Ideals are important, but our reality has other ideas

Williams, G. (2025) Ideals are important, but our reality has other ideas. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy. ISSN 1369-8230

Abstract

Barnhill and Bonotti ask how liberals might justify public policies to promote healthier diets. Milburn asks how a decent food system would involve other animals, and considers why liberal states should foster such a system. I welcome these attempts to imagine ways to feed people better and treat other animals with humanity, and to relate these to liberal ideals. My comments offer some reservations, however. Barnhill, Bonotti and Milburn suggest compelling grounds for states to intervene. I would prefer to say: there are compelling grounds for states to intervene differently. These books set aside the structure of existing food systems. But to explain why the world’s more liberal states have ignored similar arguments over many decades, we need to take some view of these systems. In fact, these systems rest on interventions by liberal-democratic states. These interventions show little regard for liberal reasoning. Their results are bad for human health, and disastrous for animal and planetary well-being. These points support the authors’ calls for more rational, liberal and humane food policies, with one caveat. Democratic debate can only make headway if we appreciate how many policies carry us in the wrong directions. When we consider how ideals support state intervention, we should be realistic about how states currently intervene.