While there is an abundance of philosophical literature on justice, there is far less literature within political philosophy on the topic of injustice. I think one common assumption these approaches share is that injustice is simply the absence of justice; call this the absence thesis. This assumption becomes more peculiar juxtaposed to social and political struggle for justice, which quite commonly begins with cries of injustice. Injustice is an importantly distinct philosophical notion from justice – it can explain how justice fails to be realized in interesting and sophisticated ways, and, I argue, track our efforts to realize just social worlds, in ways that paradigmatically ideal and nonideal approaches to justice by themselves cannot. In this essay, I focus specifically on the question of how theories of justice can guide action in social worlds with systematic oppression. I ultimately argue that action-guiding theories of justice that evaluate worlds with systematic oppression must represent features of injustice. If a theory fails to represent features of injustice, it will fail to guide action in these worlds. That representation of such features is necessary gives us reason to think, in certain circumstances, that the absence thesis is false. / Master of Arts / While there is an abundance of philosophical literature on justice, there is far less literature within political philosophy on the topic of injustice. However, I think that injustice is an importantly distinct philosophical notion from justice – it can explain how justice fails to be realized in interesting and sophisticated ways, and, I argue, track our efforts to realize just social worlds. In this essay, I focus specifically on the question of how theories of justice can guide action in social worlds with systematic oppression. In answering this question, I argue that we must take knowledge about particular phenomenon of injustice and oppression seriously when thinking about how we can progress from nonideal worlds ripe with injustice – like our actual world – to more just worlds. I bring into conversation more traditional ideal theory in political philosophy with theory that focuses more on the nonideal – the actual conditions of injustice – especially the thought of W.E.B DuBois. When thinking about what makes our societies just, or thinking about what is important to know when we attempt to go from our own nonideal circumstances to create a more just world for ourselves, knowledge of justice or what an ideally just society will look like is not enough to guide us to those circumstances. Until we understand the circumstances of injustice, we will not know what ideals can guide us to more just circumstances.

The notions of “ideal theory” and “nonideal theory” have become widely accepted in political philosophy. Recently, several philosophers’ have urged that ideal theory systematically produces practically irrelevant theories. Such philosophers argue that political philosophy ought move away from ideal theory in order to make the discipline more germane to the unjust real world. Call this tactic of eliminating ideal theory “Strategy.” In this paper, I argue that political philosophy would do well to abandon the ideal/nonideal distinction. Though the use of INID is widespread, philosophers do not have one uniform way of drawing the distinction; of the several common ways of drawing the distinction, none is categorical. As a consequence of this ambiguity, the role that INID plays in our political philosophical theorizing has become pernicious.

This dissertation analyses the contribution that Amartya Sen’s idea of justice can make to inform development policies. Particularly, it examines to what extent Sen succeeds in presenting a useful theoretical framework for orienting political action towards justice-enhancing change. In The Idea of Justice (2009), Sen argues that ideal theories of justice which aim at identifying the nature of a perfectly just society—what he calls ‘transcendental’ theories—are not appropriate either for examining prevalent injustices or for rectifying them. Sen therefore proposes a ‘comparative framework’ of justice capable of providing useful practical guidance to advance justice or reduce injustice, a task for which ‘transcendental’ Rawlsian-like theories are redundant. This dissertation critically assesses these two claims advanced by Sen. Taking John Rawls’ Theory of Justice as an illustration, it argues that ideal theories are indeed essential, even if not sufficient, for the reduction of injustice. Therefore, it advances that it is necessary to complement ideal and nonideal approaches to justice. It then advocates for a ‘dual Rawlsian/Senian framework’. Yet this dissertation argues that, even if coupled with an ideal theory, Sen’s nonideal theory remains insufficient to orient injustice-reduction actions because it fails to take into account the overarching social nature of injustice and its perpetuation. In the light of this shortcoming, this dissertation stresses the need to conceptualise injustice as something different from simply the lack of justice and to understand it in a more dynamic and relational way. Ultimately, this implies further complementing a dual framework with a broader conceptualisation of injustice. The dissertation illustrates this argument with the social policy of Oportunidades in Mexico. It concludes that, in order to create a more just society, injustice-reduction policies need to go beyond the removal of capability-deprivations and address the ways in which injustice is reproduced through social interactions.

In der Dissertation habe ich versucht eine Theorie der globalen Gerechtigkeit darzustellen. Diese Theorie hat als ihre Basis das Denken von John Rawls. Rawls hat sich in seinem letzten Buch „Das Recht der Völker“ zu dem Thema geäußert. Ich erläutere seine Gedanken und zugleich kritisiere ich sie. Meine Kritikpunkte an Rawls: 1. Keine detaillierte Erläuterung der Aufteilung in ideale und nichtideale Theorie 2. Unvollkommenheit der Prinzipien für die ideale Theorie der globalen Gerechtigkeit Ich verweise auf die mögliche Verbesserung des Rawlschen Standpunktes über globale Gerechtigkeit durch: 1. eine Unterscheidung der normativen und deskriptiven idealen bzw. nichtidealen Theorie (damit wird die Struktur von Rawls‘s Arguments klarer) 2. Durch die Darstellung von drei Prinzipien die Rawlssche Prinzipien hätten sein könnten (damit bekommt seine Theorie inhaltlich mehr Wert) 3. Durch die Erläuterung des Prinzips der Solidarität als das, was an Rawls‘s Theorie besonders gewesen sein könnte. / In my disertation I have tried to present a theory of global justice. This theory has for its basis the thought of John Rawls. Rawls expressed his thaughts about the topic in his last book „The Law of Peoples.“ On the one hand I explain his theory while on the other I criticize it. My critique on Rawls goes accoring the following lines: 1. No elaborated disitiniction betwen the ideal and nonideal theory 2. Unfinished principles for the ideal theory of global justice I point to the possible amelioration of Rawls´ theory of global justice through: 1. Differentiation of the normative and descriptive ideal and nonideal theory (through this disticition is the stucture of Rawls´ argument clearer) 2. Introduction of three prinicples that should have been Rawls´s (through these three principles the content of his theory becomes more valuable) 3. Eplaning the principle of solidarity as the principle that could have been the specific for Rawls´ theory