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Chapter 3 35 educational theory on flourishing in light of these definitions to see whether and to what extent they are cases of ideal theory. We end by sketching the outlines of a nonideal theory on education for flourishing. 3.2 I DEAL T HEORY , N ONIDEAL T HEORY AND I DEALISATIONS Ideal theory starts with, and centralises, the (normative) ideal situation. John Rawls’ theory of justice can be seen as a paradigmatic example of ideal theory. 6 He argued that only when one has an idea of the perfectly just society, one can begin to theorise how the world should be changed into it. 7 In education, this would for example mean that one has to start with theorising what the perfect classroom would look like, for instance a classroom filled with healthy, awake and motivated children, a dedicated teacher and challenging materials. With such a picture theorists as well as teachers can begin to reflect on how to get there, i.e. what it requires of teachers, the school and the pupils. Amartya Sen on the other hand, opposed Rawls’ claim by arguing that the actual world should have primacy when constructing a theory of justice. 8 There is so much injustice in our actual world, he argues, that there is less practical value (or none at all) in theorising perfection, but all the more in theorising how we can bring about changes towards more justice in the actual world. In the classroom example this would imply beginning with the daily practice in which many teachers are faced with children who haven’t had breakfast, whose personal or family circumstances overshadow their interest in learning, and/or where the teachers face a (too) heavy teaching and administration load. How, and to what extent, should teachers deal with this? 9 So, in nonideal theory the actual is theoretically central. 10 This is a rough, but useful distinction. 11 We can further distinguish two forms of ideal theory, utopian idealism , which theorises the perfectly just society irrespective of the possible constraints of the actual world, 12 and realistic idealism , which is concerned with what is ideal given the possible constraints of this world. 13 6 Rawls 1999. 7 Ideal theory is not necessarily a comprehensive, fully complete theory, it can also be partial ideal theory, limiting itself for example to describing one domain instead of all domains of justice; see Robeyns 2008, p. 344. 8 Sen 2006. 9 Cf. Kristjánsson 2017, p. 94. 10 Mills 2005, p. 170. 11 The distinction is not undisputed. For example Hamlin and Stemplowska argue that there rather is a multidimensional continuum of (normative) views. Bearing this in mind, we think that the dichotomy is nonetheless useful in this article, see Hamlin and Stemplowska 2012. 12 E.g. Estlund 2008. 13 See Schmidtz 2016, p. 2.