Essays on John Rawls and Social Theory

Abstract

Each of the following three chapters is written to be read on its own, but they are connected by the question: How does Rawlsian political philosophy relate to social theory? Rawls thought that principles of justice must be developed in light of social theory. I argue that his own social theory, that of society as a fair system of cooperation (FSC), is responsible for some of the limitations of the Rawlsian framework. The dissertation uses Rawls’s insight about the relationship between political philosophy and social theory to internally criticize Rawlsian political philosophy with respect to its capacity to diagnose and offer adequate prescriptions against the injustices it criticizes. Each of the chapters attempt to elaborate on Rawls’s own methodological thesis that political philosophy must be in dialogue with social theory.

Chapter 1 argues that Rawlsians ought to demonstrate the capacity to diagnose the injustices they criticize. With some of Rawls’s critics, I argue that Rawlsian theory struggles to adopt that diagnostic role. My contribution is to offer reasons for this failure having to do with the social theory underlying Rawls’s political philosophy. I attempt to render what is usually an external criticism of Rawls (that his theory lacks the capacity to diagnose the sources of injustice and other social problems, an important task that is by design irrelevant to Rawlsian theory) into an internal one (it is a failure, by Rawls’s own standards, that his theory struggles to carry out the diagnostic role of political philosophy). I argue that the social theory from which Rawls derives his normative principles helps explain why the Rawlsian framework tends to lack the capacity to diagnose the injustices it criticizes.

Chapter 2 shows how Rawls’s social theory imposes diagnostic limits on his framework, which prevent it from fully understanding and criticizing structural power in the American political economy. I argue that it is not an idiosyncratic oversight that Rawls focused on instrumental power. Rather, this focus results from the conception of society as a FSC that underlies his framework. Some recent work within the liberal egalitarian tradition has given attention to structural power, but their prescriptions are inadequate solutions to the problems they rightly raise. I locate the reason for these shortcomings in a similar social theoretical blind spot as Rawls. I propose that Rawlsians, and liberal egalitarians generally, ought to care about structural power given their concern for the development of the moral powers and stability, self-respect, and the full autonomy of citizens. However, if the tradition is to offer adequate prescriptions to the problem of structural power, it will need to adopt a model of society that departs from the FSC.

Chapter 3 examines some the recent political science literature on the politics of resentment in the United States and argues that, despite Rawls’s sensitivity to the psychological impact the basic structure has on individuals, Rawlsian social theory impedes a full understanding of the sources of resentment and renders Rawlsian remedies to the politics of resentment insufficient. I argue that the politics of resentment ought to be understood, at least in part, as a reaction to economic and social forces that are out of the control of ordinary citizens and that instill in them a sense of precarity. The Rawlsian framework is capable of recognizing that resentment is a feeling fostered by the basic structure. It misses why this occurs and this leads Rawlsians to offer prescriptions that may not be enough to curb the sources of resentment and achieve a stable liberal democracy of self-respecting citizens.