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

人们普遍认为，将正义理论化——实际上，研究政治哲学——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：“我从政治哲学是实践理性的一个分支的假设开始——它被认为最终目的是指导行动，而不仅仅是具有投机目的”（2013年，第34页）。最近，许多批评家认为，关于正义的理论化习惯性地无法达到政治哲学的这种“指导行动”的愿景。对于这些批评家（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动。根据这一观点，这些理论家未能充分阐明正义的代理人：那些在现实世界的政治环境中负责实现他们所青睐的正义原则的代理人（O’neill, 2001）。在哲学博士论文的第一部分，我试图回答当代司法文献中关于这种新生的“代理转向”的三个主要问题（Ghazavi, 2023，第3页）。第一个是解释性的：在现有的挑选正义的代理人的尝试中，代理主义者反对的到底是什么？此外，是否存在某种东西将代理主义者的抱怨统一起来，或者代理转向仅仅由零零碎碎的反对组成？第二个是评估性的：代理主义者的主张有多可信，它们在多大程度上威胁到政治哲学家目前思考正义的方式？第三个问题是说明性的：如果代理主义者的主张被证明是有充分根据的，那么正义理论家如何最好地回应？他们是否可以采取某些措施来减轻这些担忧？在之前工作的基础上，我首先从“代理转向”中重构两个不同的论点。前者，我称之为代理人多元主义（agent-pluralism），它认为正义理论家狭隘地关注国家作为正义代理人的角色，未能认识到可能成为正义关键代理人的行动者的多元性。后者，我称之为代理人内部主义，认为正义理论家对未来正义代理人内部获得的动态不够关注。在完成了这一重要的工作后，我声称，代理人多元主义和代理人内部主义都为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。我建议正义理论家从识别具有实现正义能力的现实世界政治代理人开始——这一过程可能涉及理论家自己进入该领域，正如贝尔纳多·扎卡（Bernardo Zacka, 2017）对前线公务员的开创性民族志研究所示。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和有义务运用他们的能力来实现正义的方式。在哲学博士论文的第二部分，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）。在哲学博士论文的最后一部分，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出现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，如何补救？此外，我们是否应该认为政治哲学家本身就是正义的潜在代理人？如果是这样，这对他们的理论化有何影响？

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?