methodological grounds. The paper compares the normative role of Kant’s ideal state in The Doctrine of Right and Raymond Geuss’ ‘utopia’ in “Realism and the Relativity of Judgement” and argues (no doubt to the chagrin of the latter) that both function as practical ideals. Despite the meta-normative differences in the two positions, both take their orientation from political judgment and use the political ideal to guide political action.