David Wiens
Biographic Data
| ID | 1612697 |
|---|---|
| NAME | David Wiens |
| GIVEN NAMES | David |
| FAMILY NAME | Wiens |
| SIGNATURE | WIENS D |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of California San Diego |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2221-0725 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 154 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 20 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Pursuing social progress: The question of orientation
We examine the “problem of social change”, focusing on whether efforts should be oriented toward long-term ideals or piecemeal improvements. We analyse the trade-off between these approaches: pursuing ideals may require short-term sacrifices, while incremental changes may hinder realizing an ideal. We introduce an analytical framework for structuring thought experiments that can provide traction on these issues, and present two implementations th…
Utilitarianism does not dominate: A response to Chung
Chung (2023) purports to derive conditions under which a Utilitarian society, which maximizes total welfare, Pareto dominates a Rawlsian society, which maximizes the income of the least advantaged members of society. We show that Chung’s analysis is doubly flawed. First, his analysis assumes that a Rawlsian government chooses an inefficient tax rate when it could do otherwise. Second, his analysis violates his assumption that citizens must choose…
Making fair comparisons in political theory
Normative political theorists frequently compare hypothetical scenarios for the purpose of identifying reasons to prefer one kind of institution to alternatives. We examine three types of “unfair” comparisons and the reasoning errors associated with each. A theorist makes an obscure comparison when one (or more) of the alternatives under consideration is underspecified; a theorist makes a mismatched comparison when they fail to hold fixed the rel…
Beyond Ideal Theory: A Framework for Methodological Debates
Political theorists have found themselves embroiled in numerous methodological debates, many of which concern the merits of ideal theory. Although existing literature surveys expose the varied meanings of "ideal theory," the current situation makes it hard to see what is at stake in these debates or how to make progress. To address this situation, I survey ideal theory debates to highlight their modularity: they cover a range of issues that shoul…
The Stability of the Just Society: Why Fixed Point Theorems Are Beside the Point
Political theorists have invested significant effort in studying the attributes of desirable social-moral states of affairs. Schaefer (forthcoming) aims to show that “static political theory” of this kind rests on shaky foundations. His argument revolves around an application of an abstruse mathematical theorem—Kakutani’s fixed point theorem—to the social-moral domain. We show that Schaefer has misunderstood the implications of this theorem for p…
Against Ideal Guidance, Again: A Reply to Erman and Möller
Eva Erman and Niklas Möller have recently presented a trenchant critique of my argument that ideal normative theories are uninformative for certain practical purposes. Their critique is largely correct. In this article, I develop the ideas behind my earlier argument in a way that circumvents their critique and explains more clearly why ideal theory is uninformative for certain purposes while leaving open the possibility that it might be informati…
Devoting ourselves to the manifestly unattainable
It is tempting to think (1) that we may sometimes have what we call hopelessly utopian duties and yet (2) that “ought” implies “can.” How might we square these apparently conflicting claims? A simple solution is to interpret hopelessly utopian duties as duties to pursue the achievement of manifestly unattainable outcomes (as opposed to duties to achieve the outcomes), thereby promising to vindicate the possibility of such duties in a way that is …
Demographic Objections to Epistocracy: A Generalization
Several scholars have recently entertained proposals for "epistocracy," a political regime in which decision-making power is concentrated in the hands of a society's most informed and competent citizens.These proposals rest on the claim that we can expect better political outcomes if we exclude incompetent citizens from participating in political decisions because competent voters are more likely to vote "correctly" than incompetent voters.We dev…
Morals from rationality alone? Some doubts
Contractarians aim to derive moral principles from the dictates of instrumental rationality alone. It is well-known that contractarian moral theories struggle to identify normative principles that are both uniquely rational and morally compelling. Michael Moehler’s recent book, Minimal Morality, seeks to avoid these difficulties by developing a novel ‘two-level’ social contract theory, which restricts the scope of contractarian morality to cases …
“Actual” does not imply “feasible”
Assessing ideal theories: Lessons from the theory of second best
Numerous philosophers allege that the “general theory of second best” poses a challenge to the Target View, which asserts that real-world reform efforts should aim to establish arrangements that conform to the constitutive features of ideally just states of affairs. I demonstrate two claims that are relevant in this context. First, I show that the theory of second best fails to present a compelling challenge to the Target View in general. But, se…
Motivational limitations on the demands of justice
Do motivational limitations due to human nature constrain the demands of justice? Among those who say no, David Estlund offers perhaps the most compelling argument. Taking Estlund’s analysis of ‘ability’ as a starting point, I show that motivational deficiencies can constrain the demands of justice under at least one common circumstance – that the motivationally deficient agent makes a good faith effort to overcome her deficiency. In fact, my arg…
Political Ideals and the Feasibility Frontier
I present an analysis of feasibility that generalizes the economic concept of a production possibility frontier and develop a model of the feasibility frontier using the familiar possible worlds technology. I then use the model to show that we cannot reasonably expect that adopting political ideals as long-term reform objectives will guide us toward the realization of morally optimal feasible states of affairs. I conclude by proposing that politi…
Against Ideal Guidance
The prevailing wisdom among political philosophers claims that political ideals provide normative guidance for unjust and otherwise nonideal circumstances. This article has two objectives. The first is to develop a model of the logical relationship of moral evaluative considerations to feasibility considerations in the justification of normative political principles. The second is to use this model to demonstrate that political ideals are uninfor…
The Political Resource Curse: An Empirical Re-evaluation
Extant theoretical work on the political resource curse implies that dependence on resource revenues should decrease autocracies’ likelihood of democratizing but not necessarily affect democracies’ chances of survival. Yet most previous empirical studies estimate models that are ill-suited to address this claim. We improve upon previous studies, estimating a dynamic logit model using data from 166 countries, covering the period from 1816 to 2006.…
Going Evaluative' to Save Justice from Feasibility-a Pyrrhic Victory
I discuss Gheaus’ argument against the claim that the requirements of justice are not constrained by feasibility concerns. I show that the general strategy exemplified by this argument is not only dialectically puzzling, but also imposes a heavy cost on theories of justice—puzzling because it simply sidesteps a presupposition of any plausible formulation of the so-called ‘feasibility requirement’ and costly because it deprives justice of its norm…
Demands of Justice, Feasible Alternatives, and the Need for Causal Analysis
Natural resources and government responsiveness
Pogge (2008) and Wenar (2008) have recently argued that we are responsible for the persistence of the so-called ‘resource curse’. But their analyses are limited in important ways. I trace these limitations to their undue focus on the ways in which the international rules governing resource transactions undermine government accountability. To overcome the shortcomings of Pogge’s and Wenar’s analyses, I propose a normative framework organized aroun…
Natural resources and institutional development
Recent work on the resource curse argues that the effect of resource wealth on development outcomes is a conditional one: resource-dependent countries with low-quality institutions are vulnerable to a resource curse, while resource-dependent countries with high-quality institutions are not. But extant models neglect the ways in which the inflow of resource revenue impacts the institutional environment itself. In this paper, I present a formal mod…
Prescribing Institutions Without Ideal Theory
PRELIMINARIESP OLITICAL philosophers are not shy to prescribe ways to design social and political institutions so as to eradicate or at least mitigate various actual injustices.The conventional wisdom is that such prescriptions are the province of nonideal theory but that ideal theory is required as a guide for nonideal theory.On this view, our first task is to specify fully just principles of regulation-that is, principles that regulate the cons…
Prescribing Institutions Without Ideal Theory
PRELIMINARIESP OLITICAL philosophers are not shy to prescribe ways to design social and political institutions so as to eradicate or at least mitigate various actual injustices.The conventional wisdom is that such prescriptions are the province of nonideal theory but that ideal theory is required as a guide for nonideal theory.On this view, our first task is to specify fully just principles of regulation-that is, principles that regulate the cons…
Against Ideal Guidance
The prevailing wisdom among political philosophers claims that political ideals provide normative guidance for unjust and otherwise nonideal circumstances. This article has two objectives. The first is to develop a model of the logical relationship of moral evaluative considerations to feasibility considerations in the justification of normative political principles. The second is to use this model to demonstrate that political ideals are uninfor…
The Political Resource Curse: An Empirical Re-evaluation
Extant theoretical work on the political resource curse implies that dependence on resource revenues should decrease autocracies’ likelihood of democratizing but not necessarily affect democracies’ chances of survival. Yet most previous empirical studies estimate models that are ill-suited to address this claim. We improve upon previous studies, estimating a dynamic logit model using data from 166 countries, covering the period from 1816 to 2006.…
Natural resources and institutional development
Recent work on the resource curse argues that the effect of resource wealth on development outcomes is a conditional one: resource-dependent countries with low-quality institutions are vulnerable to a resource curse, while resource-dependent countries with high-quality institutions are not. But extant models neglect the ways in which the inflow of resource revenue impacts the institutional environment itself. In this paper, I present a formal mod…
Motivational limitations on the demands of justice
Do motivational limitations due to human nature constrain the demands of justice? Among those who say no, David Estlund offers perhaps the most compelling argument. Taking Estlund’s analysis of ‘ability’ as a starting point, I show that motivational deficiencies can constrain the demands of justice under at least one common circumstance – that the motivationally deficient agent makes a good faith effort to overcome her deficiency. In fact, my arg…
Assessing ideal theories: Lessons from the theory of second best
Numerous philosophers allege that the “general theory of second best” poses a challenge to the Target View, which asserts that real-world reform efforts should aim to establish arrangements that conform to the constitutive features of ideally just states of affairs. I demonstrate two claims that are relevant in this context. First, I show that the theory of second best fails to present a compelling challenge to the Target View in general. But, se…
Natural resources and government responsiveness
Pogge (2008) and Wenar (2008) have recently argued that we are responsible for the persistence of the so-called ‘resource curse’. But their analyses are limited in important ways. I trace these limitations to their undue focus on the ways in which the international rules governing resource transactions undermine government accountability. To overcome the shortcomings of Pogge’s and Wenar’s analyses, I propose a normative framework organized aroun…
Demographic Objections to Epistocracy: A Generalization
Several scholars have recently entertained proposals for "epistocracy," a political regime in which decision-making power is concentrated in the hands of a society's most informed and competent citizens.These proposals rest on the claim that we can expect better political outcomes if we exclude incompetent citizens from participating in political decisions because competent voters are more likely to vote "correctly" than incompetent voters.We dev…
Going Evaluative' to Save Justice from Feasibility-a Pyrrhic Victory
I discuss Gheaus’ argument against the claim that the requirements of justice are not constrained by feasibility concerns. I show that the general strategy exemplified by this argument is not only dialectically puzzling, but also imposes a heavy cost on theories of justice—puzzling because it simply sidesteps a presupposition of any plausible formulation of the so-called ‘feasibility requirement’ and costly because it deprives justice of its norm…
Making fair comparisons in political theory
Normative political theorists frequently compare hypothetical scenarios for the purpose of identifying reasons to prefer one kind of institution to alternatives. We examine three types of “unfair” comparisons and the reasoning errors associated with each. A theorist makes an obscure comparison when one (or more) of the alternatives under consideration is underspecified; a theorist makes a mismatched comparison when they fail to hold fixed the rel…
Against Ideal Guidance, Again: A Reply to Erman and Möller
Eva Erman and Niklas Möller have recently presented a trenchant critique of my argument that ideal normative theories are uninformative for certain practical purposes. Their critique is largely correct. In this article, I develop the ideas behind my earlier argument in a way that circumvents their critique and explains more clearly why ideal theory is uninformative for certain purposes while leaving open the possibility that it might be informati…
Devoting ourselves to the manifestly unattainable
It is tempting to think (1) that we may sometimes have what we call hopelessly utopian duties and yet (2) that “ought” implies “can.” How might we square these apparently conflicting claims? A simple solution is to interpret hopelessly utopian duties as duties to pursue the achievement of manifestly unattainable outcomes (as opposed to duties to achieve the outcomes), thereby promising to vindicate the possibility of such duties in a way that is …
Morals from rationality alone? Some doubts
Contractarians aim to derive moral principles from the dictates of instrumental rationality alone. It is well-known that contractarian moral theories struggle to identify normative principles that are both uniquely rational and morally compelling. Michael Moehler’s recent book, Minimal Morality, seeks to avoid these difficulties by developing a novel ‘two-level’ social contract theory, which restricts the scope of contractarian morality to cases …
Prescribing Institutions Without Ideal Theory
PRELIMINARIESP OLITICAL philosophers are not shy to prescribe ways to design social and political institutions so as to eradicate or at least mitigate various actual injustices.The conventional wisdom is that such prescriptions are the province of nonideal theory but that ideal theory is required as a guide for nonideal theory.On this view, our first task is to specify fully just principles of regulation-that is, principles that regulate the cons…
Demands of Justice, Feasible Alternatives, and the Need for Causal Analysis
Natural resources and government responsiveness
Pogge (2008) and Wenar (2008) have recently argued that we are responsible for the persistence of the so-called ‘resource curse’. But their analyses are limited in important ways. I trace these limitations to their undue focus on the ways in which the international rules governing resource transactions undermine government accountability. To overcome the shortcomings of Pogge’s and Wenar’s analyses, I propose a normative framework organized aroun…
Natural resources and institutional development
Recent work on the resource curse argues that the effect of resource wealth on development outcomes is a conditional one: resource-dependent countries with low-quality institutions are vulnerable to a resource curse, while resource-dependent countries with high-quality institutions are not. But extant models neglect the ways in which the inflow of resource revenue impacts the institutional environment itself. In this paper, I present a formal mod…
The Political Resource Curse: An Empirical Re-evaluation
Extant theoretical work on the political resource curse implies that dependence on resource revenues should decrease autocracies’ likelihood of democratizing but not necessarily affect democracies’ chances of survival. Yet most previous empirical studies estimate models that are ill-suited to address this claim. We improve upon previous studies, estimating a dynamic logit model using data from 166 countries, covering the period from 1816 to 2006.…
Going Evaluative' to Save Justice from Feasibility-a Pyrrhic Victory
I discuss Gheaus’ argument against the claim that the requirements of justice are not constrained by feasibility concerns. I show that the general strategy exemplified by this argument is not only dialectically puzzling, but also imposes a heavy cost on theories of justice—puzzling because it simply sidesteps a presupposition of any plausible formulation of the so-called ‘feasibility requirement’ and costly because it deprives justice of its norm…
Political Ideals and the Feasibility Frontier
I present an analysis of feasibility that generalizes the economic concept of a production possibility frontier and develop a model of the feasibility frontier using the familiar possible worlds technology. I then use the model to show that we cannot reasonably expect that adopting political ideals as long-term reform objectives will guide us toward the realization of morally optimal feasible states of affairs. I conclude by proposing that politi…
Against Ideal Guidance
The prevailing wisdom among political philosophers claims that political ideals provide normative guidance for unjust and otherwise nonideal circumstances. This article has two objectives. The first is to develop a model of the logical relationship of moral evaluative considerations to feasibility considerations in the justification of normative political principles. The second is to use this model to demonstrate that political ideals are uninfor…
“Actual” does not imply “feasible”
Assessing ideal theories: Lessons from the theory of second best
Numerous philosophers allege that the “general theory of second best” poses a challenge to the Target View, which asserts that real-world reform efforts should aim to establish arrangements that conform to the constitutive features of ideally just states of affairs. I demonstrate two claims that are relevant in this context. First, I show that the theory of second best fails to present a compelling challenge to the Target View in general. But, se…
Motivational limitations on the demands of justice
Do motivational limitations due to human nature constrain the demands of justice? Among those who say no, David Estlund offers perhaps the most compelling argument. Taking Estlund’s analysis of ‘ability’ as a starting point, I show that motivational deficiencies can constrain the demands of justice under at least one common circumstance – that the motivationally deficient agent makes a good faith effort to overcome her deficiency. In fact, my arg…
Morals from rationality alone? Some doubts
Contractarians aim to derive moral principles from the dictates of instrumental rationality alone. It is well-known that contractarian moral theories struggle to identify normative principles that are both uniquely rational and morally compelling. Michael Moehler’s recent book, Minimal Morality, seeks to avoid these difficulties by developing a novel ‘two-level’ social contract theory, which restricts the scope of contractarian morality to cases …
Devoting ourselves to the manifestly unattainable
It is tempting to think (1) that we may sometimes have what we call hopelessly utopian duties and yet (2) that “ought” implies “can.” How might we square these apparently conflicting claims? A simple solution is to interpret hopelessly utopian duties as duties to pursue the achievement of manifestly unattainable outcomes (as opposed to duties to achieve the outcomes), thereby promising to vindicate the possibility of such duties in a way that is …
Demographic Objections to Epistocracy: A Generalization
Several scholars have recently entertained proposals for "epistocracy," a political regime in which decision-making power is concentrated in the hands of a society's most informed and competent citizens.These proposals rest on the claim that we can expect better political outcomes if we exclude incompetent citizens from participating in political decisions because competent voters are more likely to vote "correctly" than incompetent voters.We dev…
The Stability of the Just Society: Why Fixed Point Theorems Are Beside the Point
Political theorists have invested significant effort in studying the attributes of desirable social-moral states of affairs. Schaefer (forthcoming) aims to show that “static political theory” of this kind rests on shaky foundations. His argument revolves around an application of an abstruse mathematical theorem—Kakutani’s fixed point theorem—to the social-moral domain. We show that Schaefer has misunderstood the implications of this theorem for p…
Against Ideal Guidance, Again: A Reply to Erman and Möller
Eva Erman and Niklas Möller have recently presented a trenchant critique of my argument that ideal normative theories are uninformative for certain practical purposes. Their critique is largely correct. In this article, I develop the ideas behind my earlier argument in a way that circumvents their critique and explains more clearly why ideal theory is uninformative for certain purposes while leaving open the possibility that it might be informati…
Utilitarianism does not dominate: A response to Chung
Chung (2023) purports to derive conditions under which a Utilitarian society, which maximizes total welfare, Pareto dominates a Rawlsian society, which maximizes the income of the least advantaged members of society. We show that Chung’s analysis is doubly flawed. First, his analysis assumes that a Rawlsian government chooses an inefficient tax rate when it could do otherwise. Second, his analysis violates his assumption that citizens must choose…
Making fair comparisons in political theory
Normative political theorists frequently compare hypothetical scenarios for the purpose of identifying reasons to prefer one kind of institution to alternatives. We examine three types of “unfair” comparisons and the reasoning errors associated with each. A theorist makes an obscure comparison when one (or more) of the alternatives under consideration is underspecified; a theorist makes a mismatched comparison when they fail to hold fixed the rel…
Beyond Ideal Theory: A Framework for Methodological Debates
Political theorists have found themselves embroiled in numerous methodological debates, many of which concern the merits of ideal theory. Although existing literature surveys expose the varied meanings of "ideal theory," the current situation makes it hard to see what is at stake in these debates or how to make progress. To address this situation, I survey ideal theory debates to highlight their modularity: they cover a range of issues that shoul…
Pursuing social progress: The question of orientation
We examine the “problem of social change”, focusing on whether efforts should be oriented toward long-term ideals or piecemeal improvements. We analyse the trade-off between these approaches: pursuing ideals may require short-term sacrifices, while incremental changes may hinder realizing an ideal. We introduce an analytical framework for structuring thought experiments that can provide traction on these issues, and present two implementations th…
Philosophy (16 works) · Epistemology (15 works) · Political Philosophy and Ethics (13 works) · Economics (12 works) · Law (12 works) · Political science (12 works) · Sociology (12 works) · Law and economics (11 works) · Philosophy (11 works) · Computer Science (7 works)