ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that theorizing about justice at the level of ideal theory is inherently flawed and has impoverished liberal egalitarianism. Ideal theorists assume that a political philosopher can easily determine what constitutes the 'best foreseeable conditions'. The chapter discusses that liberal egalitarians who function at the level of ideal theory adopt a cost-blind approach to rights and a narrow view of possible human misfortune. The former issue leads liberal egalitarians to give priority to a serially ordered principle of equal basic liberties or to treat rights as 'trumps'; and the latter to a stringent prioritarian principle or luck egalitarianism. Liberal egalitarian theories of justice are theories that typically function at the level of ideal theory. The distinction between ideal and non-ideal theory is not given rigorous classification in the existing literature. Dworkin's egalitarianism is premised on two fundamental principles of ethical individualism – the principle of equal importance and the principle of special responsibility.
