The Agents of Justice: Towards a Liberal-Egalitarian Theory of Political Agency

正义的代理人：迈向自由平等主义的政治代理理论

• 批准号: 2877258
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Oxford
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2877258
• 关键词: Agents; Justice; Towards; Liberal; Egalitarian

On a widely held view, the ultimate purpose of theorising about justice - indeed, of doing political philosophy at all - is to influence real-world political behaviour. As David Miller puts it: 'I start from the assumption that political philosophy is a branch of practical reason - it is thought whose final aim is to guide action, as opposed to having a merely speculative purpose' (2013, p.34). As of late, a number of critics have argued that theorising about justice habitually fails to live up to this 'action-guiding' vision of political philosophy. For these critics (call them 'agentialists'), this failure stems from the neglect that theorists of justice have shown to a vital matter: the question of whose actions their theorising is supposed to guide. On this view, these theorists have failed to adequately spell out the agents of justice: those agents tasked with realising their favoured principles of justice in real-world political circumstances (O'Neill, 2001). In the first part of the DPhil thesis, I seek to answer three main questions about this nascent 'agential turn' within the contemporary justice literature (Ghazavi, 2023, p.3). The first is interpretative: What is it exactly that agentialists object to in existing attempts to pick out agents of justice? Moreover, is there something which unifies the agentialists' complaints, or does the agential turn consist solely of piecemeal objections? The second is evaluative: How plausible are the agentialists' claims, and to what extent do they threaten the ways in which political philosophers currently think about justice?The third is prescriptive: If the agentialists' claims are shown to be well-founded, how might theorists of justice best respond? Are there certain practices they can adopt in order to mitigate these worries? Building on previous work, I begin by reconstructing two distinct arguments from within the 'agential turn'. The former, which I call agent-pluralism, contends that theorists of justice, in narrowly fixating on the state's role as an agent of justice, have failed to appreciate the plurality of actors who might be crucial agents of justice. The latter, which I call agent-internalism, holds that theorists of justice have not been attentive enough to the dynamics that obtain within prospective agents of justice. Having performed this vital under-labour, I claim that both agent-pluralism and agent-internalism raise serious questions for theorists of justice. After this, I turn to the question of how theorists of justice might best respond to these worries. I suggest that theorists of justice begin by identifying real-world political agents with capabilities to realise justice - a process that may involve theorists entering the field themselves, as illustrated by Bernardo Zacka's (2017) pioneering ethnographic study of frontline public servants. Having done so, these theorists can return to more familiar normative terrain, investigating the ways in which prospective agents of justice are both permitted and obligated to employ their capabilities to realise justice.In the second part of the DPhil thesis, I will apply this method to a variety of potential agents of justice, such as political parties, state bureaucracies, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), transnational corporations (TNCs) and international governmental institutions (IGOs).In the final part of the DPhil thesis, I turn inward to re-examine the practice of political philosophy. Theorising about justice invariably takes place in books and journal articles read exclusively by professional academics, with few theorists directly communicating their findings to potential agents of justice. Is this a problem and, if so, how might it be remedied? Moreover, should we consider political philosophers themselves to be potential agents of justice? If so, how might this bear on their theorising?

人们普遍认为，将正义理论化的最终目的是影响现实世界的政治行为。正如大卫·米勒所说：“我首先假设政治哲学是实践理性的一个分支--它是一种思想，其最终目标是指导行动，而不是仅仅具有推测的目的”(2013，第34页)。最近，一些批评人士认为，对正义的理论化习惯性地未能实现政治哲学的这种“行动导向”愿景。对于这些批评者(称他们为“代理主义者”)来说，这种失败源于正义理论家忽视了一个至关重要的问题：他们的理论应该指导谁的行为。根据这种观点，这些理论家未能充分阐明正义的代理人：这些代理人的任务是在现实世界的政治环境中实现他们所钟爱的正义原则(O‘Neill，2001)。在DPhil论文的第一部分，我试图回答关于当代司法文学中这种新生的“代理转向”的三个主要问题(Ghazavi，2023，p.3)。第一个是解释性的：在现有的挑选正义代理人的尝试中，代理主义者到底反对什么？此外，有没有什么东西统一了代理人的抱怨，或者代理人的转向仅仅是零敲碎打的反对？第二个是评价性的：代理论者的主张有多可信，它们在多大程度上威胁到了政治哲学家目前对正义的看法？第三个是规定性的：如果代理论者的主张被证明是有根据的，那么正义理论家如何才能做出最佳回应？他们是否可以采取某些做法来减轻这些担忧？在前面工作的基础上，我首先从“代理人转向”中重建两个不同的论点。前者，我称之为代理人多元主义，认为正义理论家狭隘地专注于国家作为正义代理人的角色，未能认识到可能是关键正义代理人的多元化行为者。后者，我称之为代理人内在论，认为正义理论家没有足够注意到未来的正义代理人所获得的动力。在完成了这一至关重要的劳动不足之后，我认为，代理人多元化和代理人内在主义都给正义理论家提出了严重的问题。在此之后，我转向正义理论家如何最好地回应这些担忧的问题。我建议正义理论家首先确定有能力实现正义的现实世界政治代理人--这一过程可能需要理论家自己进入该领域，贝尔纳多·扎卡(Bernardo Zacka)(2017)对一线公务员进行的开创性民族志研究就说明了这一点。在这样做之后，这些理论家可以回到更熟悉的规范领域，调查未来的正义代理人被允许并有义务利用他们的能力来实现正义的方式。在DPhil论文的第二部分，我将把这种方法应用于各种潜在的正义代理人，如政党、国家官僚机构、非政府组织(NGO)、跨国公司(TNCs)和国际政府机构(IGO)。在DPhil论文的最后部分，我转向内部重新审视政治哲学的实践。关于正义的理论总是发生在专门由专业学者阅读的书籍和期刊文章中，很少有理论家直接将他们的发现传达给潜在的正义代理人。这是一个问题吗？如果是的话，它可以如何补救？此外，我们是否应该认为政治哲学家本身就是潜在的正义代理人？如果是这样的话，这会如何影响他们的理论呢？