'Going Evaluative' to Save Justice From Feasibility -- A Pyrrhic Victory

Philosophical Quarterly 64 (255):301-307 (2014)
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Abstract

I discuss Gheaus's (2013) argument against the claim that the requirements of justice are not constrained by feasibility concerns. I show that the general strategy exemplified by this argument is not only dialectically puzzling, but also imposes a heavy cost on theories of justice -- puzzling because it simply sidesteps a presupposition of any plausible formulation of the so-called "feasibility requirement"; costly because it it deprives justice of its normative implications for action. I also show that Gheaus's attempt to recover this normative force presupposes an epistemic dimension to the feasibility requirement that most proponents of that requirement would reject.

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David Wiens
University of California, San Diego

Citations of this work

The feasibility issue.Nicholas Southwood - 2018 - Philosophy Compass 13 (8):e12509.
Motivational Limitations on the Demands of Justice.David Wiens - 2016 - European Journal of Political Theory 15 (3):333-352.
Facts, Principles, and (Real) Politics.Enzo Rossi - 2016 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 19 (2):505-520.
Feasibility: Individual and collective.Zofia Stemplowska - 2016 - Social Philosophy and Policy 33 (1-2):273-291.

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References found in this work

Human Nature and the Limits (If Any) of Political Philosophy.David Estlund - 2011 - Philosophy and Public Affairs 39 (3):207-237.
Facts and Principles.G. A. Cohen - 2003 - Philosophy and Public Affairs 31 (3):211-245.
The Value of Philosophy in Nonideal Circumstances.Adam Swift - 2008 - Social Theory and Practice 34 (3):363-387.
The Feasibility Constraint on The Concept of Justice.Anca Gheaus - 2013 - Philosophical Quarterly 63 (252):445-464.
Feasibility and Socialism.Pablo Gilabert - 2010 - Journal of Political Philosophy 19 (1):52-63.

View all 6 references / Add more references