Joel da Silva

Research Interests:

Political philosophy, nonideal theory, contractualism, affirmative action, rectificatory justice.

Biography:

• BA, Honours (Philosophy) Wilfrid Laurier University
• MA (Philosophy) Toronto Metropolitan University

Joel's research begins from the observation that, while political philosophers working in ideal theory have devoted much attention both to the question “what are the correct principles of ideal justice?” and to the question “which particular arrangements/policies satisfy the principles of ideal justice?”, work in nonideal theory has focused almost exclusively on the analogue to the second question - i.e., “which particular arrangements/policies count as just responses to injustice?” It's been roughly a quarter century since the beginning of the "nonideal turn” in political philosophy, yet philosophers have produced remarkably little in the way of systematic answers to the question “what are the correct principles of justice in responding to injustice?"

Ultimately, Joel’s research seeks to highlight the significance of this lacuna in hopes of encouraging others to take up the work of addressing it. His strategy for doing this consists of demonstrating i) why theories of justice in responding to injustice (i.e., theories of "nonideal justice") are needed to bridge the gap between ideal theories of justice and questions of nonideal policy (e.g., whether race-based affirmative action counts as a just response to injustice) and ii) how one might go about constructing a contractualist theory of nonideal justice.