ABSTRACT
The moderate idealization model deliberately forgoes the common aspiration of idealization theory: determinacy. Moderate idealization theorists must therefore appeal to other determinacy-generating mechanisms. An important concern about moderate idealization is that it will collapse into radical idealization on examination. Idealization nearly always involves upgrading the rational capacities and informational sets of members of the public such that they will make higher-quality inferences than they otherwise would. The information dimension determines the informational set of idealized agents, an agent's total evidential base. Informational idealization ranges between a full information standard and a weaker, adequate information standard. The case for radical idealization depends on its capacity to reduce errors in reasoning. Radical idealization appeals to assumptions in classical decision theory because classical decision theory applies to fully informed and rational choices. Idealization models become less plausible as they determine citizens' reasons based on considerations that increasingly deviate from the citizens' own reasons.
