The alternative is nonideal universalism- this goldilocks position avoids the dual pitfalls of imperialism and relativism

(Daniel Estrada, Ethics@Newark, Human supremacy as posthuman risk. Journal of Sociotechnical Critique, 1(1), 1–40.

https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1013&context=sociotechnicalcritique)

Are there alternatives to the ideal theory of reactionary posthumanism? Following Mills, Serene Khader advocates for a nonideal universalism that emphasizes the nonideal, unjust conditions of political action. Khader says, “One defect of ideal theories… is their tendency to redirect our evaluative gazes to the wrong normative phenomena” (Khader, 2018, p. 36). By directing our gaze towards the actual conditions of injustice, Khader argues that we will be in a better position to address those injustices. Fazelpour & Lipton have recently introduced a nonideal perspective to the AI ethics discourse on algorithmic fairness, arguing that “non-ideal theorizing about the demands of justice is a fact-sensitive exercise” (Fazelpour & Lipton, 2020, p. 10). While this is a step in the right direction, we think the value of a nonideal perspective extends beyond an emphasis on empirical methods. To push the analysis, this section looks to Khader’s nonideal universalism for other lessons that might be adapted to an AI ethics context. Khader’s nonideal universalism is developed in the context of a diverse transnational feminist movement, partly to address what she calls “missionary feminism,” the idea that feminism requires the universal adoption of Western liberal humanist values (p. 3). Since these values are not universally shared, some critics argue that missionary feminism continues the imperialist project of imposing Western values on colonized communities. On the other hand, rejecting universal values seems to entail a kind of cultural relativism that threatens to undermine feminism as an inclusive normative project. Khader argues that this is a false dilemma; feminists do not have to choose between imperialism and relativism. For Khader, feminism is defined negatively, as an opposition to sexist oppression. A nonideal feminism starts in conditions of injustice and seeks to reduce or eliminate that injustice where it exists. This does not require a shared commitment to Western ideals or any other background of parochial values to serve as a normative ground for feminist solidarity. Khader’s approach “rejects the notion that there is a single feminism compatible cultural form, thereby undermining the idea that an idealized Western culture is the feminist solution” (p. 7). However, this pluralist approach does not commit feminism to a nihilistic cultural relativism. Rather than focusing on disagreements between community ideals considered abstractly, Khader’s nonideal approach recognizes that “the effectiveness of strategies for change varies based on the material conditions and moral vernacular(s) of a given context” (p. 4). Thus, a focus on the actual, unjust conditions of sexist oppression opens space for building a consensus toward practical steps that reduce or eliminate sexist oppression, without demanding univocity in the background norms informing this work.