Institutional Perfection or Improvement of Imperfect Institutions?
An Essay on the Methodological Status of Perfect but Unfeasible Institutional Regimes
Palabras clave:
perfect institutional regimes, ideal and non ideal theories, feasibility, property-owning democracy, liberal socialismResumen
The paper deals with “perfect institutional regimes” (PIRs), defined as regimes that optimally satisfy a given value (like justice). Assuming that a PIR is unfeasible in the short term to agents willing to achieve it, what reasons do we have to spend time on a PIR? One answer is that knowing about PIRs is interesting enough to warrant an inquiry into the subject, even if it is not likely to change the world. Another is that searching for a PIR helps to set up the principles under which more modest proposals of change are to be evaluated. Another, finally, is that theorizing about a PIR may have a motivational impact: although there are no motivated agents to whom the realization of a PIR is nowadays feasible, talking about it might lead to a change of this scenario
Descargas
Citas
Ackerman, Bruce; Alstott, Anne (1999). The Stakeholder Society. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Carens, Joseph H. (1981). Equality, Moral Incentives, and the Market: An Essay in Utopian Politico-Economic Theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Cohen, G. A. (2003). “Facts and principles”. Philosophy & Public Affairs 31(3): 211–245.
Gilabert, Pablo; Lawford-Smith, Holly (2012). “Political feasibility”. Political Studies 60: 809–825.
Hamlin, Alan; Stemplowska, Zofia (2012). “Theory, ideal theory and the theory of ideals”. Political Studies 10: 48–62.
Hussain, Waheed (2012). “Nurturing the sense of justice: the Rawlsian argument for democratic corporatism”. En O’Neill, M.; Williamson, T. (eds.), Property-Owning Democracy: Rawls and Beyond. Malden: Blackwell, 180–200.
Lawford-Smith, Holly (2012). “The feasibility of collectives’ actions”. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 90(3): 453–467.
Lawford-Smith, Holly (2013). “Understanding political feasibility”. Journal of Political Philosophy 21(3): 243–259.
Lipsey, Richard G.; Lancaster, Kelvin (1956). “The general theory of second best”. Review of Economic Studies 24(1): 11–32.
Malleson, Tom (2014). “Rawls, property-owning democracy, and democratic socialism”. Journal of Social Philosophy 45(2): 228–251.
Meade, James (2012). Efficiency, Equality and the Ownership of Property. New York: Routledge.
O’Neill, Martin (2012). “Free (and fair) markets without capitalism: political values, principles of justice, and property-owning democracy”. En O’Neill, M.; Williamson, T. (eds.), Property-Owning Democracy: Rawls and Beyond. Malden: Blackwell, 75–100.
Rawls, John (2001). Justice as Fairness: A Restatement. Cambridge: Belknap Press.
Roemer, John E. (1994). A Future for Socialism. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Schefczyk, Michael (2013). “Background justice over time: property-owning democracy versus a realistically utopian welfare state”. Analyse & Kritik 1: 193–212.
Schweickart, David (2002). After Capitalism. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.
Schweickart, David (2012). “Property-owning democracy or economic democracy?”. En O’Neill, M.; Williamson, T. (eds.), Property-Owning Democracy: Rawls and Beyond. Malden: Blackwell, 201–222.
Sen, Amartya (2009). The Idea of Justice. Cambridge: Belknap Press.
Simmons, A. John (2010). “Ideal and non-ideal theory”. Philosophy & Public Affairs 38(1): 5–36.
Swift, Adam (2008). “The value of philosophy in non-ideal circumstances”. Social Theory and Practice 34(3): 363–387.
Valentini, Laura (2012). “Ideal vs. non-ideal theory: a conceptual map”. Philosophy Compass 7(9): 654–664.
Vallier, Kevin (2015). “A moral and economic critique of the new property-owning democrats: on behalf of a Rawlsian welfare state”. Philosophical Studies 172: 283–304.
Weale, Albert (2013). “The property-owning democracy versus the welfare state”. Analyse & Kritik 1: 37–54.
White, Stuart (2012). “Property-owning democracy and republican citizenship”. En O’Neill, M.; Williamson, T. (eds.), Property-Owning Democracy: Rawls and Beyond. Malden: Blackwell, 129–146.
Wiens, David (2014). “Political ideals and feasibility frontier”. Disponible en: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/273695020_Political_Ideals_and_the_Feasibility_Frontier
Wiens, David (2016). “Assessing ideal theories: lessons from the theory of second best”. Politics, Philosophy & Economics 15(2): 132–149.
Williamson, Thad (2012). “Realizing property-owning democracy: a 20-year strategy to create an egalitarian distribution of assets in the United States”. En O’Neill, M.; Williamson, T. (eds.), Property-Owning Democracy: Rawls and Beyond. Malden: Blackwell, 225–248.
