Three roles of ideal theory

A teoria ideal rawlsiana pretende desempenhar diversos papéis na teoria não-ideal. Neste artigo, distingo entre três desses papéis e indago até que ponto podemos esperar que a teoria ideal seja capaz de realizá-los. Ela serve de baliza que deve guiar a produção de teoria não-ideal no longo prazo. É também suposto que ofereça uma forma de comparar diferentes injustiças e assim dizer-nos quando delas é a pior e, portanto, a que precisa mais urgentemente de uma solução. Por fim, a teoria ideal é a base para um modelo de equidade/justiça que limita o conjunto de medidas moralmente aceitáveis no âmbito da teoria não-ideal. Mostra-se aqui como os dois primeiros papéis – o de servir de baliza e o de [determinação] da urgência [relativa] – são menos plausíveis do que o papel em termos da equidade.Rawlsian ideal theory is meant to perform various roles in non-ideal theory. In this paper, I distinguish between three roles, and I consider the extent to which we can expect ideal theory to perform them. It is meant to serve as a target to guide non-ideal theorising in the long-term. It is also supposed to provide a way of comparing different injustices to tell us which is worst and therefore in most urgent need of a remedy. Finally, ideal theory is the basis for a model of fairness that restricts the set of morally permissible measures in non-ideal theory. I show how the first two roles—the target and urgency roles—are less plausible than the fairness role

Eliminating Group Agency

Aggregating individuals’ consistent attitudes might produce inconsistent collective attitudes. Some groups therefore need the capacity to form attitudes that are irreducible to those of their members. Such groups, group-agent realists argue, are agents in control of their own attitude formation. In this paper, however, I show how group-agent realism overlooks the important fact that groups consist of strategically interacting agents. Only by eliminating group agency from our social explanations can we see how individuals vote strategically to gain control of their groups and produce collective attitudes we cannot make sense of if we treat groups as agents

Against Corporate Responsibility

Can a group be morally responsible instead of, or in addition to, its members? An influential defense of corporate responsibility is based on results in social choice theory suggesting that a group can form and act on attitudes held by few, or even none, of its members. The members therefore cannot be (fully) responsible for the group’s behavior; the group itself, as a corporate agent, must be responsible. In this paper, I reject this view of corporate responsibility by showing how it pays insufficient attention to individual agency. By accounting for group members’ strategic behavior, we shall see how they control collective attitude formation and are therefore responsible for their group’s behavior