Jurisprudence (4) Rawls and Political Liberalism
The Social Contract Tradition : Moving On
- Hobbes and Kant has been concerned about questions such as ‘should we have a state?’, ‘is the State justified?’
• The debate has since moved on, the state is here to stay, it is here now. In modern societies, we don’t ask whether
we should have democracy or monarchy. Democracy seems to have won the day in many societies (other than
communist China, North Korea).
- We have new political conditions (spread of liberalism & democracy) and social conditions (pluralism &
disagreement)
• Instead of asking ‘State or something else (e.g. a state of nature)?’, it asks ‘what kind of State?’, nowadays
philosophers tend to puzzle over something rather different: ‘how can we make sure that our political institutions
are just, stable and legitimate?’
- The fabric of our society is different due to pluralism, which gives rise to disagreements.
• We ponder over questions such as how to organise our society, how to determine the role of each person. This
gives rise to issue of of social inequality, role of markets (allow free competition, extensive state regulation),and
limits between state and private power (collapse of the Eastern bloc, worry about power of multinational
corporations, inability of the state to control these companies, if we try to regulate capital, capital will move away)
• Given that we are pluralistic, we have different opinions on how to deal with these questions.
- Social contract theories for dealing with disagreement
(i) Discount it (Hobbes, Kant)
• there can be disagreement in society, the purpose of social contract is to clarify to people who disagree what
they are wrong
• Problem : too many disagreements, it would be tall order to think that you can convince everyone
(ii) Take it seriously (Rawls)
• take the fact of pluralism seriously, to have significance in itself.
• We start from premises that all citizens in society can accept? Come out with something that unites us.
Political Liberalism : Executive Summary
- Political liberalism takes the pluralism of our societies seriously.
• Rawls sees society as long-term social cooperation. Justice = social cooperation under fair terms — ‘Justice as
fairness’
• Like Kant, he takes politics as a self-contained matter. Because, moral religious ethical claims are controversial,
cannot be common ground to build politics.
• Because we are dealing with politics, we need a special method. The account Rawls take is political, not
metaphysical.
• Rawls builds his theory of basic background of shared belief, he tries to be neutral (comprehensive doctrine).
• The method taken is ‘thought experiment’, examining principles of ‘liberty’ and ‘economic distribution’
Justice is having social cooperation under fair terms, ‘justice as fairness’
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,Method
In a pluralist society, disagreements among people occur because of each hold different comprehensive doctrines.
Disagreements between comprehensive doctrines are irresolvable even when we agree on the facts. But we can attempt
to find common ground between comprehensive doctrines and use this to build a ‘freestanding account of justice’ which
does not favour any particular comprehensive doctrine. We achieve ‘reflective equilibrium’ when we arrive at an
acceptable coherence among these doctrines
TAKING PLURALISM SERIOUSLY
(i) People have a variety of worldviews
- Many political disputes in society aren’t just ad hoc, they have depth. We disagree not just because we have different
set of facts, we disagree because our world views ‘comprehensive doctrines’ different.
• Comprehensive doctrine denotes that our disagreements occur because we have different sets of belief and
meaning in life.
• Most people are guided by certain principles, it is ‘comprehensive’ because one’s worldview tend to straddle
ethical, moral and political issues.
- Example : Suppose you are religious, this fact affects they way you understand yourself, your relationship with other
person (do not cheat because it is a sin) — affects how we see others, affects how we judge others (gay relationship is
a sin). Your view may affect political beliefs (vote for party most consistent with your beliefs). Your view affects how
the state should treat others (burn the bible, requires punishment)
(ii) We can have different comprehensive doctrines
- Disagreements between comprehensive doctrines look irresolvable even when people agree on the facts
• These disagreements are deep (religious and atheist), because they can exist even if we can agree all the facts.
(iii) How do we establish fair terms of social cooperation that does not take sides (neutral) between different
comprehensive doctrines.
- In these conditions of deep disagreements, can we find shared principles?
- To a find fair scheme of co-operation in a pluralist society, or common ground :
• Don’t start controversial claims
• Use it to construct a ‘freestanding account of justice’ (not favouring a particular comprehensive doctrine, instead
look at what is the common ground of all comprehensive doctrines)
• This account will be ‘political, not metaphysical’
• We can then build a political language, and this will be language we all share to resolve common problems.
- How might political philosophy find a shared basis for settling such a fundamental question as that of the most
appropriate institutional forms for liberty and equality?
• We narrow the range of public disagreement.
• We collect such settled convictions and try to organise the basic ideas and principles implicit in these convictions
into a coherent conception of justice.
• We look, to our public political culture itself, including its main institutions and the historical traditions of their
interpretation, as the shared fund of implicitly recognised basic ideas and principles.
• This hopefully can be combined into a conception of political justice congenial to our most firmly held
convictions.
• For a political conception of justice, to be acceptable, must be in accordance with our considered convictions, at
all levels of generality, on due reflection — ‘reflective equilibrium’
Justice as Fairness
- The aim of justice as fairness as a political conception is practical, and not metaphysical or epistemological.
• That is, it presents itself not as a conception of justice that is true, but one that can serve as a basis of informed
and willing political agreement between citizens viewed as free and equal persons.
• The agreements avoids disputed philosophical, moral or religious questions.
• Not because these questions are unimportant, but there is no way to remove them politically.
• We leave aside philosophical controversies whenever possible, and look for ways to avoid philosophy's
longstanding problems.
• The aim is free agreement, reconciliation through public reason.
- Example : the connection of citizens as free and equal persons, need not involve, questions of philosophical
psychology or metaphysical doctrine of the nature of the self
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,THE CONVERSATION OF JUSTICE
- How should a conversation about justice in a pluralist society go?
(i) ‘Bracket off’ controversial claims, for two reasons:
- Because they provoke disagreement : we need to set these claims aside because of the controversy of these
claims (NOT because they are mistaken)
• Example of difference : your fundamental view is of the right to independence, but some may view that we
need to concern others too/ you fundamental view is based on self-preservation, but some may think that we
also need to self-sacrifice
- Because there is no easy and agreed way to settle who’s right
(ii) Identify common ground between comprehensive doctrines
- [Critique] Does this mean that we need to find the lowest common denominator of all views?
- Rawls didn’t say we only deal with conventional views, as it defeats the project.
a. Early Rawls : we don’t want to deal with crazy views, we only need to take into account ‘reasonable’
doctrines
- the bar is quite low : doctrines need to be coherent, open to some revision, they recognise that there are
other worldviews
b. Late Rawls : relaxes the standard. We take into account all doctrines having a notion of equality of persons
& abide by fair terms of cooperation. (Nussbaum)
- This includes doctrines that might seem ‘odious’ (ex. racial segregationism, sexist worldviews)
• They have some notion of equality no matter how misguided.
- Anyone who agrees to join the consensus and accepts the ideals of justice as fairness is likewise referred
to as reasonable.
To construct a conception of justice in a pluralist society, which is having social cooperation under fair terms, we
bracket off controversial claims and identify the common ground between comprehensive doctrines. This is not
searching for the lowest common denominator of all doctrines, but rather considering all doctrines that have a notion
of equality (no matter how misguided) and are keen to abide to the fair terms of cooperation.
CRITIQUE : POGGE
- Consider doctrines that involve the practice of polygamy, pederasty, incest etc. Can these doctrines be unreasonable
in Rawls’ sense?
- If not, Rawls must either (a) admit the reasonable ones or (b) make the claim that his political liberalism offers more
space for the equal coexistence of a large variety of reasonable doctrines.
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, COMMON GROUND
Rawls view that citizens take themselves and others to be free, equal, rational and reasonable regardless of our
comprehensive doctrines.
- We see society as a system of fair social cooperation between free and equal persons.
• Justice as fairness starts from this idea as one of the basic intuitive ideas which we take to be implicit in the public
culture of a democratic society.
• Citizens do not view the social order as a fixed natural order, or as an institutional hierarchy justified by religious
or aristocratic values.
• We make the idea of social cooperation more specific through 3 elements
a. Cooperation is guided by publicly recognised rules and procedures which those who are cooperating
accept and regard as properly regulating their conduct.
b. Cooperation involves the idea of fair terms of cooperation: these are terms that each participant may
reasonably accept, provided that everyone else likewise accepts them.
c. The idea of social cooperation requires an idea of each participant's rational advantage, or good.
• A person is someone who can be a citizen, fully cooperating in society. Citizens do not join society voluntarily, but
are born into it, for the aims of leading their lives.
- Is there a common ground among us ? Rawls says yes.
• Citizens in our societies take themselves and others to be :
(i) Free : have moral powers, powers of reason, thought and judgement
(ii) Equal : have these powers to the requisite degree to be a fully cooperating member of society
• Since persons can be full participants in a fair system of social cooperation, we can ascribe to them 2 moral
powers :—
a. Sense of justice : to understand, apply and act from the public conception o justice which characterises
fair terms of social cooperation
b. Conception of good : to form, revise, rationally pursue a conception of one’s rational advantage or
good. This conception is what is valuable in human life.
(iii) Rational
(iv) Reasonable
- We can understand these 4 ideas that are palatable to all. This is not a moral/metaphysical conception, but a political
one
• It is a common denominator of how citizens in our societies regard themselves and each other, despite
disagreement.
• It is a common denominator may be different in societies with different circumstances, political or cultural history,
etc.
- It follows that we cannot pack too much into these four ideas, or else they will cease to reflect a common ground
(A) Freedom and Equality
- He describes a conception of the person as political, where they are free persons in the original position.
- We regard ourselves and others as free in that :—
(i) We conceive themselves and of one another as having the moral power to have a conception of the good.
• We are regarded as capable of revising and changing this conception on reasonable and rational grounds.
- We hold ourselves and others being able to form and act on our own view of what is good in life.
• As free persons, citizens claim the right to view their persons as independent from and as not identified with
any particular conception of good.
- EXAMPLE : If citizens convert from religion to another, they do not cease to be (for questions of
political justice), the same persons they were before. They do not lose their public identity.
- Citizens may have, and normally do have affections, devotions and localities that they should not stand
part from their rational good. This is part of the ‘non-public identity’
- When there is change, it is change in non-public rather than political identity that changes
(ii) We are ‘self-authenticating sources of valid claims’ on others
• What you say has importance, and we must take account into it, because you said it. It is your view. You
don’t need to adduce any warrant / evidence - it is YOU who said it.
We are free in the sense that we have the moral power to have a conception of good and a sense of justice. We are also
‘self authenticating sources of valid claims’
- We are equal in that :—
(iii) We are capable of taking responsibility for their ends.
• Their are capable of adjusting their aims and aspirations in the light of what they can reasonably expect to
provide for.
• We are equal as we have the capacity “to be fully cooperating members of society”
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