Law, ideal theory and non-ideal theory of justice

The article discusses the importance of ideal and non-ideal theories of justice for the assessment of proposals of legal reform. Agreeing, on this respect, with Sen (2006; 2009), I argue that ideal theory (in the sense of “end-state” theory) is neither necessary nor sufficient for comparisons betwee...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor: Zanitelli, Leandro Martins
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2016
País:Brasil
Institución:Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV)
Repositorio:Revista Direito GV
Idioma:portugués
OAI Identifier:oai:ojs.periodicos.fgv.br:article/63627
Acceso en línea:https://periodicos.fgv.br/revdireitogv/article/view/63627
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Justice
Legal change
Ideal theory
Non-ideal theory
Sen
Justiça
Alterações legislativas
Teoria ideal
Teoria não ideal
Descripción
Sumario:The article discusses the importance of ideal and non-ideal theories of justice for the assessment of proposals of legal reform. Agreeing, on this respect, with Sen (2006; 2009), I argue that ideal theory (in the sense of “end-state” theory) is neither necessary nor sufficient for comparisons between imperfect societies. This, however, does not mean that ideal theory may not be useful to those comparisons and, by extension, to the analysis of proposals of change. But to the extent that an ideal theory proves to be a point of departure worth considering on evaluating proposals of law amendment, it is preferable that such theory encompasses the entire scope of justice (in the case of institutionalist theories like Rawls’s, this means the basic structure of society as a whole) instead of being circumscribed to just one of the several legal areas.