Frohlich and Oppenheimer's works aim to study empirically Rawls' philosophy. They replicate the original position, using a veil of ignorance covering the subjects' deliberations. This should provide empirical data usable by philosophers, a claim discussed here: Rawls' foundationalism precludes a genuine opening of his philosophy to empirical data. On the other hand, Rawls' distinction between natural and moral justice attitudes sheds light on the deterministic metaphysics indirectly required by the Rawlsian sense of justice. This leads to the (...) question of the empirical feasibility of the theory: is doing without preinstitutional meritocratic attitudes humanly possible? Studies investigating the influence of socialization on causal attribution suggest that the feeling of free will is not a fundamental need of the human mind. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

This book continues and revises the ideas of justice as fairness that John Rawls presented in _A Theory of Justice_ but changes its philosophical interpretation in a fundamental way. That previous work assumed what Rawls calls a "well-ordered society," one that is stable and relatively homogenous in its basic moral beliefs and in which there is broad agreement about what constitutes the good life. Yet in modern democratic society a plurality of incompatible and irreconcilable doctrines--religious, philosophical, and moral--coexist (...) within the framework of democratic institutions. Recognizing this as a permanent condition of democracy, Rawls asks how a stable and just society of free and equal citizens can live in concord when divided by reasonable but incompatible doctrines? This edition includes the essay "The Idea of Public Reason Revisited," which outlines Rawls ' plans to revise _Political Liberalism,_ which were cut short by his death. "An extraordinary well-reasoned commentary on _A Theory of Justice_...a decisive turn towards political philosophy." --_Times Literary Supplement_. (shrink)

This book continues and revises the ideas of justice as fairness that John Rawls presented in _A Theory of Justice_ but changes its philosophical interpretation in a fundamental way. That previous work assumed what Rawls calls a "well-ordered society," one that is stable and relatively homogenous in its basic moral beliefs and in which there is broad agreement about what constitutes the good life. Yet in modern democratic society a plurality of incompatible and irreconcilable doctrines--religious, philosophical, and moral--coexist (...) within the framework of democratic institutions. Recognizing this as a permanent condition of democracy, Rawls asks how a stable and just society of free and equal citizens can live in concord when divided by reasonable but incompatible doctrines? This edition includes the essay "The Idea of Public Reason Revisited," which outlines Rawls' plans to revise _Political Liberalism,_ which were cut short by his death. "An extraordinary well-reasoned commentary on _A Theory of Justice_...a decisive turn towards political philosophy." --_Times Literary Supplement_. (shrink)

This book originated as lectures for a course on political philosophy that Rawls taught regularly at Harvard in the 1980s.

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Remarks on political philosophy -- Lectures on Hobbes -- Lectures on Locke -- Lectures on Hume -- Lectures on Rousseau -- Lectures on Mill -- Lectures on Marx.

Philippe van Parijs (2003) has argued that an egalitarian ethos cannot be part of a post- Political Liberalism Rawlsian view of justice, because the demands of political justice are confined to principles for institutions of the basic structure alone. This paper argues, by contrast, that certain principles for individual conduct—including a principle requiring relatively advantaged individuals to sometimes make their economic choices with the aim of maximising the prospects of the least advantaged—are an integral part of a Rawlsian (...) political conception of justice. It concludes that incentive payments will have a clearly limited role in a Rawlsian theory of justice. (shrink)

This centenary volume of essays explores a number of related themes which differentiate and characterize the approach of the LSE. Central to this, is the assumption that law is one of the social sciences and that law should be studied "in context" as a social phenomenon. The contributors have been chosen both for their distinction and for their connection with the LSE, and include such eminent figures as Mrs Justice Arden, Judge Rosalyn Higgins, Sir Stephen Sedley, and Roberto Mangabeira Unger. (...) The essays focus on three main subject areas: Law and Economy; Dimensions of Law; and Courts and Process which are discussed against the broader canvas of the School's approach to Law. Thus, Comaroff, Cohen, Unger and Teubner adopt an interdisciplinary approach to the subject, stressing both legal and social theory, while the contributions of Cranston, Cornish and others stress an internationalist approach. A characteristic LSE focus on the dynamic nature of law runs through the work of Collins, Higgins and Lord Wedderburn, while a reformist tradition is explored alongside the introduction of new legal subjects into the curriculum. Fascinating and thought provoking, this volume is an accesible summary of current thought and debate presented by today's leading scholars and practioners. Law, Society and Economy will be of enduring interest to scholars and practioners worldwide, akin to Ginsberg's celebrated and widely cited volume of essays which marked the School's fiftieth anniversary. (shrink)

This centenary volume of essays explores a number of related themes which differentiate and characterize the approach of the LSE. Central to this, is the assumption that law is one of the social sciences and that law should be studied "in context" as a social phenomenon. The contributors have been chosen both for their distinction and for their connection with the LSE, and include such eminent figures as Mrs Justice Arden, Judge Rosalyn Higgins, Sir Stephen Sedley, and Roberto Mangabeira Unger. (...) The essays focus on three main subject areas: Law and Economy; Dimensions of Law; and Courts and Process which are discussed against the broader canvas of the School's approach to Law. Thus, Comaroff, Cohen, Unger and Teubner adopt an interdisciplinary approach to the subject, stressing both legal and social theory, while the contributions of Cranston, Cornish and others stress an internationalist approach. A characteristic LSE focus on the dynamic nature of law runs through the work of Collins, Higgins and Lord Wedderburn, while a reformist tradition is explored alongside the introduction of new legal subjects into the curriculum. Fascinating and thought provoking, this volume is an accesible summary of current thought and debate presented by today's leading scholars and practioners. Law, Society and Economy will be of enduring interest to scholars and practioners worldwide, akin to Ginsberg's celebrated and widely cited volume of essays which marked the School's fiftieth anniversary. (shrink)

The major moral issues of our time have been made vital and immediate by the convergence of numerous factors. Among these are a technology that has produced the threat of nuclear holocaust, that can maintain life beyond the death of the brain, that can destroy the natural world, and that produces deadly, indestructible waste. There is a new sensitivity to the injustices suffered by minorities. Impoverishment and starvation are now the fate of millions. Political tyranny is a continuing threat. (...) Finally, the rise of a new religiousness has had an impact on morals and public affairs. In these provocative essays chosen from The Tanner Lectures on Human Values and first published in 1987, four internationally distinguished scholars explore the moral implications of these issues in today's world. (shrink)

[Rawls’ „eternal peace“ without politics].

A case study of the changing geography curriculum illuminates the continuing struggles over subject knowledge at national level, and highlights more general issues about ideology and the politics of curriculum change 1991-2000. The investigation focuses on the processes and impacts of two National Curriculum Reviews and the changing policy trends and structures becoming apparent under New Labour. Three phrases of curriculum policy-making are tentatively recognised, raising questions for further research.

In this article we take off from critiques of psychological and school bullying typologies as creating problematic binary categories of bully and victim and neglecting sociocultural aspects of gender and sexuality. We review bullying research informed by Judith Butler’s theories of discursive performativity, which help us to understand how subjectification works through performative repetitions of heterosexual gender norms. We then build on these insights drawing on the feminist new materialist approach of Karen Barad’s posthuman performativity, which we argue enlarges our (...) scope of inquiry in profound ways. Barad’s theories suggest we move from psychological models of the inter-personal, and from Butlerian notions of discursive subjectification, to ideas of discursive-material intra-action to consider the more-thanhuman relationalities of bullying. Throughout the article, we demonstrate the approach using examples from qualitative research with teens in the UK and Australia, exploring nonhuman agentic matter such as space, objects and time as shaping the constitution of gender and sexual bullying events. Specifically we examine the discursive-material agential intraactions of skirts and hair through which ‘girl’ and ‘boy’ and ‘slut’ and ‘gay’ materialise in school spacetimematterings. In our conclusion we briefly suggest how the new materialism helps to shift the frame of attention and responses informing gendered intraactions in schools. (shrink)

Green and Shapiro's tour de force fails as a convincing critique of rational choice applications in political science because it locks itself into a statistical form of assessment. Rather than seeing the constructive side of rational choice theory, both as an engine of theoretical development and as a source of non?obvious empirical insights about politics, Green and Shapiro depart from the procedure in most sciences, comparing rational choice against an ideal rather than some concrete alternative. Finally, they fail to (...) note the recent emphasis on sophisticated empirical testing of rational choice hypotheses. (shrink)

For over twenty years, Paul Weithman has explored the thought of John Rawls to ask how liberalism can secure the principled allegiance of those people whom Rawls called 'citizens of faith'. This volume brings together ten of his major essays, which reflect on the task and political character of political philosophy, the ways in which liberalism does and does not privatize religion, the role of liberal legitimacy in Rawls's theory, and the requirements of public reason. (...) The essays reveal Rawls as a thinker deeply engaged with political and existential questions that trouble citizens of faith, and explore how - in firm opposition to political realism - he tries to show that the possibility of liberal democracy and the natural goodness of humanity are objects of reasonable faith. The volume will be of interest to political philosophers, political theorists, moral theologians, and religious ethicists. (shrink)

We have already stated that Rawls situates his political liberalism within the liberal tradition. The practical meaning of so doing now becomes clear. Rawls presents his theory as a resource for public reflection and self clarification of that tradition. He hopes thereby to bring the process of reflection, which has occupied the liberal tradition for a considerable time, to some conclusion. One might also speak here of a hermeneutic turn in Rawls’ thought. His political philosophy (...) does not withdraw from the world, nor does it claim to discover the truth by its own methods of reason, “apart from any tradition of political thought and practice.”. Rawls recognises that philosophical argumentation on its own is probably not in a position to lead to agreement.For this reason he considers it more fruitful to seek out “bases of agreement” which are implicit in the public culture of democratic societies and, more particularly, in their underlying conceptions of the person and of social cooperation. It is perhaps true that such “bases of agreement” are obscure and can be understood in a variety of ways. Rawls endeavours to show, however, precisely how such concepts can be understood, and how the notion of the original position can be used to connect them to certain principles of justice which themselves belong to the tradition of moral philosophy.Rawls is not seeking to give foundation to our moral insight; instead he sees the task of philosophy as consisting in showing the “coherence” of these insights with other ideas, thereby bringing order to our convictions, from the most general to the most particular. The original position plays a central role in this reflection. It must contribute to our attainment of an unimpeded vision of the demands of justice, if society is conceived as a scheme of fair cooperation between free and equal, reasonable and rational persons. Carried by the fundamental ideas of the liberal tradition, Rawls’ political philosophy must bring this tradition to unity and consensus. (shrink)

IN A Theory of Justice, John Rawls deployed a social contract theory to vindicate liberal political principles of civil liberty and distributive justice without appeal to a utilitarian calculus. Rawls described his conception of political justice as "justice as fairness." Rational contractors, deliberating behind a "veil of ignorance," agree to a scheme of justice prior to knowing how the scheme materially affects their individual interests or conceptions of moral or nonmoral good. Perhaps the most striking and (...) certainly one of the most controversial features of Rawls's Theory was his argument that "the right" subordinates not only material interests in the economic sphere, but also individuals' fully considered conceptions of the moral good, human flourishing, and final ends. Hence, Rawls's theory of justice was meant to be a systematic alternative both to the economic pragmatism of other modern contract theorists as well as to the classical tradition of perfectionism in political theory. (shrink)

In this paper I analyze the theory of legitimacy at the core of John Rawls’ political liberalism. Rawls argues that a political system is well grounded when it is stable. This notion of stability embodies both pragmatic and moral elements, each of which constitutes a key desideratum of Rawlsian liberal legitimacy. But those desiderata are in tension with each other. My main claim is that Rawls’ strategy to overcome that tension through his theory of public (...) justification is ultimately unsuccessful, because the account of consensus it envisages is unstably placed between the extremes of moralized redundancy and pragmatic free-for-all. In other words, what counts as consensus is either regulated too tightly, or not enough. -/- . (shrink)

David Hume is a constant, but underappreciated presence in John Rawls’ work. This paper attempts to uncover and explicate the core Humean elements in Rawls’ philosophy and advocates for the merits of a more Humean Rawls. Though Rawls’ familiarity with Hume is well known and his commentators frequently mention the importance of Hume’s circumstances of justice, the depth and range of the Humean influence has not been sufficiently understood. Commentators have been too quick to accept (...) class='Hi'>Rawls’ own account of Hume as a largely negative influence superseded by justice as fairness’s formidable alternative to utilitarianism. This is a mistake, as Hume remains a powerful and positive historical influence in Rawls’ political philosophy. Moreover, recognition of Hume’s influence provides cogent ways of responding to some of Rawls’ most prominent critics. Rawls’ early essays and his lectures on the history of moral and political philosophy provide valuable material for understanding how Rawls saw the relation of his own work to that of his predecessors. Through an analysis of Rawls’ texts with emphasis on his early papers and lectures we seek to clarify his understanding of Hume and show how it impacts his work. In what follows, we show Hume’s influence on Rawls’ understanding of the circumstances of justice, the site of justice, the priority of the right, sympathy, the judicious spectator, and his methodology and approach to the problem of stability based on congruence between the good and the right. This illuminates Hume’s influence on contemporary political philosophy and provides a more balanced picture of the historical foundation of Rawls’ political philosophy. We end with some positive remarks on the benefits of embracing Rawls’ Humean side. (shrink)

Is our moral cognition “colored” by the language(s) that we speak? Despite the centrality of language to political life and agency, limited attempts have been made thus far in contemporary political philosophy to consider this possibility. We therefore set out to explore the possible influence of linguistic relativity effects on political thinking in linguistically diverse societies. We begin by introducing the facts and fallacies of the “linguistic relativity” principle, and explore the various ways in which they “color,” (...) often covertly, current normative debates. To illustrate this, we focus on two key Rawlsian concepts: the original position and public reason. We then move to consider the resulting epistemic challenges and opportunities facing contemporary multilingual democratic societies in an age of increased mobility, arguing for the consequent imperative of developing political metalinguistic awareness and political extelligence among political scientists, political philosophers, and political actors alike in an irreducibly complex linguistic world. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that the fact of reasonable pluralism (FRP) – a famous Rawlsian assumption about the intellectual demographics of liberal democracies – is not as self-evident as is sometimes thought. The problem with the FRP is that in Political Liberalism Rawls is treating the freedoms and burdens story as being sufficient – in itself – to explain the demographics of reasonable pluralism. The inadequacy of the freedoms and burdens story is an indication that the FRP (...) is empirically underdetermined as a way of glossing the belief demographics of liberal democracies. And it is a reason to wonder whether pluralism is as permanent as Rawls thinks. But worldview disagreements are not necessarily so incorrigible. In response to the FRP, it can be asserted that there is nothing that is inherent in the idea of a liberal democracy to preclude the choice by the citizens of a common worldview. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that the fact of reasonable pluralism (FRP) – a famous Rawlsian assumption about the intellectual demographics of liberal democracies – is not as self-evident as is sometimes thought. The problem with the FRP is that in Political Liberalism Rawls is treating the freedoms and burdens story as being sufficient – in itself – to explain the demographics of reasonable pluralism. The inadequacy of the freedoms and burdens story is an indication that the FRP (...) is empirically underdetermined as a way of glossing the belief demographics of liberal democracies. And it is a reason to wonder whether pluralism is as permanent as Rawls thinks. But worldview disagreements are not necessarily so incorrigible. In response to the FRP, it can be asserted that there is nothing that is inherent in the idea of a liberal democracy to preclude the choice by the citizens of a common worldview. (shrink)

Public justification-based accounts of liberal legitimacy rely on the idea that a polity’s basic structure should, in some sense, be acceptable to its citizens. In this paper I discuss the prospects of that approach through the lens of Gerald Gaus’ critique of John Rawls’ paradigmatic account of democratic public justification. I argue that Gaus does succeed in pointing out some significant problems for Rawls’ political liberalism; yet his alternative, justificatory liberalism, is not voluntaristic enough to satisfy the (...) desiderata of a genuinely democratic theory of public justification. So I contend that—pace Gaus, but also Rawls—rather than simply amending political liberalism, the claims of justificatory liberalism bring out fatal tensions between the desiderata of any theory of liberal-democratic legitimacy through public justification. (shrink)

Reviews : John Rawls, Political Liberalism, ; Jürgen Habermas, Faktizität und Geltung: Beiträge zur Diskurstheorie des Rechts und des deomkratischen Rechtstaats, ; Axel Honneth, Kampf um Anerkennung: Zur moraliscben Grammatik sozialer Konflikte, ; Philosophy of Mind: Theory and Practice, ; Gunnar Skirbekk, Rationality and Modernity: Essays in Pbilosopbical Pragmatics, ; Charles Taylor, Multiculturalism and "The Politics of Recognition".

Reviews : John Rawls, Political Liberalism, ; Jürgen Habermas, Faktizität und Geltung: Beiträge zur Diskurstheorie des Rechts und des deomkratischen Rechtstaats, ; Axel Honneth, Kampf um Anerkennung: Zur moraliscben Grammatik sozialer Konflikte, ; Philosophy of Mind: Theory and Practice, ; Gunnar Skirbekk, Rationality and Modernity: Essays in Pbilosopbical Pragmatics, ; Charles Taylor, Multiculturalism and "The Politics of Recognition".

In this article, it is argued that a significant internal tension exists in John Rawls' political liberalism. He holds the following positions that might plausibly be considered incongruous: (1) a commitment to tolerating a broad right of freedom of political speech, including a right of subversive advocacy; (2) a commitment to restricting this broad right if it is intended to incite and likely to bring about imminent violence; and (3) a commitment to curbing this broad right only (...) if there is a constitutional crisis. By supporting a broad right of freedom of political speech in Political Liberalism, he allows militant intolerant people such as Jihadists, White Supremacists and Neo-Nazis to advocate publicly their dangerously intolerant beliefs. Public advocacy of dangerously intolerant beliefs can be construed as subversive advocacy. As demonstrated by the historical examples of the Weimar Republic and the Second Spanish Republic, militant intolerant groups could use a right of subversive advocacy to threaten the stability of liberal democracies. Hence, by allowing them to exercise a broad right of freedom of political speech, Rawls could jeopardize that which he intends to defend, namely the actual political stability of a liberal democratic order. Lastly, Rawls' conception of ideal constitutional interpretation, which privileges a broad right of freedom of political speech, might be insufficient to deal effectively with the threat posed by militant intolerant groups. Yet a tradition of American constitutional interpretation that balances freedom of speech with other important constitutional and/or political values has overcome a civil war, two world wars, the Cold War and the 9/11 terrorist attacks without abandoning democracy or permanently renouncing those values. Still, Rawls' ideal approach to constitutional interpretation might, in hindsight, help us to understand some of the excesses and deficiencies of American jurisprudence in times of emergency.<br><br><br><br>. (shrink)

John Rawls’s political liberalism and its ideal of public reason are tremendously influential in contemporary political philosophy and in constitutional law as well. Many, perhaps even most, liberals are Rawlsians of one stripe or another. This is problematic, because most liberals also support the redefinition of civil marriage to include same-sex unions, and as I show, Rawls’s political liberalism actually prohibits same- sex marriage. Recently in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, however, California’s northern federal district court reinterpreted (...) the traditional rational basis review in terms of liberal neutrality akin to Rawls’s “public reason,” and overturned Proposition 8 and established same-sex marriage. (This reinterpretation was amplified in the 9th Circuit Court’s decision upholding the district court on appeal in Perry v. Brown.) But on its own grounds Perry should have drawn the opposite conclusion. This is because all the available arguments for recognizing same-sex unions as civil marriages stem from controversial comprehensive doctrines about the good, and this violates the ideal of public reason; yet there remains a publicly reasonable argument for traditional marriage, which I sketch here. In the course of my argument I develop Rawls’s politically liberal account of the family by drawing upon work by J. David Velleman and H. L. A. Hart, and discuss the implications of this account for political theory and constitutional law. (shrink)

Employs the political philosophy of John Rawls to address controversies involving politics and religion.

Political realism criticises the putative abstraction, foundationalism and neglect of the agonistic dimension of political practice in the work of John Rawls. This paper argues that had Rawls not fully specified the implementation of his theory of justice in one particular form of political economy then he would be vulnerable to a realist critique. But he did present such an implementation: a property-owning democracy. An appreciation of Rawls s specificationist method undercuts the realist critique (...) of his conception of justice as fairness. (shrink)

Despite the vast literature on Rawls's work, few have discussed his arguments for the value of democracy. When his arguments have been discussed, they have received staunch criticism. Some critics have charged that Rawls's arguments are not deeply democratic. Others have gone further, claiming that Rawls's arguments denigrate democracy. These criticisms are unsurprising, since Rawls's arguments, as arguments that the principle of equal basic liberty needs to include democratic liberties, are incomplete. In contrast to his trenchant (...) remarks about core civil liberties, Rawls does not say much about the inclusion of political liberties of a democratic sort – such as the right to vote – among the basic liberties. -/- In this paper, I complete some of Rawls's arguments and show that he has grounds for including political liberties, particularly those of a democratic nature, in the principle of equal basic liberty. In doing so, I make some beginning steps toward illustrating the genuinely democratic nature of Rawls's arguments. Rawls believes that a few different arguments can be given for democratic institutions and that these arguments work together to support the value of democracy. In this paper, I focus on Rawls's arguments relating to self-respect. I focus on this set of arguments because they are among the strongest of Rawls's arguments for equal political liberty and its fair value. (shrink)

Paul Weithman offers a fresh, rigorous, and compelling interpretation of John Rawls's reasons for taking his so-called "political turn.".