Against Toy Theories: Four Criteria for Action-Guiding Normative Political Theory

Recently, normative political theorists have questioned the nature of their field. Notably, the action-guiding nature of this discipline has been under scrutiny due to the dissatisfaction with Kantian approaches that conceptualize the task of normative political theory as that of offering regulative ideals or realistic utopias (Erman & Möller, 2018; Rawls, 1999). Although theoretically sophisticated and helpful in particular contexts involving a high level of abstraction, these approaches do not provide clear action-guiding principles in real-world scenarios where we cannot do away with unpleasant but real feasibility constraints. Namely, in terms of their action-guiding capacity, these approaches fall short and render us with so-called toy theories (Blake, 2020). In this paper, I will reflect on the insights of alternative methodological proposals to normative political theory, such as the empirically engaged approach (Wolff, 2018) and the practice-dependent approach (Sangiovanni, 2008, 2016) in order to offer a set of four criteria that normative theorists ought to follow if they are concern with boosting the action-guiding potential of their work. Namely, for normative political theory to be action-guiding, it must: a) assume a pessimistic approach in the evaluation of empirical literature (Green, 2016), b) conceptualize feasibility constraints from a dynamic perspective (Gilabert, 2017), c) embrace a time-sensitive approach to justice, d) prioritize agency as its normative cornerstone. To demonstrate the relevance of these criteria, I will apply them to a case study. Namely, the migration ethics debate on temporary labor migration. Taking the two main stances of the debate, namely, the lenient approach that favors temporary labor migration programs (Bauböck & Ruhs, 2022; Brock, 2020), and the stringent approach that opposes them (Lenard, 2012; Lenard & Straehle, 2011), I will explain how each deals with each criterion. Ultimately, I will show that although the lenient approach falls closer to fulfilling the four criteria, there is still space for improvement. I will explain how such an approach can be enhanced by following the criteria closer. Hence, I will divide the paper into four sections. First, I will explain the problem with mainstream approaches to normative political theory, mainly how it leads to the construction of toy theories in terms of their action-guiding capacity. Second, I will introduce the four criteria normative theories should fulfill to be action-guiding. Third, I will present a case study based on the temporary labor migration debate on migration ethics. This case study will show the flaws of current approaches and the advantages that follow from following the four offered criteria. Finally, I will deal with the “second-best” objection, according to which focusing on the action-guiding capacity of normative theory betrays the very nature of normative theory, and it can, at best, provide us with second-best solutions to normative problems.