Reflections on Rawls

An Assessment of his Legacy

Shaun P. Young

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781138259737
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317069577
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

The late John Rawls was one of the most inspiring, provocative and influential political philosophers of the twentieth century. In this collection a panel of distinguished political philosophers critically explore the intellectual legacy of Rawls. The essays herein engage Rawls's political theorizing from his earliest published writings in the 1950s to his final publication in 2001, Justice as Fairness: A Restatement and explore a diversity of issues related to his arguments, such as the attractiveness of his methodology/methodologies, and the normative coherence and empirical validity of his claims. In turn, the effectiveness both of his arguments and those of various supporters and critics are evaluated from the perspective of a variety of analytical approaches, including cosmopolitanism, communitarianism, perfectionism, liberalism, and legal theory. This book is an edifying and engaging dialogue with ideas and arguments that have provided the theoretical framework for much of contemporary political philosophy, and a thoughtful assessment of their continuing significance and place within the pantheon of political philosophy.

Chapter 1
Rawls’s Public Reason and American Society,

George Klosko

Rawls’s doctrine of public reason is a central feature of political liberalism and one of the main contributions of his later political theory. As is often the case in his later works, Rawls spends more time explicating his view than providing a convincing defense of it. In spite of the importance of public reason, questions remain about his ability to defend his conception of the view according to the position on justification developed in Political Liberalism.1 In particular, I do not believe a central component of public reason, to which I will refer to as “neutrality,” can be defended. In response to Rawls’s problems, I consider the kind of doctrine his view of justification could support, while noting how the difficulties troubling his argument call into question the justificatory strategy pursued in Political Liberalism and Rawls’s other late works.2

Discussion in this chapter is presented in six sections. In Sections I and II, partly by way of background, I review basic features of public reason and discuss Rawls’s method of establishing moral principles in Political Liberalism. Difficulties with Rawls’s method are discussed in Section III, while in Sections IV and V, I examine criticisms of neutrality from strongly religious perspectives and the extent of these views in American society, through public opinion polls. Section VI is a conclusion in which I briefly discuss what I view as a preferable justificatory strategy for neutrality, and the alternative position to which, I believe, Rawls’s strategy would actually give rise.

(I) Public Reason

Rawls’s doctrine of public reason, as a component of political liberalism, is advanced in order to address the unavoidable pluralism of liberal societies. Believing that disagreement about comprehensive views is a permanent feature of liberal societies, rooted in basic characteristics of human reason, Rawls attempts to establish central moral principles and standards of argument to be employed in addressing political issues. In Justice as Fairness: A Restatement, Rawls describes the latter as arising through the process of reasoning that gives rise to the principles of justice. Agreement in the original position3 has two parts. In addition to settling on principles of justice, the representative individuals must generate “a companion agreement” on epistemological principles. This is to delimit “the guidelines for public inquiry and … the criteria as to what kinds of information and knowledge is relevant in discussing political questions” (JF, p. 89). Public reason, then, presents the “principles of reasoning” and “rules of evidence,” for determining what kinds of considerations are to be advanced in the relevant public inquiries (p. 89).

As the moral principles Rawls supports are to be “freestanding,” not rooted in any particular comprehensive view, Rawls argues that public reason should be similarly freestanding. Central to Rawls’s view are restrictions on the forms of argument that can be used in the political process. Acceptable forms are limited to those that should be unobjectionable to the entire range of reasonable citizens, in spite of differences over their comprehensive views.

For ease of reference, we can use the term “neutrality” to refer both to substantive doctrines and modes of argument that do not depend unavoidably on specific comprehensive views.4 In a pluralistic society, commitment to neutrality is bound up with preference for modes of argument that are capable of being widely agreed upon. According to Rawls, acceptable modes of argument center on “presently accepted general beliefs and forms of reasoning found in common sense, and the methods and conclusions of science, when these are not controversial” (PL, p. 224). As Rawls’s examples indicate, neutral reasons are those that are demonstrable and replicable.5 In a diverse society, many inhabitants could well prefer other grounds of justification, notably religious authority and interpretations of sacred texts. Neutrality, however, rules these out. Arguments from these perspectives are obviously bound up with particular comprehensive views and so will not be acceptable to citizens whose comprehensive views are different. Restricting religious and other related modes of argument in this way is an inescapably liberal idea, in keeping with the movement against arguments from authority and intellectual obscurantism that has characterized liberal thought since its inception.6

As with his position in Political Liberalism more generally, Rawls’s commitment to public reason is bound up with his concern for moral autonomy, that people be ruled by principles they accept. In a diverse society, for views or values rooted in the comprehensive views of a particular group to be coercively imposed on other groups would be a significant injustice. Both the principles according to which the basic structure of society is directed and the canons of argument and justification through which they are supported should be common to all reasonable groups — again, “freestanding” in Rawls’s terms. The importance of this conception of autonomy was central to Rawls’s theory for almost four decades. In the first formulation of his view, in “Justice as Fairness,” Rawls roots his conception of fairness in the possibility of discovering moral principles that everyone can accept. He describes this as “the possibility of mutual acknowledgement of principles by free persons who have no authority over one another.”7 When this condition is satisfied, people should be able to “face one another openly and support their respective positions, should they appear questionable, by reference to principles which it is reasonable to expect each to accept.”8 Similarly, in Political Liberalism, Rawls appeals to the “liberal principle of legitimacy”: “our exercise of political power is proper and hence justifiable only when it is exercised in accordance with a constitution the essentials of which all citizens may reasonably be expected to endorse in the light of principles and ideas acceptable to them as reasonable and rational. This is the liberal principle of legitimacy” (PL, p. 217).

In this chapter, I do not question the attractiveness of Rawls’s position. My concern is with its justification. Given the deep concern with autonomy and other elements of Kantian moral philosophy Rawls evinced throughout his career, one could easily believe that his commitment to public reason stems from these sources. But according to the argument of Political Liberalism, Rawls must provide a justification that is freestanding, independent of comprehensive views, be they his or those of other citizens. Our question, then, is how well his commitment to public reason follows from the conception of justification articulated in Political Liberalism.

(II) Rawls’s Political Constructivism9

In Political Liberalism, as in A Theory of Justice, Rawls’s principles are intended to be the outcome of a process of choice, conducted in the original position, behind a veil of ignorance. The original position is a “device of representation,” to help focus our moral ideas. Because of the pluralism of liberal societies, Rawls holds that argument must be from “intuitive ideas” that he believes are deeply rooted in liberal culture, and so subscribed to by adherents of different comprehensive views, in spite of their other differences. Rawls describes public culture as composed of “the political institutions of a constitutional regime and the public traditions of their interpretation (including those of the judiciary), as well as historic texts and doctrines that are common knowledge” (PL, pp. 13—14).

The specific intuitive ideas on which Rawls focuses are a view of society as a fair system of cooperation and a conception of the person as possessing two moral powers, concerning abilities to form and revise her own conception of the good and to live on fair terms of cooperation with others. Though Rawls does not describe in detail how the intuitive ideas tie in with the choice of principles in the original position, it is clear that they are represented by central features of the original position and the deliberations of the representative individuals. Because these particular conceptions of the person and of society are built into the structure of the original position, principles of justice chosen under these conditions are thereby identified as the most suitable principles for free and equal citizens who seek to live on fair terms of cooperation with others.

Rawls divides the process of construction into two stages. In the first, because of the existence of pluralism, the principles of justice (and canons of argument) are constructed through the intuitive ideas, without reference to existing comprehensive views. Once the principles of justice are chosen in the first stage, they are reviewed in regard to whether they would be acceptable to proponents of society’s different comprehensive views, or as Rawls terms this, in regard to their contributions to “stability.” If the principles are lacking in this regard, suitable adjustments may be necessary (PL, pp. 65—6).

Rawls’s turn to intuitive ideas is necessary, because he believes that liberal societies are torn by fundamental differences: the “public political culture may be of two minds at a very deep level” (PL, p. 9). The intuitive ideas are fundamental elements of the public culture, from which defensible moral principles may be developed. We collect “such settled convictions as the belief in religious toleration and the rejection of slavery and try to organize the basic ideas and principles implicit in these convictions into a coherent political conception of justice” (PL, p. 8). The intuitive ideas are intended to be generally subscribed to in ways that principles of justice are not. Rawls describes them as “public and shared ideas” (PL, p. 90).

(III) Problems with Rawls’s Method

Although to my knowledge Rawls never explains exactly how public reason is established by political constructivism, his view can be surmised. Again, because of the pluralism of liberal societies, public reason too must be freestanding and constructed through the intuitive ideas, rather than directly from liberal culture. Given this position, Rawls is committed to the claim that, through their acceptance of the intuitive ideas on which he focuses, liberal citizens will be able to agree not only about his principles of justice but about public reason as well. However, there are numerous problems with his method and, in particular, with its employment to derive public reason.

To begin with, Rawls never explains central aspects of his procedure, including the precise nature of intuitive ideas. In different contexts, he describes these as “certain fundamental ideas seen as implicit in the public political culture of a democratic society” (PL, p. 13), and as “public and shared ideas” (PL, p. 90). More fully: “the political culture of a democratic society, which has worked reasonably well over a considerable period of time, normally contains, at least implicitly, certain fundamental intuitive ideas from which it is possible to work up a political conception of justice suitable for a constitutional regime” (PL, p. 38, n. 41).10

These and other formulations are so vague and abstract that it is difficult to know what Rawls means by them. But he is apparently committed to the claim that most liberal citizens would accept the relevant canons of argument, if they were presented in a certain way. Rawls undoubtedly believes that intuitive ideas correspond in some sense not only to what people believe and could recognize, but constitute the basis for working out standards that they would also recognize and accept, if the latter could be shown to be derived from the intuitive ideas. This is confirmed by Rawls’s view of how political principles can be justified to people by proceeding from premises they “publicly recognize as true” (JFPM, 229). In order for acceptance to be “free and willing” (IOC, 1987, 5, n. 8), there must be a strong correspondence between the content of the principles and subjects’ other political beliefs: “No political conception of justice could have weight with us unless it helped to put in order our considered convictions of justice at all levels of generality, from the most general to the most particular” (PL, p. 45).

Rawls’s appeal to intuitive ideas distinguishes these from the political views that people consciously hold at a given time. Obviously, if there were a strong correspondence between what people consciously believed and the contents of justice as fairness, they would easily accept it. An int...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Tables
• Notes on Contributors
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Rawls’s Public Reason and American Society
• 2 Primary Goods versus Capabilities: Defending the Good against the Equally Good?
• 3 Rawls’s Commitment to Fair Equality of Opportunity: Rethinking His Arguments for Democratic Equality Four Decades Later
• 4 John Rawls’s Genealogy of Liberalism
• 5 Rawls’s Social Contract: Not Really
• 6 Realism and Moralism in Political Theory: The Legacies of John Rawls
• 7 John Rawls: Liberalism at the Limits of Intolerance
• 8 Is Political Liberalism Hostile to Religion?
• 9 Political Toleration and Coercive Intervention in the International Sphere
• 10 Rawls’s Priority of Rights: Quandaries and Implications for International Relations and the Issue of Intervention
• Index