POL 3652:  HIST OF POL THOUGHT
MODERNITY, LIBERALISM, AND THEIR CRITICS

Notes on:

John Rawls (1993).  [Excerpts from] Political Liberalism.  In L&W (2003:633-648).

Citation:  author(s), dates, venue of publication, etc.  Also the historical and biographical circumstances surrounding the author(s) and the work.

John Rawls (1993).  Political Liberalism.  NY:  Columbia.

  John Rawls (1921-2002), b. Baltimore, grad. Princeton (A.B., 1943; Ph.D., 1950). Rawls taught at Princeton (1950–52), Cornell (1953–59), and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1960–62) before becoming (1962) professor of philosophy at Harvard.  He was subsequently elected president of the American Philosophical Association and served as department head of Harvard's Philosophy Department.

0.  Controlling issue(s) and/or question(s):

What is justice?  What is a just society?  How can we create a society organized around principles that people will be committed to, particularly when we find people with vastly different normative / spiritual commitments?

I.  Definition of new or arcane terms and concepts

II.  Statement of author's message

xx

III.  Identification of major themes and subtopics

  1. [first]
  2. [second]
  3. [etc.]

IV.  Discussion of major themes and subtopics

Write out a brief statement of the subject matter of each subtopic.  Design a question that you would ask for each.  (This could be a real question you have on what something means, or a question the focus on which would make for a good discussion, or a question appropriate for the exam.)

In the same order as above:

xx

[Question on this subtopic]

xx

[Question on this subtopic]

xx

[Question on this subtopic]

V. Integration of material with other knowledge

Write down the meaning or usefulness the material has for understanding other concepts, theories, or authors.  Indicate what other ideas the material substantiates, contradicts, or amplifies.

VI.  Application of the material

VII.  Evaluation of author's presentation

Write down your reactions and evaluation of the material.  Remember that every theorist contributes some new insight(s) and yet falls short in some way(s);  what are these?

Advance(s): Problem(s): Other comment(s):

CHILTON NOTES FOR CLASS

Political Liberalism (1993) is Rawls's reply to various criticisms of A Theory of Justice (1971).  In some cases Rawls corrects his earlier work (e.g., in his new treatment of "just savings"), while in other cases he sees his task as simply clarification.  Perhaps the most important clarification is that he did not intend his theory of justice ("justice as fairness") to provide a new metaphysical ground for all political philosophy;  rather, it is simply a political conception, by which he seems to mean something that reasonable people can agree on to solve a particular practical problem.

One central aspect of this clarification is his concept of an "overlapping consensus".  Rawls acknowledges that people will differ in many aspects of their value positions, but ending this plurality of positions would require completely unacceptable levels of ideological repression.  In other words, he is saying, we are stuck with the fact that people see the world in different ways, "stuck" because in our society, at least, we aren't willing to countenance what would be necessary to eliminate that plurality.  All he is looking for is a conception of how we can deal with each other in the face of this pluralism.

Rawls therefore regards "justice as fairness" as simply a position that all people can agree too, even if they differ in their more general value commitments.  In our society we have (or could have), according to Rawls, an "overlapping consensus" that his theory is "the most appropriate conception of justice for specifying the fair terms of social cooperation between citizens regarded as free and equal, and as fully cooperating members of society over a complete life, from one generation to the next" (633/A/1/end).

Page URL: http://www.d.umn.edu/~schilton/3652/Readings/3652.Rawls.PoliticalLiberalism.html
Author:  Stephen Chilton [email]  |  Last Modified:  2004-03-08
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