Christopher Freiman: Unequivocal justice

Excerpt

Some political philosophers are in the business of constructing models of what ideal or perfectly just societies look like. In doing so they often introduce highly idealized assumptions—e.g., everyone behaves justly. This should not strike the economist or political scientist as particularly foreign. For they too construct highly idealized models with highly idealized assumptions. In general equilibrium models, for instance, it is often assumed that market participants have perfect knowledge, that there are no transaction costs, that there are an infinite number of producers, and so on and so forth. Of course, there is nothing wrong with using idealizing assumptions in one’s theorizing so long as: (1) one recognizes the limits these assumptions impose on one’s analysis, and (2) one applies these assumptions consistently. Christopher Freiman’s Unequivocal Justice charges most ideal theorists in political philosophy—John Rawls in particular—with failing to adhere to this latter imperative. …