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Chapter 3 36 Nonideal theory, then, is rather primarily concerned with the (political) questions that are actually acute in the world as it is. 14 Political philosopher Ingrid Robeyns argues that ‘in cases in which we are not in a fully just society, we need [nonideal] theory to guide us for two important tasks: first to be able to make comparisons between different social states and evaluate which one is more just than the other; and, second, to guide our actions in order to move closer towards the ideals of society’. 15 Nonideal theory is sometimes called ‘transition theory’ which refers to the transition from the actual towards the ideal. Idealisations Political philosopher Charles Mills argues that ideal theory relies on idealisations ‘to the exclusion, or at least marginalization, of the actual’. 16 Idealisations are assumptions on the basis of which a theory construes a reality as simpler or better than it actually is. 17 Examples are models of the (financial) market in economic theory, but also the conception of the person as a consumer, a rational agent, or an independent agent, which are used in political and economic theory, but also in educational theory. Yet, a real person is never just a consumer, or always rational, and in this sense the assumption differs from reality. This is not necessarily problematic, as idealisations can be useful in their function of abstraction, because abstractions are likely to have a wide scope. 18 Moreover, they can function as simplification, because they reduce the complexity of the real world: a theory that makes use of simplifications makes the messiness of reality more manageable. 19 Furthermore, idealised pictures of reality can function as a point on the horizon one looks towards for direction. 20 Arguments Against Idealisations and Ideal Theory However, there are also arguments against (a reliance on) idealisations. First, the translation from ideal to the nonideal world is not straightforward, meaning that it is not – by itself – clear from idealisations how they ought to be dealt with on a nonideal level. 21 Ideal theory, which centralises the ideal instead of the actual is inclined to limit itself to describing the ideal situation, sometimes hinting in the direction of what needs to change in order to move closer to the ideal, but is not 14 See Frazer 2016, p. 179. 15 Robeyns 2008, p. 346. 16 Mills 2005, p. 168. 17 Robeyns 2008, pp. 352-353. 18 See O’Neill 1987, p. 55. 19 Robeyns 2008, p. 353. 20 Ibid., p. 344. 21 Ibid., p. 357.