Political Liberalism: Take Home Exam
Wylie Breckenridge
Question 1
What is Rawls's project in Political Liberalism? What do you understand the
significance to be of Rawls calling his theory a 'political' conception of
justice?
Rawls's project is to correct a flaw in his Theory of Justice1. There he presented the idea
of a well-ordered society regulated by justice as fairness - a comprehensive, or partially
comprehensive, moral doctrine to be endorsed by all citizens. But he has since come to
think that this idea is unrealistic and inconsistent with realizing its own principles. It is
so because of what he calls 'the fact of reasonable pluralism' - that an inevitable result of
the exercise of human reason within the framework of the free institutions of a
constitutional democratic regime is a plurality of reasonable yet incompatible
comprehensive religious, moral and philosophical doctrines, no one of which will be
endorsed by all citizens. Justice as fairness is one such doctrine, and so it is unrealistic
to expect, as he does in Theory, that all citizens will endorse it. Indeed, if they do
endorse such a doctrine it will be for the 'wrong' reasons - such as state coercion, or
acceptance of a modus vivendi - and this will, ultimately, undermine its stability.
Rawls's project, then, is to reformulate his idea of a well-ordered society so as to take
into account the fact of reasonable pluralism.
The main change is to transform the doctrine of justice as fairness as presented in
Theory into a political conception of justice. Rawls sees there to be three main
differences between a doctrinal conception of justice and a political conception of
justice. The first is to do with their subject. Justice as a philosophical doctrine addresses
itself to a wide range of subjects, ranging from personal conduct to the organization of
society as a whole and even to the interaction between societies. A political conception
of justice, however, addresses itself (at least initially) to the basic structure of society
alone. That is, to society's main political, social, and economic institutions, and how
they are organized into a system of social cooperation. The second is to do with what
Rawls calls the 'mode of presentation'. A philosophical doctrine of justice is presented
as one of many comprehensive doctrines, or at least as derivable from such doctrines. It
is thus very much dependent upon which of these doctrines exist in a particular society.
A political conception of justice, on the other hand, is neither presented as, nor as
derived from, any such doctrine, but rather as one that can be supported by various
(reasonable) comprehensive doctrines. It is expounded without reference to any such
'background culture', and can be presented without any knowledge of the doctrines it is
to be supported by. The third is to do with the way they are expressed. The content of a
political conception of justice is expressed in terms of fundamental ideas implicit in the
public political culture of society, and not, as may be the case with a philosophical
doctrine of justice, in terms of the nonpublic social culture - the culture of daily life and
its associations: clubs, teams, etc. A political conception of justice is expressed in terms
of the ideas of traditional democratic thought, ideas familiar and intelligible to educated
citizens generally. The significance of Rawls calling his theory a 'political' conception
of justice is that if it is indeed so, that is, if it has the three characteristics listed above,
1
I will adopt Rawls's conventions and refer to A Theory of Justice as Theory and to Political Liberalism
as PL.
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then it might be the solution to the problem with Theory that he is trying to solve. If his
new theory of justice is, indeed, political in the ways described, then it may be the
vehicle by which he can accommodate the fact of reasonable pluralism and achieve
stability (for the 'right' reasons).
This is Rawls's main project - to reformulate the comprehensive doctrine of justice as
fairness presented in Theory into a political conception of justice. But to do so, he needs
to reformulate as political conceptions all of its component ideas, and this comprises a
good deal of PL. Thus, a large part of his task is to formulate and explain the ideas of (i)
a political conception of justice, (ii) a political conception of the person, (iii) an
overlapping consensus of reasonable comprehensive doctrines, and (iv) public reason,
and along with these the distinction between the rational and the reasonable and the idea
of the burdens of judgement. Having done these things, his task is then to show that the
idea of a well-ordered society, adjusted to take into account the fact of reasonable
pluralism by adopting a political conception of justice, can be achieved, and that when it
is it will be stable.
Question 2
Explain in your own words the distinction Rawls draws between the
'Rational and Reasonable'. What role does it play in his justification of the
political conception of justice?
As Rawls notes, it is evident in the way we speak that we commonly draw a distinction
between being rational and being reasonable. It is not clear, however, why we do so. It
is a distinction that plays an important part in the development of his political
conception of justice, and so Rawls goes to some length to describe what he sees to be
their difference.
Rawls believes that we, as people, have two moral powers: the capacity for a conception
of the good, and the capacity for a sense of justice. Along with the first we have the
ability to pursue that conception of the good - to set goals, to decide the best way to
achieve them, to make decisions by weighing evidence and setting priorities, etc. It is an
ability to look after ourselves, and to lead the kind of life that we want to lead. Rawls
calls this being rational. Along with the second moral power, the capacity for a sense of
justice, we have the ability to try and bring about that justice. It is a willingness to live
and cooperate with others, not just by striking compromise, but by proposing and
abiding by fair terms of cooperation that are acceptable to all. It is a willingness to
promote a just society, for the sake of nothing else but society itself. Rawls calls this
being reasonable.
He sees two basic aspects to being reasonable. A person is reasonable in the first aspect
when she is willing to propose, discuss and abide by fair terms of cooperation that are
justifiable to others and that they can accept. Note three things: First, the terms of
cooperation must be accepted as reasonable by everyone, that is, the terms proposed by
someone must be reasonable to her and also thought by her to be reasonable to others.
Rawls calls this 'reciprocity'. This means that a reasonable person must have a sense for
what others can also accept as reasonable. Second, it is not reasonable for a person to
think that terms are unjustified and yet to accept them for the sake of cooperation - that
would be, Rawls thinks, cooperation for the 'wrong' reason. Third, it is not reasonable
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for a person to accept terms of cooperation merely as a pretense - she must be willing to
abide them, as long as others do the same. A person is reasonable in the second basic
aspect when he is willing to accept that others, themselves fully rational and reasonable,
may make different decisions and hold different views, not because they are ignorant or
slow-witted or acting out of self-interest, but because they are subject to what Rawls
calls 'the burdens of judgement'. These are factors like: conflicting and complex
evidence; disagreement over which considerations are relevant and how to weigh them;
vagueness of concepts and the resulting difference in interpretation; differing whole-life
experiences; varying normative considerations; and playing off values against one
another. Because of these 'burdens', it is quite possible (indeed probable) that two
rational and reasonable people will hold conflicting views, both of which can be fully
justified. A person is reasonable in the second aspect, then, when he respects the views
of other reasonable people, and does not simply dismiss as mistaken any view that
disagrees with his.
It may be helpful to consider how we behave rationally and reasonably, as described by
Rawls, in a simple case. Suppose I sit down with three friends to play scrabble. One of
my aims is to win the game, and it is by acting rationally that I try to do this. It is
rational for me to use as many double and triple word scores as possible, and to block
the other players from doing so. It is rational for me to hold onto my 'u' in case I get
stuck with a 'q'. It is rational for me, when disputing over particular words, to argue that
my words are OK and that others' words are not. All of this I do in order to promote my
own, private, aim of winning the game. But, Rawls thinks, I have a second aim - to
ensure that the game itself goes well, not to make it better for me or to help me win, but
simply for the sake of the game itself. It is by acting reasonably that I try to do this.
Before we start the game, we will probably clear up what sorts of words we are to
allow. It would be rational, but unreasonable, for me to propose that we allow all Latin
words on the grounds that I have a good knowledge of Latin. That is not a proposal that
I can expect others to accept as justified. It would be unreasonable for me to accept that
we will use the dictionary as a final arbiter in all cases, but to have no intention of doing
so once the game starts. Suppose that during the game a dispute arises over a particular
word. It may be clear to me that it should not be accepted, and yet clear to someone else
that it should. It would be unreasonable for me to immediately dismiss her as acting out
of self-interest - that would be to ignore the burdens of judgement. To be reasonable, I
must respect her view and look for another way to settle the dispute.
Rawls makes it quite clear that he doesn't think that acting reasonably reduces to acting
rationally. We do not act reasonably as a means of self-interestedly promoting our own
good, nor as a means of altruistically promoting the good of others, but as a means of
promoting a system of fair cooperation, for the sake of cooperation itself. He says that
"merely rational agents lack a sense of justice and fail to recognize the independent
validity of the claims of others" (p. 52). He does not offer an argument for this, nor even
suppose that one exists. Rather, he thinks that whether or not to view the reasonable in
this way is a matter of personal choice, based upon how coherent and convincing we
find the account that each leads to.
That people can be reasonable in the way Rawls describes is important to his
justification of the political conception of justice. The main problem for such a
conception is this: how can there be just cooperation between free and equal citizens
whose comprehensive moral, religious and philosophical doctrines inevitably lead them
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to disagree about many fundamental issues? What is to stop the power of the state being
used to coerce citizens to agree with one particular comprehensive doctrine? The core of
the answer is that as long as citizens are reasonable this will not happen. A reasonable
citizen recognizes that no use of state power is legitimate unless it can be reasonably
accepted by other citizens. And a reasonable citizen will recognize that other citizens
can reasonably hold differing and conflicting views. Thus a reasonable citizen will
realize that no action of the state can be justified by appealing to his own particular
comprehensive doctrine. This is the toleration that Rawls needs to explain how just
cooperation can happen in a society profoundly divided over religious, moral and
philosophical views, and being reasonable is the source of this toleration.
Question 3
Discuss Rawls's conception of the 'ideal of public reason'. Is it a convincing
account of the nature of public deliberation?
Just as scientific reason is the process by which members of a scientific community
debate matters concerning the good of science, public reason is the process by which
members of a political society debate matters concerning the good of society. And just
as members of the scientific community have an ideal of the way such reason is to
proceed - what its subject matter should be, and what sorts of reasons are to count as
acceptable, for example - the members of the political society have an ideal of the way
public reason is to proceed (even though it might not always measure up to that ideal).
Rawls sets forth, in PL, what he thinks that ideal should be.
His ideal is this: that citizens, when publicly discussing and voting on constitutional
essentials and matters of basic justice, should do so within the framework of a political
conception of justice, a conception that draws only upon political values that others
might reasonably be expected reasonably to endorse. It is an ideal that limits what
people can offer as reasons when they are debating in the public domain - they cannot
justify their arguments by appealing to the values of their comprehensive doctrines, only
by appealing to political values they can reasonably expect to be reasonably accepted by
others.
There are several things to note. First, in PL Rawls limits the subject matter of public
reason to the basic structure of society - constitutional essentials and matters of basic
justice. He does so, not because he believes that public reason cannot be extended to
cover a wider range of political questions, but because he wants to argue that at least for
these fundamental questions the limits of public reason should be honored. Second, the
ideal is that citizens should be limited by public reason only when it comes to public
debate and voting. It does not say that personal deliberation about political questions,
even those to do with the basic structure of society, cannot draw upon privately held
religious, moral and philosophical values. It only specifies that when it comes to the
public arena, such nonpublic reason must be stated in the terms of public reason. Third,
Rawls rejects the idea that voting is a private matter. He argues that if public discourse
is limited to political values, but voting is not, then the former "runs the risks of being
hypocritical: citizens talk before one another one way and vote another" (p. 215).
Fourth, it is not expected that citizens hold the same political conception of justice, nor
that they will hold the same conception over time. The ideal is only that citizens conduct
their fundamental discussions within the framework of what each believes to be a
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political conception of justice, and that each has some criterion of what principles and
guidelines other citizens may reasonably be expected to endorse. Fifth, the ideal allows
that under certain circumstances citizens may step outside of their political conception
and appeal to values peculiar to their own comprehensive doctrines, values that will not
necessarily be reasonably endorsed by others. This can only be done provided that these
nonpublic reasons can later be replaced by public reasons given by a reasonable
political conception (Rawls's 'proviso').
An urgent question facing this ideal of public reason is: Why should citizens put aside
their most deeply held convictions when it comes to discussing and voting on
fundamental political questions? Why can they not appeal to the whole truth as they see
it? Rawls has two main responses. First, when discussion and voting on fundamental
political questions, citizens are exercising their coercive political power over one
another. One of the key features of a well-ordered society regulated by a political
conception of justice is that the exercise of political power is only legitimate when it is
carried out in accord with a constitution whose essentials are reasonably endorsed as
reasonable by all citizens. Thus, for such discussion and voting to be legitimate, it can
only appeal to values grounded in that political conception of justice. Second, we
already agree that in some circumstances it is not appropriate to be able to appeal to the
whole truth. For example, in the criminal court we do not admit evidence gained by
improper searches, or by the abuse of defendants after arrest. We enforce this restriction
in order to advance a particular ideal: that of a fair trial. Similarly, public reason is
meant to impose a restriction in order to advance an ideal: that of a just system of
cooperation between free and equal citizens.
It might be objected that public reason is too restrictive - that it does not allow the
introduction of sufficiently many reasons to settle all cases. Rawls responds, I think
quite reasonably, that leading in the end to a stand-off would not be peculiar to public
reason, but is a common occurrence in all forums of debate. We should not expect
public reason to be any different, nor should we, he urges, abandon the ideal of public
reason whenever it is so required to reach a decision. To do so would be to abandon
public reason altogether. It may be necessary in some cases to vote, and provided that
citizens vote sincerely in accord with public reason the ideal will have been upheld. It
seems reasonable and right for Rawls to expect that voting, like public debate, be
conducted according to public reason. It would indeed be hypocritical to allow
otherwise. But citizens can vote without making their reasons public and, therefore,
without it being possible for others to enforce the ideal of public reason on each other.
That places a heavy reliance on citizens being reasonable - a reliance that, given human
nature, may be unrealistically large.
That seems to be a problem with public reason as a whole - that human nature is such
that we cannot help debating and voting in accord with our most deeply held religious,
moral and philosophical views. It seems like an unrealistic ideal. That may be so, but I
think it would be equally unrealistic to think that living together in a just and fair system
of cooperation should come naturally to people who are so profoundly divided in their
fundamental beliefs and so insistent that others should agree with them. Public
deliberation, as it is carried out in our society today, falls short of Rawls's ideal in many
ways, and maybe it always will. But Rawls is not giving an account of the way public
deliberation is, or the way it has to be, by law. He is setting an ideal for the way it might
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be - an ideal that we should aim for if we hope to be fully democratic citizens in a just
society.
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