After over 11 years of work on the project, I am happy to report that my article, 'Nonideal Justice as Nonideal Fairness', is now forthcoming in the Journal of the American Philosophical Association. The abstract:

This article argues that diverse theorists have reasons to theorize about fairness in nonideal conditions, including theorists who reject fairness in ideal theory. It then develops a new all-purpose model of ‘nonideal fairness.’ §1 argues that fairness is central to nonideal theory across diverse ideological and methodological frameworks. §2 then argues that ‘nonideal fairness’ is best modeled by a nonideal original position adaptable to different nonideal conditions and background normative frameworks (including anti-Rawlsian ones). Finally, §3 argues that the parties to the model have grounds to seek a variety of remedial social, legal, cultural, and economic ‘nonideal primary goods’ for combating injustice, as well as grounds to distribute these goods in an equitable and inclusive manner. Finally, I illustrate how the model indexes the nonideal primary goods it justifies to different nonideal contexts and background normative frameworks, illustrating why diverse theorists should find the model and its output principles attractive.

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12 responses to “‘Nonideal Justice as Nonideal Fairness’”

  1. Craig

    That’s just great! Congrats Marcus! Well-earned!

  2. Amanda

    Awesome, congrats Marcus!

  3. Marcus Arvan

    Craig & Amanda: thanks so much! 🙂

  4. Congratulations! I don’t know that I would have been able to stick with a paper that long, but I am glad to hear that it paid off in the end.

  5. Anon

    Congrats! Care to share how many submissions it took? I recall a post here awhile ago about a paper accepted to the European Journal of Philosophy that took 22 submissions! Did you beat that record?

  6. Pendaran

    My recent paper ‘Another look at color primitivism’ took me almost 5 years to get published after many many complete redrafts. Not sure I could stay with a project 11 years! I was going to give up. I admire your tenacity. Congrats!

  7. Marcus Arvan

    Anon: Thanks! The project is so old that unfortunately, I didn’t keep track of submissions. I definitely didn’t break the 22-submission record. As a guesstimate, I’d say something like 10-12 submissions (though maybe a few more than that, I just don’t remember!). One reason I didn’t submit it to more places over 11 years is that, after some early rejections, I wasn’t happy with it. I knew there were fundamental parts of the paper that weren’t working, so for a number of years (probably the past five or six years), I mostly just wrestled with it myself: drafting, trashing, redrafting, etc.

  8. Pendaran Roberts

    Journal of the American Philosophical Association is doing well in Leiter’s new journal ranking poll with it looking as if it might make it into the top 20 generalist journals. Not sure if you care, but thought I’d mention it.

  9. Chris Stephens

    Congrats, Marcus! I remember seeing a version of this at UBC when you were here for your VAP. I’m glad you stuck with it and persisted all these years!

  10. Marcus Arvan

    Thanks so much, Chris. I remember that presentation well, both for the good feedback I received and for its role in helping me realize how many problems in the project I hadn’t yet worked out! 😉

  11. Marcus Arvan

    Hi Pendaran: Thanks for pointing that out. As I expect you know, I’m pretty skeptical of journal rankings. But I do hope the Journal of the APA does well, as I am a big admirer of its editorial statement and overall vision!

  12. Pendaran Roberts

    I’m skeptical of Leiter’s poll tracking anything objective, but I’m not skeptical of rankings per se.

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