Illiberal Justice: John Rawls vs. the American Political Tradition

385 Pages·2007·2.22 MB·English

by  David Lewis Schaefer

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Illiberal
Justice
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I l l i b e r a l
J u st i ce
John Rawls vs. the American
Political Tradition
David Lewis
Schaefer
University of Missouri Press
Columbia and London
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Copyright © 2007 by
The Curators of the University of Missouri
University of Missouri Press, Columbia, Missouri 65201
Printed and bound in the United States of America
All rights reserved
5 4 3 2 1 11 10 09 08 07
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Schaefer, David Lewis, 1943-
Illiberal justice : John Rawls vs. the American political tradition / David Lewis
Schaefer.
p.cm.
Summary: “Schaefer challenges John Rawls’s practically sacrosanct status among
scholars of political theory, law, and ethics by demonstrating how Rawls’s teachings
deviate from the core tradition of American constitutional liberalism toward
libertarianism”—Provided by publisher.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-8262-1684-7 (hard cover : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-8262-1684-6 (hard cover : alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 978-0-8262-1699-1 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-8262-1699-4 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Liberalism. 2. Liberalism—United States. 3. Libertarianism 4. Justice.
5. Rawls, John, 1921–2002. I. Title.
JC574.S32 2006
320.510973—dc22 2006032377
This paper meets the requirements of the
American National Standard for Permanence of Paper
for Printed Library Materials, Z39.48, 1984.
Designer: Jennifer Cropp
Typesetter: BookComp, Inc.
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For permissions, see p. 367.
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For Naomi and Jason, Rebecca and Josh,
and for Benjamin Mordechai Cypess, first of his generation
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Contents
Preface ix
Abbreviations xiii
Introduction: John Rawls and the Crisis of American Liberalism 1
Chapter 1. Justice as Fairness 9
Chapter 2. The Second Principle of Justice 34
Chapter 3. “Choosing” Principles of Justice in the
Original Position 53
Chapter 4. AJust Constitution 82
Chapter 5. Economic Justice 108
Chapter 6. Civil Disobedience vs. the Right of Resistance 145
Chapter 7. “Goodness as Rationality,” Self-Respect, and
Rawlsian Jurisprudence 164
Chapter 8. The Sense of Justice 187
Chapter 9. The Just and the Good 199
Chapter 10. Political LiberalismI: Principles 233
Chapter 11. Political LiberalismII: Applications 258
Chapter12. “The Idea of Public Reason Revisited” 287
Chapter 13. The Law of Peoples 300
Conclusion 315
Bibliography 337
Index 361
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Preface
Besides having taught political philosophy at colleges in Massachusetts
for the better part of our careers (and both having studied with Norman
Malcolm), John Rawls and I had at least one other thing in common. Each
of us published a book during the 1970s that he almost immediately
wanted to revise. In Rawls’s case, the book was ATheory of Justice (1971),
which won instant acclaim as one of the twentieth century’s preeminent
works of political theory.Even though Theorywas the product of roughly
two decades of work, much of it previously published in scholarly jour-
nals, it was in circulation for only a couple of years before Rawls began
responding to critics by modifying some details in his doctrine as well as
his mode of presenting it. (The most important revisions wereincluded in
his 1993 book Political Liberalismand a volume based on his class lectures
from the 1980s, Justice as Fairness: ARestatement,published in 2001.)
As for me, the book I soon wished I had written differently was Justice or
Tyranny? ACritique of John Rawls’s “ATheory of Justice,”which appeared in
1979. Like Rawls’s first book, my much shorter tome was the offshoot of
several previously published articles. But, as I realized in retrospect, its
tone was sometimes inappropriate for making my points effectively.
In subsequent decades I have had the opportunity to set forth more
moderately phrased, and therefore I hope more persuasive, assessments of
Rawls’s writings in other articles and reviews. But more than a year before
Rawls’s death in November 2002, I decided that the time had come to offer
the comprehensive treatment of Rawls’s oeuvre that is contained in the
present volume. Besides issuing Rawls’s last treatise, The Law of Peoples,
ix