Compliance Is Not a Detail

Abstract The concept of compliance has a confusing place in the literature on ideal theory, as every reader of that literature knows. On one hand, philosophers understand that achieving perfect justice would entail everyone complying with its requirements. On the other hand, there is room to observe that if compliance is ideal, then taking it for granted cannot be. In fact, compliance is an ongoing achievement. To set aside that we live among agents—beings whose fate as social animals hangs on making it safe to trust each other—is to set aside politics itself. People cannot set compliance problems aside when imagining what is ideal.