Classical Liberalism and Rawlsian Revisionism

1977 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 95-119
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Rapaport
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
John Rawls ◽  
17Th Century ◽  
Systematic Revision ◽  
Philosophical Foundations ◽  
Theory Of Justice ◽  
The Past ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
The Right ◽  
Competitive Economy

A certain view of Anglo-American liberal political theory has been commonplace for a couple of generations. It is said that the philosophical foundations of contractarian liberalism lie in the 17th century, chiefly in the formulations given to it by Hobbes and Locke. But for two distinct reasons these 17th century formulations fail to provide an adequate basis for contemporary political theory. First, the development of our political and economic institutions in the past two or three hundred years has made it impossible to accept a theory which assumes a minimal, laissez-faire state and a highly competitive economy. Second, the individualist psychological and moral assumptions of the theory are highly dubious if not clearly false.In A Theory of justice John Rawls attempts to provide the systematic revision which liberalism so clearly needs. The revisionist intent of Rawls’ work has not received the attention it deserves, except by critics of the right who deny that such revision is needed.

The theoretical foundations of liberalism

1987 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 269-295 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Mulhall
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
John Rawls ◽  
Contemporary Society ◽  
New Era ◽  
Theory Of Justice ◽  
Present Decade ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Theoretical Foundations

The publication of John Rawls' A Theory of Justice in 1972 inaugurated a new era in Anglo-American political theory by providing a sophisticated and complex paradigm of liberal political diagnosis of and prescription for contemporary society; it resulted in a flood of detailed analyses and discussions of Rawls' proposals in the large and in the small, and also brought forth (in the form of Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State and Utopia) a counterblast from the libertarian Right which was of commensurate scope and vigour. In the present decade, however, the challenge to Rawlsian liberalism has taken on a new guise—one which it is the purpose of this paper to explore.

Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Liberalism

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Weinstein
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
John Rawls ◽  
John Locke ◽  
Value Pluralism ◽  
History Of Political Thought ◽  
Linguistic Turn ◽  
Classical Utilitarianism ◽  
History Of ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
The Right

Anglo-American political theory, especially contemporary analytical liberalism, has become too self-referential and consequently insufficiently attentive to its own variegated past. Some analytical liberals fret about whether the good or the right should have priority, while others agonize about whether liberalism is compatible with value pluralism and with multiculturalism. Too many contemporary analytical liberals see liberalism as beginning with Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, as next reformulated classically by John Stuart Mill, and then as receding into the wilderness of mere history of political thought thanks to the linguistic turn and the vogue of emotivism before being resurrected so magnificently by John Rawls. The Rawlsian liberal tradition severely marginalizes new liberals and idealists such as T. H. Green, Bernard Bosanquet, L. T. Hobhouse, D. G. Ritchie, and J. A. Hobson. New liberals and idealists alike wrote highly original political philosophy, parts of which contemporary liberals have repeated inadvertently with false novelty. In Rawls's view, classical utilitarianism improved intuitionism by systematizing it but by sacrificing its liberal credentials.

Aristotle, Kant and Rawls on Moral Motivation in a Just Society

1980 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 385-393 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven M. DeLue
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
John Rawls ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
Moral Motivation ◽  
Self Esteem ◽  
Mutual Respect ◽  
Theory Of Justice ◽  
Standards Of Conduct ◽  
Principles Of Justice ◽  
Just Society

John Rawls considers his Theory of Justice to be in the Kantian tradition. Generally there seems to be agreement among Rawls' critics that at least with respect to the procedural formulation of the principles of justice, it is difficult to call Rawls' position Kantian. In this article I will argue that Rawls' Kantianism is best understood as providing a motive source for acting upon known just standards of conduct. In this regard Rawls can be read as synthesizing aspects of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics and Kant's moral reasoning to provide the rationale to explain why an individual who knows what is morally correct conduct in a given situation, makes such knowledge the source of his action. Demonstrating the Aristotelean roots of Rawls' Kantianism with respect to the problem of motivation for just conduct helps one understand how Kant's moral theory can be viewed in Rawls' words not as a “morality of austere command but … [as] … an ethic of mutual respect and self esteem” (1971, p. 251). Secondly, this view of Kant provides the basis for understanding the anti-corporatist aspect of Rawls' political theory that my reading of Rawls makes necessary.

scholarly journals Social Criticism and the Exclusion of Ethics

2008 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Russell Keat
Keyword(s):  
Final Section ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Communicative Action ◽  
Critical Evaluation ◽  
Social Criticism ◽  
Theory Of Justice ◽  
The Past ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Action Taking

AbstractAs Axel Honneth has recently noted, the critical concerns of social philosophers during the past three decades have been focused primarily on questions of justice, with ethical issues about the human good being largely excluded. In the first section I briefly explore this exclusion in both ‘Anglo-American’ political philosophy and ‘German’ critical theory. I then argue, in the main sections, that despite this commitment to their exclusion, distinctively ethical concepts and ideals can be identified both in Rawls’s Theory of Justice and in Habermas’s Theory of Communicative Action, taking these as exemplary, representative texts for each theoretical school. These ethical elements, and their implications for the critical evaluation of economic institutions, have gone largely unnoticed. In the final section I indicate the kinds of debates that might be generated, were these to be given the attention they arguably deserve. I focus especially on the significance of empirical issues, and hence on the role of social science in social criticism.

The Marxian Critique of Justice and Rights

1981 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 269-306 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allen E. Buchanan
Keyword(s):  
John Rawls ◽  
Theory Of Justice ◽  
The Past ◽  
Radical Critique

Among analytic philosophers in the past few years there has been a growing commitment to taking Marx seriously. Since the publication in 1971 of John Rawls’ book A Theory of Justice there has been a growing commitment to taking problems of Justice and rights seriously. These two developments intersect in mutual criticism: Marx's radical critique challenges the resources of recent theories of rights and Justice, while the sophistication of recent theories raises the possibility that they escape Marx's most basic criticism.

The house that Chuck built: twenty-five years of reading Charles Beitz

2005 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 371-379 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Brown
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Theory Of Justice ◽  
International Political Theory ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
The Way

On the face of it, this might seem a somewhat frivolous, not to say over-familiar, title for an essay on the influence of Charles Beitz's Political Theory and International Relations (hereafter, PTIR); Beitz, however, will recognise the implicit comparison between his work and John Rawls's A Theory of Justice, and will accordingly, I hope, forgive the familiarity. But, accepting that this is a title that conveys respect, it might still be argued to be inappropriate on the rather different grounds that it substantially overstates the influence of PTIR. Can it really be the case that this relatively short (under 200 pages) volume with an over-ambitious title ‘changed the subject’ in the way that A Theory of Justice certainly did a few years earlier? Obviously the subject in question – international political theory – is rather more limited than the whole world of at least Anglo-American political theory that was changed by Rawls's work, but such a claim can, I think, be defended.

Humanitarian Intervention: Three Ethical Positions

1995 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 15-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierre Laberge
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
John Rawls ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
Michael Walzer ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
The Right

The three ethical positions Laberge outlines are: (1) “Rawlsian ethics,” which are distinct from the ethics of Immanuel Kant and John Rawls himself; (2) the position of Michael Walzer adapted from J. S. Mill; and (3) the position most recently articulated by the Canadian philosopher Howard Adelman on the “Anglo-American” debate, which developed out of Walzer's position. These three positions, Laberge writes, are “an ethics of human rights, ethics of the right to a historical community, and an ethics of peace

scholarly journals John Rawls, Political Liberalism

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dennis Thompson
Keyword(s):  
John Rawls ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Theory Of Justice ◽  
Dynamic Character ◽  
The Right

John Rawls’ Political Liberalism is much more than just an effort to correct what Rawls saw as an error in his masterwork, A Theory of Justice. The political liberalism of Political Liberalism stands on its own. It is liberal in a new way, and political in the right way. By examing what makes the theory liberal and what makes it political, the chapter brings out a feature of the theory that has not been sufficiently emphasized—its dynamic character. Rawls’ political liberalism invites citizens to revise even their liberal views as they seek agreement while continuing to disagree.

SHOULD POLITICAL LIBERALS BE COMPASSIONATE CONSERVATIVES? PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS OF THE FAITH-BASED INITIATIVE

2004 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 322-345 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Tomasi
Keyword(s):  
John Rawls ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
The Political ◽  
Moral Value ◽  
Liberal Politics ◽  
Philosophical Foundations ◽  
Faith Based ◽  
The Past ◽  
Liberal Approach ◽  
Political Liberal

It is easy and popular these days to be a political liberal. Compared to ‘ethical liberals’, who justify the use of state power by way of one or another conception of people's true moral nature, ‘political liberals’ seek a less controversial foundation for liberal politics. Pioneered within the past twenty years by John Rawls and Charles Larmore, the ‘political liberal’ approach seeks to justify the coercive power of the state by reference to general political ideas about persons and society. Since it abandons the debates about personal moral value that have historically dogged liberal theory, political liberalism offers itself as a more latitudinarian, indeed a more liberal, form of liberalism. Being a political liberal is not the only way to be a good liberal, but this approach has become prevalent enough that I shall focus upon it here.

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