scholarly journals Konserwatywna obrona nierówności i krytyka politycznych konsekwencji idei braterstwa w myśli politycznej Jamesa Fitzjamesa Stephena

2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-82
Author(s):  
Lucjan Wroński ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Economic Inequality ◽  
Legal Equality ◽  
Liberal Concept

In his paper, the author analyses some premises of liberal concept of equality and its philosophical origins. He attempted to show affinities and differences between liberal and conservative approaches to legal equality. He argues that economic inequality is compatible with political and legal liberties within conservative political philosophy. Victorian lawyer James Fitzjames Stephen proved that fraternity is an ambiguous ideal conceived from utilitarian perspective mainly because that it would be political naïvete to expect love from our citizens instead of justice and respect.

scholarly journals Conscription and the Color Line: Rawls, Race and Vietnam

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Brandon M. Terry
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Economic Inequality ◽  
Black Americans ◽  
Black Families ◽  
Ideal Theory ◽  
Racial Group ◽  
Color Line ◽  
Racial Injustice ◽  
Black Poverty

This article revisits one of John Rawls's rare forays into activist politics, his proposal presented to the Harvard faculty, calling for a denunciation of the “2-S” system of student deferments from conscription. In little-studied archival papers, Rawls argued that the draft both exposed “background” structural racial injustice and constituted a burdening of black Americans that violated the norms of fair cooperation. Rather than obscuring racial injustice and focusing exclusively on economic inequality, as Charles Mills has claimed, Rawls rejected the ascendant conservative views that naturalized black poverty or else attributed it to cultural pathologies in black families. Thus Rawls found nothing illicit in taking the position of a disadvantaged racial group as a relevant comparison when applying his ideal theory to nonideal circumstances. However, I contend in this article that Rawls's account of political philosophy as an attempt to find a consensus may be similarly ideological, leading him to displace the reality of conflict through begging descriptions, expressivist formulations, and historical romanticism.

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