The Tyranny -- or the Democracy -- of the Ideal?

Gerald Gaus’s The Tyranny of the Ideal is an ambitious book that covers an impressive range of topics in political philosophy and the social sciences. The book launches a systematic critique of ‘ideal theorizing’ about political and social justice and aims to defend a vision of an ‘Open Society’ that “forsakes a collective ideal of justice” (Gaus 2016, p. xvi). 1 Gaus charges that the dominant philosophers of justice in recent decades, at least within the Ango-American tradition, have been seduced by the allure of identifying ‘the’ ideal conception of justice. Part of this approach to theorizing about justice involves positing “well-ordered societies, where we [the citizens] all agree on the correct principles of justice, our institutions conform to them, and we are all committed to them” (Gaus 2016, p. xix). Ideal theorizing, so construed, is understood by many political philosophers to provide a useful guide for reforming and reshaping our present non-ideal and unjust societies. Gaus argues, though, that this kind of ideal theorizing about justice “tyrannizes over our thinking, preventing us from discovering more just social conditions” (ibid.). The book aspires, then, to show political philosophers that many of them have been labouring under a yoke that they have failed to recognize. More than this, the book also aims to articulate an alternative approach to ideal theorizing, one that frees theorists from this tyranny.2 Unsurprisingly, John Rawls’s political philosophy is a central focus of Gaus’s ‘liberation project. ’ Rawls’s work, including its form of ideal theorizing,3 has significantly shaped the field of political philosophy since the publication of A Theory of Justice in 1971. Gaus argues, though, that Rawls’s later attempt to accommodate the fact of reasonable pluralism in Political Liberalism (2005) leaves his overall theory of justice “in disarray” (Gaus 2016, p. 153). Further, Gaus contends that once we fully confront the depths of diverse points of view concerning justice, not only must Rawlsians abandon the ideal of the well-ordered society, they must reorient their thinking about ideal theory altogether. In contrast to Rawls, Gaus holds that a morally heterogeneous society—a society characterized by deep differences concerning justice and not merely ‘conceptions of the good’ and ‘comprehensive doctrines’4—is necessary for us to advance our knowledge of the requirements of justice. Abandoning the ‘myth’ of the well-ordered society and replacing it with the idea of the Open Society, including especially its embrace of diverse and evolving perspectives on justice, is much more likely to “make the world better for all, and allows us to better understand our different moral truths” (Gaus 2016, p. xx). Thus instead of trying to cultivate the one ‘perfect rose,’ so to speak, Gaus recommends that political philosophers encourage ‘a thousand flowers to bloom. ’ In this article we defend the Rawlsian view against Gaus’s criticisms.5 Specifically, we dispute Gaus’s claim that Rawls’s idea of the well-ordered society cannot survive the move to political liberalism. We formulate a ‘political liberal’ version of the well-ordered society, and show that Gaus’s Open Society, rather than a radical alternative to the political liberal well-ordered society, in fact closely resembles it. We also challenge Gaus’s claim that Rawlsians committed to the principles of justice as fairness are confronted with ‘The Choice. ’ According to The Choice, roughly, ideal theorists must either: (1) pursue ‘nearby’ relatively certain ‘local’ gains in justice for their society, or (2) forgo these local gains in order to pursue the more ambitious but far less certain goal of ‘ideal’ justice. (The goal of ideal justice is ‘less certain’ both in terms of its likely achievement as well as the likelihood that it is in fact the ideal.) We challenge Gaus’s claim regarding The Choice, at least as applied to the Rawlsian view, by explaining how addressing local injustices naturally can lead some citizens to develop conceptions of full justice, including ‘realistically utopian’ versions of their societies. The kinds of political proposals that plausibly follow from this account of public reasoning indicate that Rawlsians in fact do not confront The Choice (or, at the very least, that some additional argument is needed to show that they do). Thus, despite the many interesting points that Gaus raises in his book, we conclude that his arguments do The Tyranny—or the Democracy—of the Ideal?