My thesis focusses on political thought experiments and how they can be used legitimately. In this thesis I will clarify what political thought experiments are, then I will give a taxonomy of various kinds of political thought experiments. The taxonomy will be four kinds of political thought experiments, which will be called moral intuition pump (thought experiments with the purpose of provoking moral intuitions about political structures); state of nature (hypothetical stories about human beings without a state); empirical conditional (thought experiments that make predictions about the consequences of possible political structures); and conceptual clarification (thought experiments that clarify our understanding of political concepts). I will then provide criteria for how each of these kinds of political thought experiments can be called legitimate. Once all criteria have been provided, I will use examples of political thought experiments and test their legitimacy.
My thesis will make three main contributions to the field. The first contribution will be that it will fill specific gaps in the literature regarding the legitimate use of political thought experiments. There exists in the literature the following gaps: Not providing examples of political thought experiments or not clarifying how political thought experiments are being used legitimately. My thesis will do both things. The second contribution will be that it will expand our understanding of what counts as a thought experiment. An example of this is whether some literary fictions ought to considered political thought experiments. My third contribution will be that what distinguishes political thought experiments from other fields is the focus on practical application of political ideas, which is something not discussed in the current literature regarding political thought experiments.