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9780195393033

Why Political Liberalism? On John Rawls's Political Turn

by
  • ISBN13:

    9780195393033

  • ISBN10:

    0195393031

  • Format: Hardcover
  • Copyright: 2011-02-01
  • Publisher: Oxford University Press

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Summary

In Why Political Liberalism?, Paul Weithman offers a fresh, rigorous, and compelling interpretation of John Rawls's reasons for taking his so-called "political turn". Weithman takes Rawls at his word that justice as fairness was recast as a form of political liberalism because of an inconsistency Rawls found in his early treatment of social stability. He argues that the inconsistency is best seen by identifying the threats to stability with which the early Rawls was concerned. One of those threats, often overlooked by Rawls's readers, is the threat that the justice of a well-ordered society would be undermined by a generalized prisoner's dilemma. Showing how the Rawls of "A Theory of Justice" tried to avert that threat shows that the much-neglected third part of that book is of considerably greater philosophical interest, and has considerably more unity of focus, than is generally appreciated.

Weithman painstakingly reconstructs Rawls's attempts to show that a just society would be stable, and just as carefully shows why Rawls came to think those arguments were inconsistent with other parts of his theory. Weithman then shows that the changes Rawls introduced into his view between "Theory of Justice" and "Political Liberalism" result from his attempt to remove the inconsistency and show that the hazard of the generalized prisoner's dilemma can be averted after all. Recovering Rawls's two treatments of stability helps to answer contested questions about the role of the original position and the foundations of justice as fairness. The result is a powerful and unified reading of Rawls's work that explains his political turn and shows his enduring engagement with some of the deepest concerns of human life.

Author Biography


Paul Weithman is Professor of Philosophy, University of Notre Dame

Table of Contents

Acknowledgmentsp. xi
List of Tablesp. xiii
Introductionp. 3
Overviewp. 4
The Road to Comep. 8
A Deeper Understanding of Justice as Fairness?p. 9
Unity, Theodicy, and the Attractions of Liberalismp. 11
A Final Word to the Readerp. 14
The Public Basis Viewp. 17
Initial Statement of the Public Basis Viewp. 17
The Pivotal Argumentp. 21
Imputing the Pivotal Argument?p. 23
The Public Basis View Restatedp. 28
Difficulties with the Strong Versionp. 32
Difficulties with the Weak Versionp. 36
Conclusionp. 40
Stability and Congruencep. 42
Stability, Inherent and Imposedp. 43
Matching the Right and the Good in Justice as Fairnessp. 51
Congruence and Stabilityp. 57
Congruence and Inherent Stabilityp. 65
Ideals and Inconsistencyp. 68
An Inconsistency in Justice as Fairness?p. 70
Ideals and Comprehensive Conceptionsp. 72
Endorsing on the Basis of Shared Idealsp. 83
Congruence and C3p. 88
C3 and Inconsistencyp. 96
The Acquisition of Four Desiresp. 97
Two Readings of the Aristotelian Principlep. 99
The Acquisition of Four Desiresp. 103
Four Desires and Thin Reasonsp. 118
Thin Reasons to Be Justp. 122
Setting up the Problemp. 124
The Aristotelian Principle and the Argument for Congruencep. 127
Four Thin Reasonsp. 130
Some Questions about the First Three Argumentsp. 141
Some Puzzles about the Fourth Argumentp. 146
The Argument from Love and Justicep. 148
Balances and Temptationsp. 149
Two Questions about Table II.3p. 153
Conditional Balances and Balance Conditionalsp. 158
The Argument from Love and Justicep. 163
Love's Balancep. 168
Four Comments on the Argumentp. 176
Kantian Congruence and the Unified Selfp. 183
An Overview of the Kantian Congruence Argumentp. 184
The Argument from C4ap. 188
From the Ostensible Conclusion to Congruencep. 192
Establishing (5.5')p. 203
Defending (5.2)p. 206
Finality, Rationality, and the Unity of the Selfp. 209
Kantian Unityp. 220
Korsgaard, Unity and the Bridge Functionp. 222
Is the OP Necessary?p. 223
Conclusionp. 229
The Great Unravelingp. 234
The Content of Idealsp. 237
Defending C3p. 241
Pluralism and the Failure of Congruencep. 248
The Failure of Kantian Congruencep. 254
The Great Unravelingp. 259
Brief Contrasts with Other Accountsp. 266
The Political Ideals of Justice as Fairnessp. 270
PL's Basic Argument for Stabilityp. 273
C3' and the Sense of Justicep. 283
C3' and the Ideals of Conductp. 287
C3' and the Social Ideals of Justice as Fairnessp. 293
Whither Congruence?p. 296
Comprehensive Reasons to Be Justp. 301
Moving from (9.2) and (9.3) to (9.5)p. 303
Would there Be an Overlapping Clonsensus?p. 308
Legitlmacy and Justificationp. 312
Why Political Legitimacy?p. 319
A Question about the Arguments for C9 and CPLp. 321
Public Reason, Mutual Assurance, and Pluralism about Justicep. 327
Stability, Reflective Equilibrium, and Public Justificationp. 335
Conclusionp. 339
Conclusion: Why Political Liberalism?p. 344
The Moral Basis of Political Liberalism?p. 347
A Conception-Based Viewp. 353
Defending Political Liberalismp. 357
ôAnd very good it wasöp. 362
Bibliographyp. 371
Indexp. 375
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

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