There’s been no shortage of Rawls talk in the blogosphere over the last week or so.
Warning: lots of Rawls-related (but otherwise un-related?) stuff to follow.
(i) Larry Solum’s Legal Theory Lexicon discusses the Rule of Law and offers a schematic Rawlsian view of it. (Solum has done students of legal and political philosophy a great service by posting an index to his Legal Theory Lexicon entries here.)
(ii) Will Wilkinson and Matt Yglesias seem to agree that Rawls didn’t really save us from the death of political philosophy at the hands of positivism because he didn’t resolve any of the foundational, or metaethical, concerns that bothered positivists in the first place. This line from Wilkinson’s post struck me as rather strange:
And Rawls is not concerned with the veracity of the elements of moral conceptions. He is simply concerned to tease out the structure of various moral conceptions—that’s the work of “moral theory” as opposed to a comprehensive moral philosophy—and to analyze various formal properties of moral conceptions once their implicit logic is refined through a process of reflective equilabration. (italics added)
It’s the “simply” that really gets me. Even if Wilkinson’s right that this is all Rawls was doing—that is, even if his only purpose was to lay out two moral conceptions (i.e., utilitarianism and justice as fairness)—he would have succeeded in reviving political philosophy. The systematic articulation of justice as fairness alone would have been sufficient for that purpose. Of course, systematic description of moral conceptions was not Rawls’s only purpose. The point of doing systematic work in moral theory is to provide the proper materials for comparing and choosing a superior theory. And A Theory of Justice is loaded with arguments recommending one conception over another.
(This reminds me of an amusing line from the introduction of Brian Barry’s book on TJ:
In the final paragraph [of TJ] (on page 587) we find Rawls still firing arguments at us in a last attempt to remove any lingering doubts we may still be harbouring. ‘Finally, we we may remind ourselves that the hypothetical nature of the original position invites the question: why should we take any interest in it, moral or otherwise? Recall the answer . . .’ and then bang, bang, bang for the last time.)
It’s hard to recognize Rawls’ constructive (and critical) ambitions in Wilkinson’s “post positivist” description of him. The argument seems to be that you can’t really be doing substantive moral or political philosophy unless you have an objective (read: correspondence theory) of moral truth to support it. Now, Rawls was explicit about his view that moral and political philosophy should proceed independently of a true account of right and wrong. He thought if we waited for someone to prove an objective theory of moral truth, we’d be waiting a really long time. Better to get on with the business of working out our moral views with the only materials presently available to us—our most confident and settled moral beliefs and our ability to work out their implications more systematically, even if that means radically revising our moral and political views. But I don’t see why this method of doing political philosophy is somehow less “substantive” than the (unstated?) methods Wilkinson and Yglesias seem to prefer. Maybe it would help to know more about what they mean by “substance” in this context, and why they think it’s important.
(iii) Stemming from discussion about the opening of this faith-based prison, there’s been an intra-blog debate of sorts about the merits of public reason over at Punishment Theory, with Kyron Huigens roughly pro and Rick Garnett against, and with Solum weighing in here. In what I think might be the most interesting contribution to this discussion, John Gardner comments (scroll down) that:
The principle of public justification central to the liberal tradition is the principle that government should not rely on reasons that it cannot or will not make public . . . If governments should not rely on reasons of respect for God, that is only because there are no such reasons. For governments, like the rest of us, should only rely on reasons that actually exist. The liberal tradition is a humanist tradition according to which there is no God and there therefore cannot be reasons for respecting Him. Anyone who acts out of a respect for God acts not for a (real) reason but only for what they mistakenly take to be a reason.
Gardner’s view is only sustainable if you date the “liberal tradition” roughly from Bentham (“On Publicity”) and J.S. Mill forward to . . . Raz? Maybe this is Bright Liberalism? But it sure isn’t the liberalism that starts with seventeenth-century lessons about religious toleration—the liberalism that still thinks it’s worth reading Locke’s Letter Concerning Toleration. That liberalism, the one that inspires Rawls’ project, starts with the basic idea that governments should not only make their reasons public, but that those reasons should be acceptable to those governed by them. Arguably, the conception of public justification most central to the liberal tradition is one that requires governments to rely only on reasons that are, in principle, acceptable to their citizens. Of course, there’s a world of trouble lurking in the phrase “in principle,” but the fact that it’s troublesome doesn’t make the contractarian conception of public justification any less central to the liberal tradition.
I think a liberal conception of public justification has two aspects. First, political justifications should be made (actually) public, except where there is sufficient reason to keep certain classes of decisions secret; and, second, they should be public in the sense of being publicly acceptable. Gardner might disagree with the second part of this conception of public justification, but it is recognizably liberal and draws on a tradition of political thought going back at least as far as Locke. (Jeremy Waldron wasn’t just making it up in his essay on the “Theoretical Foundations of Liberalism,” where he argues that the fundamental liberal thesis is that political legitimacy is “rooted” in the consent of the governed. In what sense it is “rooted” is part of the trouble. But that really isn’t the point here.) It’s one thing to disagree with this contractarian (and possibly religious) strain of liberal thought, quite another to read it out of the tradition altogether.
If I promise that I have successfully reached full reflective equilibrium, am I excused from reading all of the links?
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).
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.
Not a Rawlsian myself, but a good post Micah!
Lwandile
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.
Oh, here’s another way to put what I was getting at: you shouldn’t assume I think ‘deflationary post-positivist’ is pejorative.
À Gauche
Jeremy Alder
Amaravati
Anggarrgoon
Audhumlan Conspiracy
H.E. Baber
Philip Blosser
Paul Broderick
Matt Brown
Diana Buccafurni
Brandon Butler
Keith Burgess-Jackson
Certain Doubts
David Chalmers
Noam Chomsky
The Conservative Philosopher
Desert Landscapes
Denis Dutton
David Efird
Karl Elliott
David Estlund
Experimental Philosophy
Fake Barn County
Kai von Fintel
Russell Arben Fox
Garden of Forking Paths
Roger Gathman
Michael Green
Scott Hagaman
Helen Habermann
David Hildebrand
John Holbo
Christopher Grau
Jonathan Ichikawa
Tom Irish
Michelle Jenkins
Adam Kotsko
Barry Lam
Language Hat
Language Log
Christian Lee
Brian Leiter
Stephen Lenhart
Clayton Littlejohn
Roderick T. Long
Joshua Macy
Mad Grad
Jonathan Martin
Matthew McGrattan
Marc Moffett
Geoffrey Nunberg
Orange Philosophy
Philosophy Carnival
Philosophy, et cetera
Philosophy of Art
Douglas Portmore
Philosophy from the 617 (moribund)
Jeremy Pierce
Punishment Theory
Geoff Pynn
Timothy Quigley (moribund?)
Conor Roddy
Sappho's Breathing
Anders Schoubye
Wolfgang Schwartz
Scribo
Michael Sevel
Tom Stoneham (moribund)
Adam Swenson
Peter Suber
Eddie Thomas
Joe Ulatowski
Bruce Umbaugh
What is the name ...
Matt Weiner
Will Wilkinson
Jessica Wilson
Young Hegelian
Richard Zach
Psychology
Donyell Coleman
Deborah Frisch
Milt Rosenberg
Tom Stafford
Law
Ann Althouse
Stephen Bainbridge
Jack Balkin
Douglass A. Berman
Francesca Bignami
BlunkettWatch
Jack Bogdanski
Paul L. Caron
Conglomerate
Jeff Cooper
Disability Law
Displacement of Concepts
Wayne Eastman
Eric Fink
Victor Fleischer (on hiatus)
Peter Friedman
Michael Froomkin
Bernard Hibbitts
Walter Hutchens
InstaPundit
Andis Kaulins
Lawmeme
Edward Lee
Karl-Friedrich Lenz
Larry Lessig
Mirror of Justice
Eric Muller
Nathan Oman
Opinio Juris
John Palfrey
Ken Parish
Punishment Theory
Larry Ribstein
The Right Coast
D. Gordon Smith
Lawrence Solum
Peter Tillers
Transatlantic Assembly
Lawrence Velvel
David Wagner
Kim Weatherall
Yale Constitution Society
Tun Yin
History
Blogenspiel
Timothy Burke
Rebunk
Naomi Chana
Chapati Mystery
Cliopatria
Juan Cole
Cranky Professor
Greg Daly
James Davila
Sherman Dorn
Michael Drout
Frog in a Well
Frogs and Ravens
Early Modern Notes
Evan Garcia
George Mason History bloggers
Ghost in the Machine
Rebecca Goetz
Invisible Adjunct (inactive)
Jason Kuznicki
Konrad Mitchell Lawson
Danny Loss
Liberty and Power
Danny Loss
Ether MacAllum Stewart
Pam Mack
Heather Mathews
James Meadway
Medieval Studies
H.D. Miller
Caleb McDaniel
Marc Mulholland
Received Ideas
Renaissance Weblog
Nathaniel Robinson
Jacob Remes (moribund?)
Christopher Sheil
Red Ted
Time Travelling Is Easy
Brian Ulrich
Shana Worthen
Computers/media/communication
Lauren Andreacchi (moribund)
Eric Behrens
Joseph Bosco
Danah Boyd
David Brake
Collin Brooke
Maximilian Dornseif (moribund)
Jeff Erickson
Ed Felten
Lance Fortnow
Louise Ferguson
Anne Galloway
Jason Gallo
Josh Greenberg
Alex Halavais
Sariel Har-Peled
Tracy Kennedy
Tim Lambert
Liz Lawley
Michael O'Foghlu
Jose Luis Orihuela (moribund)
Alex Pang
Sebastian Paquet
Fernando Pereira
Pink Bunny of Battle
Ranting Professors
Jay Rosen
Ken Rufo
Douglas Rushkoff
Vika Safrin
Rob Schaap (Blogorrhoea)
Frank Schaap
Robert A. Stewart
Suresh Venkatasubramanian
Ray Trygstad
Jill Walker
Phil Windley
Siva Vaidahyanathan
Anthropology
Kerim Friedman
Alex Golub
Martijn de Koning
Nicholas Packwood
Geography
Stentor Danielson
Benjamin Heumann
Scott Whitlock
Education
Edward Bilodeau
Jenny D.
Richard Kahn
Progressive Teachers
Kelvin Thompson (defunct?)
Mark Byron
Business administration
Michael Watkins (moribund)
Literature, language, culture
Mike Arnzen
Brandon Barr
Michael Berube
The Blogora
Colin Brayton
John Bruce
Miriam Burstein
Chris Cagle
Jean Chu
Hans Coppens
Tyler Curtain
Cultural Revolution
Terry Dean
Joseph Duemer
Flaschenpost
Kathleen Fitzpatrick
Jonathan Goodwin
Rachael Groner
Alison Hale
Household Opera
Dennis Jerz
Jason Jones
Miriam Jones
Matthew Kirschenbaum
Steven Krause
Lilliputian Lilith
Catherine Liu
John Lovas
Gerald Lucas
Making Contact
Barry Mauer
Erin O'Connor
Print Culture
Clancy Ratcliff
Matthias Rip
A.G. Rud
Amardeep Singh
Steve Shaviro
Thanks ... Zombie
Vera Tobin
Chuck Tryon
University Diaries
Classics
Michael Hendry
David Meadows
Religion
AKM Adam
Ryan Overbey
Telford Work (moribund)
Library Science
Norma Bruce
Music
Kyle Gann
ionarts
Tim Rutherford-Johnson
Greg Sandow
Scott Spiegelberg
Biology/Medicine
Pradeep Atluri
Bloviator
Anthony Cox
Susan Ferrari (moribund)
Amy Greenwood
La Di Da
John M. Lynch
Charles Murtaugh (moribund)
Paul Z. Myers
Respectful of Otters
Josh Rosenau
Universal Acid
Amity Wilczek (moribund)
Theodore Wong (moribund)
Physics/Applied Physics
Trish Amuntrud
Sean Carroll
Jacques Distler
Stephen Hsu
Irascible Professor
Andrew Jaffe
Michael Nielsen
Chad Orzel
String Coffee Table
Math/Statistics
Dead Parrots
Andrew Gelman
Christopher Genovese
Moment, Linger on
Jason Rosenhouse
Vlorbik
Peter Woit
Complex Systems
Petter Holme
Luis Rocha
Cosma Shalizi
Bill Tozier
Chemistry
"Keneth Miles"
Engineering
Zack Amjal
Chris Hall
University Administration
Frank Admissions (moribund?)
Architecture/Urban development
City Comforts (urban planning)
Unfolio
Panchromatica
Earth Sciences
Our Take
Who Knows?
Bitch Ph.D.
Just Tenured
Playing School
Professor Goose
This Academic Life
Other sources of information
Arts and Letters Daily
Boston Review
Imprints
Political Theory Daily Review
Science and Technology Daily Review