No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Rawls on Method
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2020
Extract
It is my conviction that much of the criticism of John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice misses its mark precisely because of a failure to appreciate the distinctive methodological structure of this work. I have three types of criticisms specifically in mind. First, the critic whose ultimate weapon is the counterexample. Secondly, the critic who focuses on one aspect of Rawls’ project without taking into account the whole theory. And thirdly, the critic who attempts to assess the theory absolutely rather than as one member of a set of welldefined alternatives. In this paper I hope to exhibit why these kinds of criticisms miss the mark, and I propose to do this indirectly by focusing on Rawls’ conception of philosophical method. Once this is exhibited, the relevance and irrelevance of certain kinds of criticisms becomes obvious. In my attempt to explicate Rawls’ conception of method, I will begin with his early methodological papers as providing the context within which the methodological structure of A Theory of justice should be viewed.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Canadian Journal of Philosophy Supplementary Volume , Volume 3: New Essays on Contract Theory , 1977 , pp. 153 - 161
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Authors 1977
References
1 Rawls, John “Outline of a Decision Procedure for Ethics” Philosophical Review 60, 1951, pp. 177-197.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2 Rawls, John, A Theory of justice (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971) p. 578.Google Scholar
3 Ibid., p. 51.
4 Ibid.
5 I think that it is this methodological break with much of the recent analytic tradition rather than his substantive conclusions that is the real source of discontent on the part of many of Rawls's critics. R.M. Hare is quite explicit about this and it is implicit in the criticisms of many other moral philosophers. On this point see my review article “Rawls on Justice” The Review of Politics, 1975, 37, pp. 104-111.
6 John Rawls A Theory of Justice, pp. 47-48.
7 Ibid., p. 46.
8 Ibid.,
9 Ibid., p. 581.
10 Ibid., pp. 586-587.
11 Cf. ibid., p. 52. I do not mean to suggest that there is no philosophic point to proffering counter-examples; on the contrary, short of constructing an alternative theory, this is the most important task of the philosophic critic of Rawls. My point is simply that no number of counter-examples alone (in the absence of an alternative theory that fares better) will amount to a refutation of Rawls’ account.