http://crookedtimber.org/2004/01/05/rawls-round-up/ Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made Mon, 13 Feb 2012 03:14:53 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 http://crookedtimber.org/2004/01/05/rawls-round-up/comment-page-1/#comment-12546 Will Wilkinson Wed, 07 Jan 2004 07:02:46 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/wp/?p=842#comment-12546 Oh, here's another way to put what I was getting at: you shouldn't assume I think 'deflationary post-positivist' is pejorative. Oh, here’s another way to put what I was getting at: you shouldn’t assume I think ‘deflationary post-positivist’ is pejorative.

]]> http://crookedtimber.org/2004/01/05/rawls-round-up/comment-page-1/#comment-12545 Will Wilkinson Wed, 07 Jan 2004 06:53:58 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/wp/?p=842#comment-12545 Micah, Yeah, it all does depend on what substantive is supposed to mean. I take it that it means something like the opposite of 'formal'. And in this sense Rawls is plenty substantive, so maybe I picked the wrong word. I often confuse substantive with something like concern for the truth and justification of our beliefs, rather than exploration of what we happen to think, right or wrong. But that's not really what it means. But 'deflationary' is right. Or 'pragmatic.' Principles of justice are justified in the relevant sense not because their terms refer, or whether we are warranted in believing them according to some epistemologist's standard, or because the conception of the person underlying them is true. They are justified because they WORK, in the sense that they fulfill the role of principles of justice: to facilitate a well-ordered (stably self-reinforcing) system of fair cooperation over time. And this is the role they must fulfill because that is the role implied in our various conceptions of a good or just society. (If another role happened to be implied by our conceptions, then the principles would have to fulfill that instead.) I think you're missing the point if you think Rawls sees his method as the right one _in lieu_ of some distant theory of objective moral truth. His point, as I read him, is that a theory of objective moral truth just doesn't matter, even if one is available, unless everyone believes it. People are guided by their conceptions, true of false, and the patterns of individual activity that constitutes social order (or don't), is a function of these. You seem to be thinking that there is something creditably justifactory about working our conceptions out more systematically just by itself. But the only point of working out our conceptions more systematically is to help define principles that that will seem to us as authoritative due to their connection with what we already believe and are disposed to endorse. The point of this process is that it NOT require us to *radically* revise our moral and political views. The argument against utilitarianism, in a nutshell, is that we don't believe it, so we won't reliably comply with its principles, and so it can't define a well-ordered society. (And we can't be made to believe in it except by coercive or otherwise illiberal means.) Almost the whole of Rawls is dominated by coming up with a way to define ideals that depart adequately from the status quo to count as ideals while remaining rooted firmly enough in our actual beliefs and behavioral dispositions to make a society based on them genuinely feasible, i.e., non-utopian. My intention was to say that folks have not sufficiently grasped the radically pragmatist character of Rawls's enterprise, and the foundational reliance of that enterprise on the contingent content of our moral conceptions, or the contingent constitution of our sense of justice. I don't say any of this as an argument against Rawls, or an argument for replacing his concerns with heavy-going metaethics. Indeed, it is a huge merit of Rawls that he was deeply concerned to make political philosophy relevant by structuring his entire theory with problems of compliance firmly in mind. I don't believe any theorist has grappled with these issues with anything close to the seriousness and sophistication of Rawls. My beef is not at so much with Rawls (except insofar as his very contractarian concerns with compliance and stability get swamped by his touching commitment to Kantian ideals), but the lack of attention to the really deep problem he was trying to solve. Micah, Yeah, it all does depend on what substantive is supposed to mean. I take it that it means something like the opposite of ‘formal’. And in this sense Rawls is plenty substantive, so maybe I picked the wrong word. I often confuse substantive with something like concern for the truth and justification of our beliefs, rather than exploration of what we happen to think, right or wrong. But that’s not really what it means. But ‘deflationary’ is right. Or ‘pragmatic.’ Principles of justice are justified in the relevant sense not because their terms refer, or whether we are warranted in believing them according to some epistemologist’s standard, or because the conception of the person underlying them is true. They are justified because they WORK, in the sense that they fulfill the role of principles of justice: to facilitate a well-ordered (stably self-reinforcing) system of fair cooperation over time. And this is the role they must fulfill because that is the role implied in our various conceptions of a good or just society. (If another role happened to be implied by our conceptions, then the principles would have to fulfill that instead.) I think you’re missing the point if you think Rawls sees his method as the right one in lieu of some distant theory of objective moral truth. His point, as I read him, is that a theory of objective moral truth just doesn’t matter, even if one is available, unless everyone believes it. People are guided by their conceptions, true of false, and the patterns of individual activity that constitutes social order (or don’t), is a function of these. You seem to be thinking that there is something creditably justifactory about working our conceptions out more systematically just by itself. But the only point of working out our conceptions more systematically is to help define principles that that will seem to us as authoritative due to their connection with what we already believe and are disposed to endorse. The point of this process is that it NOT require us to radically revise our moral and political views. The argument against utilitarianism, in a nutshell, is that we don’t believe it, so we won’t reliably comply with its principles, and so it can’t define a well-ordered society. (And we can’t be made to believe in it except by coercive or otherwise illiberal means.) Almost the whole of Rawls is dominated by coming up with a way to define ideals that depart adequately from the status quo to count as ideals while remaining rooted firmly enough in our actual beliefs and behavioral dispositions to make a society based on them genuinely feasible, i.e., non-utopian. My intention was to say that folks have not sufficiently grasped the radically pragmatist character of Rawls’s enterprise, and the foundational reliance of that enterprise on the contingent content of our moral conceptions, or the contingent constitution of our sense of justice. I don’t say any of this as an argument against Rawls, or an argument for replacing his concerns with heavy-going metaethics. Indeed, it is a huge merit of Rawls that he was deeply concerned to make political philosophy relevant by structuring his entire theory with problems of compliance firmly in mind. I don’t believe any theorist has grappled with these issues with anything close to the seriousness and sophistication of Rawls. My beef is not at so much with Rawls (except insofar as his very contractarian concerns with compliance and stability get swamped by his touching commitment to Kantian ideals), but the lack of attention to the really deep problem he was trying to solve.

]]> http://crookedtimber.org/2004/01/05/rawls-round-up/comment-page-1/#comment-12541 Lwandile Sisilana Tue, 06 Jan 2004 06:52:25 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/wp/?p=842#comment-12541 Not a Rawlsian myself, but a good post Micah! Lwandile Not a Rawlsian myself, but a good post Micah! Lwandile

]]> http://crookedtimber.org/2004/01/05/rawls-round-up/comment-page-1/#comment-12544 PG Tue, 06 Jan 2004 00:45:40 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/wp/?p=842#comment-12544 The nice thing about Rawls's ideas is that once you've halfway digested them, they can be used in <a href="http://bertrandrussell.blogspot.com/2002_12_15_bertrandrussell_archive.html#86308345">absurd contexts</a> that he probably never envisioned. The nice thing about Rawls’s ideas is that once you’ve halfway digested them, they can be used in absurd contexts that he probably never envisioned.

]]> http://crookedtimber.org/2004/01/05/rawls-round-up/comment-page-1/#comment-12543 Chris Bertram Mon, 05 Jan 2004 20:52:54 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/wp/?p=842#comment-12543 So far as I can understand them, Wilkinson and Yglesias seem to be asserting (somewhat dogmatically) that one can't just put the metaethical questions to one side and just get on with doing moral or political philosophy in a systematic fashion. But the burden of proof is surely on them here, rather than on Rawls. I'm also inclined to agree with you Micah that it is not part of the liberal tradition that God does not exist. Given reasonable disagreements on that question, and the fact that the public power belongs to all citizens, governments should refrain from action on either the presupposition that God does or does not exist (but here we're straight into the kind of political liberalism that Gardner is rejecting). So far as I can understand them, Wilkinson and Yglesias seem to be asserting (somewhat dogmatically) that one can’t just put the metaethical questions to one side and just get on with doing moral or political philosophy in a systematic fashion. But the burden of proof is surely on them here, rather than on Rawls. I’m also inclined to agree with you Micah that it is not part of the liberal tradition that God does not exist. Given reasonable disagreements on that question, and the fact that the public power belongs to all citizens, governments should refrain from action on either the presupposition that God does or does not exist (but here we’re straight into the kind of political liberalism that Gardner is rejecting).

]]> http://crookedtimber.org/2004/01/05/rawls-round-up/comment-page-1/#comment-12542 Rv. Agnos Mon, 05 Jan 2004 20:34:29 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/wp/?p=842#comment-12542 If I promise that I have successfully reached full reflective equilibrium, am I excused from reading all of the links? If I promise that I have successfully reached full reflective equilibrium, am I excused from reading all of the links?

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