Whither Justice in Times of Crisis? Puzzles for Ideal and Non-Ideal Theory

Our world is a world riddled with crises: economic, political, ecological, social. And yet contemporary theories of justice typically do not give much thought to crises. Indeed, the image of society projected by ideal theories of justice is, among other things, a crisis-free society, with predictable rules of economic, social, and institutional performance. This quietism is problematic, for it encourages the notion that political philosophy says nothing about crisis because it has nothing to say, and that, in times of crisis, questions of justice place second to “more pressing” matters of order, security, and necessity. If it is the case that crises will continue to be a prevalent feature of twenty-first century politics, we need to look again at how justice may be theorized when our usual assumptions can no longer be taken for granted. I argue that taking crises to be an unavoidable feature of contemporary societies poses special challenges to standard justice-theoretic frameworks. Though it may be tempting to think crisis a matter for non-ideal theory, an ideal theory that ignores the “fact of crisis” risks losing relevance to the real-world societies for which it was designed to guide action. This is because crisis situations can “distort” features of the basic structure of society in ways that make just relationships unjust. More generally, crises can indicate flaws in the bases upon which we formulate our theories of justice: they could compel changes to the basic structure in real time, and they could even require us to adjust the more foundational knowledge upon which deliberation about the basic structure is grounded. Crises force ideal theories to incorporate non-ideal contingencies, while also becoming non-ideal sources for the production of ideal theory. This paper identifies and explores these paradoxes and the kinds of theorizing required to address them. I argue that theorizing justice in times of crisis does not require us to abandon our theories of justice; however, it does require additional attention to the role of power, justification, and reflexivity in the way we conceive and construct such theories.