Scholars who study political corruption typically assume that it is a pathology. This assumption gives rise to certain problems. On the one hand, scholars who conceive corruption as a principal‐agent problem yield anti‐corruption policies with disappointing results. On the other hand, political economists who grasp the functionality of corruption within inefficient institutions are torn between embracing the functionality of corrupt actions and eradicating them. These issues result from the assumption that corruption is a pathology. Philosophy operates at the level of assumptions, offering a potential avenue for addressing these issues. This paper puts forward a non‐ideal theory of corruption, in which partial compliance with the law is not always seen as a pathology; sometimes corruption includes information about the quality of the law. A non‐ideal theory of corruption puts forward the idea that some cases of corruption result from defective laws rather than defective people.

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哲学可以教导政治经济学关于腐败的什么：非理想理论

研究政治腐败的学者通常认为这是一种病态。这种假设会引起某些问题。一方面，将腐败视为委托代理问题的学者提出的反腐败政策的结果令人失望。另一方面，掌握了低效机构内腐败功能的政治经济学家在接受腐败行为的功能和根除腐败之间左右为难。这些问题源于腐败是一种病态的假设。哲学在假设层面上运作，为解决这些问题提供了潜在的途径。本文提出了一种非理想的腐败理论，其中部分遵守法律并不总是被视为一种病态；有时，腐败包含有关法律质量的信息。非理想的腐败理论提出这样一种观点，即某些腐败案件是由有缺陷的法律而不是有缺陷的人造成的。