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“Moral Theory” Versus Political Philosophy: Two Approaches to Justice*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

David Lewis Schaefer
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Extract

John Rawls's book A Theory of Justice1 has been widely looked to not only as a substantive account of the meaning of justice, but also as a model of the procedure by which the requirements of justice may be determined. Rawls terms his mode of approach to justice “moral theory,” and apparently subsumes the traditional discipline of political philosophy under this more inclusive science. At the same time, he claims that his approach is Socratic in nature, and that it “goes back in its essentials to Aristotle's procedure in the Nicomachean Ethics” (pp. 49, 51). “Moral theory,” from this point of view, is simply a new name for the enterprise pursued by the great political philosophers from Socrates onwards. But, surprisingly, despite the number of outstanding thinkers who devoted themselves to this enterprise, little progress was ever made in it, for the theories with which we have been left, according to Rawls, remain “primitive and have grave defects” (p. 52). It is Rawls's claim to have developed a “theory of justice” that is superior to any of those devised by previous philosophers, in that it conforms better to the dictates of men's “sense of justice” (p. 52).

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 39 , Issue 2 , April 1977 , pp. 192 - 219
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1977

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References

1 Rawls, John, A Theory of Justice(Cambridge, Mass., 1971)Google Scholar. All page numbers in parentheses within the text refer to this book.

2 McBride, William, “Social Theory Sub Specie Aeternitatis: A New Perspective?” Yale Law Journal, 81, no. 5 (04, 1972), 987 (citing Stuart Hampshire)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Schaefer, David Lewis, “The ‘Sense’ and Non-Sense of Justice: An Examination of John Rawls's A Theory of Justice,” Political Science Reviewer, 3 (1973), 1–41Google Scholar; idem, “A Critique of Rawls's ‘Contract’ Doctrine,” Review of Metaphysics, 28, no. 1 (September, 1974), 89–115; idem, “Ideology in Philosophy's Clothing,” Georgia Political Science Association Journal, 4, no. 2 (Fall, 1976), 35–57.

4 Eggerman, Richard W., “Moral Theory and Practicality,” Ethics, 84, no. 2 (01, 1974), 174–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Ibid., pp. 174–5, 177, 179.

6 The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1971), 1:1474Google Scholar. The definition offered by the Encyclopedia of Philosophy (New York, 1967), 4:204Google Scholar, although much more elaborate, appears to accord with this one.

7 Aristotle, Posterior Analytics, trans. Mure, G. R. G. in The Basic Works of Aristotle, ed. McKeon, Richard (New York, 1941), 1.2. 71b2O–21, 100b10–15Google Scholar.

8 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1143b2–4Google Scholar.

9 Cf. Jaffa, Harry V., Thomism and Aristotelianism (Chicago, 1952), pp. 185–86Google Scholar.

10 Aristotle, , Nicomachean Ethics, trans. Ross, W. D. in Basic Works of Aristotle, 5. 6. 1134b28–29; 6. 5. 1140a33–35Google Scholar; Jaffa, , Thomism and Aristotelianism, pp. 179–83Google Scholar; Strauss, Leo, Natural Right and History (Chicago, 1953), pp. 157–63Google Scholar.

11 Jaffa, , Thomism and Aristotelianism, pp. 171–87Google Scholar.

12 Cf. Plato, Apology of Socrates 21b–23a, 29a–bGoogle Scholar.

13 Eggerman, , “Moral Theory and Practicality,” pp. 175–77nGoogle Scholar.

14 Ibid., p. 177n.

15 Cf. Bloom, Allan, “Justice: John Rawls Vs. The Tradition of Political Philosophy,” American Political Science Review, 69, no. 2 (06, 1975), 648–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 Rawls's customary means of obscuring this leap is the ambiguous use of the first person plural, as at p. 4: “our intuitive conviction of the primacy of justice”; also, pp. 21–22 and 104.

17 I have developed this point at greater length in the publications cited in note 4 above.

18 Cf. Plato, Republic 523a–525b and 534b–cGoogle Scholar; Gorgias 458a.

19 Eggerman, , “Moral Theory and Practicality,” p. 177Google Scholar.

20 Cf. Plato, Phaedo 99d–3Google Scholar; Berns, Walter, “The Behavioral Sciences and the Study of Political Things,” American Political Science Review, 55, no.3 (09, 1961), 557CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rosen, Stanley, Nihilism: A Philosophical Essay (New Haven, 1969), 149–56Google Scholar; Strauss, , Natural Right and History pp. 124–25Google Scholar.

21 See, in addition to the references in note 20 above, Plato, Statesman 285d–286aGoogle Scholar.

22 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1. 8. 1098b9–12Google Scholar.

23 Ibid., 10. 9. 1179a3–3O.

24 Cf. Strauss, , Natural Right and History, pp. 124–25Google Scholar.

25 For Aristotle's, account of the supremacy of the philosophical life: Nicomachean Ethics 10. 7–8Google Scholar. On the gap between the views of most men and those of wise men: ibid. 1179a12–16.

26 Cf. Aristotle, Politics 3. 9. 1280a9–22Google Scholar.

27 Rawls's statement is that, insofar as his “thin theory” of the good is concerned, “so far at least there are no grounds for attributing intrinsic values to having true beliefs.” He never appears to alter this seemingly tentative principle in any subsequent discussion. Moreover, it is the “thin theory” that furnishes the foundation for the fundamental principles of justice as Rawls understands them.

28 On the development of the argument of the Ethics towards the praise of the philosophic, as opposed to the merely moral, life, see Jaffa, , Thomism and Aristotelianism, esp. pp. 90, 142–44, 185–86Google Scholar.

29 Cf. Plato, Republic 504d, 505d, 592a–bGoogle Scholar; Strauss, , Natural Right and History, pp. 151–52Google Scholar; also an excellent paper by Delba Winthrop of the University of West Virginia, “Aristotle and the Theories of Justice” (paper delivered at the 1976 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association).

30 Cf. Plato, Republic 492b–cGoogle Scholar; Aristotle, Nicomtuhean Ethics 2. 1Google Scholar; Politics 2. 8. 1269a20–22; Metaphysics2. 3. 995a2–5; Montaigne, , Essays, 1. 23Google Scholar.

31 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1. 4. 1095b4–13Google Scholar; 2. 1. 1103a14–20; 2. 4. 1105b1–4; 5. 9. 1137a9–12; 6. 13. 1144b1–32; 10. 7–8.

32 Plato, Republic 514a–515cGoogle Scholar. The Euthyphroand the Hipparchus, along with Socrates' examination of Cephalus and Polemarchus in book one of the Republic, may be cited as instances of Plato's demonstration of the inadequacy, from the highest point of view, of the merely conventional morality. What Socrates' interlocutors in these cases lack is not merely an adequate “theory” of morality; their intuitive beliefs, derived from convention, are shown to lead, potentially or actually, to a substantively deficient manner of conduct.

33 Machiavelli, The Prince, chap. 11, first two sentences, and chap. 15. Also, Aristotle, Politics 2. 8Google Scholar; Montaigne, , Essays, 3. 1Google Scholar.

34 Plato, Gorgias 464b–465aGoogle Scholar.

35 The broader claim of utilitarianism that the good is equivalent to the useful does indeed raise substantive issues. But Rawls never considers these issues, because (as his account of the “primary goods” indicates) he agrees with the utilitarians regarding the content of goodness and differs only about the criteria according to which good things should be allocated among men. Elsewhere I have sought to demonstrate that the issue of distribution as Rawls delineates it is a merely formal and abstract problem, having no relation to the actual political problem of justice that statesmen and citizens are called upon to face (Schaefer, , “A Critique of Rawls's ‘Contract’ Doctrine,” pp. 109–114Google Scholar; “The ‘Sense’ and Non-Sense of Justice,” pp. 34–40).

Perfectionism, a doctrine that Rawls attributes to Aristotle and Nietzsche, would also—if properly articulated—raise substantive issues, but Rawls devotes less attention to it than to utilitarianism and intuitionism, evidently because it conflicts more directly with his “sense of justice.” On Rawls's misunderstanding of Aristotle and Nietzsche, see Bloom, , “Justice: John Rawls Vs. The Tradition of Political Philosophy,” pp. 655–56, 659–60Google Scholar.

36 Rawls, John, “Justice as Fairness,” in Justice and Social Policy, ed. Olafson, Frederick A. (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1961), p. 80Google Scholar; also Rawls, , “Constitutional Liberty and the Concept of Justice,” in Nomos VI: Justice, eds. Friedrich, Carl and Chapman, John (New York, 1963), pp. 98–125Google Scholar.

37 Cf. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Philosophical Investigations, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1963), pars. 90, 124, 126, 371Google Scholar; and Rosen, Nihilism, chap. 1. Janik, Allan and Toulmin's, Stephen study, Wittgenstein's Vienna(New York. 1973)Google Scholar, is of interestbecause of the light it sheds on the intentions and the self-understanding of the thinker who providedthe fundamental presuppositions of the contemporary analytic school. The authors emphasize how Wittgenstein endeavored to close off certain lines of questioning by philosophers (pp. 221, 226, 261); the contrast with Socrates in this regard is striking. Compare Rawls: “once the whole arrangement [of ‘just’ institutions] is set up and going, no questions are asked about the totals of satisfaction or perfection” (Theory of Justice, p. 161 [italics added]). Given Wittgenstein's restricted conception of the philosophic enterprise, we are not surprised to learn of the limited, perhaps even subordinate, importance he attached to it (Philosophical Investigations, pp. 207, 215, 219–20). Cf. Nietzsche, Friedrich, Beyond Good and Evil, trans. Kaufmann, Walter (New York, 1966), aph. #204, pp. 121–23Google Scholar.

These criticisms of the ordinary language approach are not meant to deny that its more able practitioners sometimes produce sound and useful work. But such analysis can furnish only a beginning point forphilosophy, not its completion. The presupposition of the ordinary language school that it is impossible to transcend the grammar or the “form of life” of a particular people ultimately constitutes a form of historicism—a denial that an objective, transhistorical, transcultural account of the whole, or of the human good, can be attained through reason.

38 Nietzsche, , Beyond Good and Evil, aph. #228, p. 157Google Scholar. Cf. also Mary Warnock's observation of the “surprising” character of the “hostility” expressed towards utilitarianism by “English empirical philosophers, many of whom would in their nonphilosophical moments turn out to be utilitarians of an enlightened liberal kind” (Ethics Since 1900 [Oxford, 1960], p. 140Google Scholar). The explanation of this paradox lies, one suspects, in the desire ofsuch philosophy professors to make the rather prosaic morality of bourgeois society appear noble because it is “altruistic.”

39 Thus G. E. Moore, after arguing that the nature of the good cannot be subjected to rational analysis, neatly solves the fundamental problem of ethics by pointing to the “obvious” truth that “the most valuable things… [are] the pleasure of human intercourse and the enjoyment of beautiful objects” (Principia Ethica, 1st ed. [Cambridge, 1903], p. 188Google Scholar. Similarly, a more recent writer, T. D. Weldon, having dismissed the “theoretical foundations” of liberal democracy, such as the notion of natural rights, as “worthless,” proceeds to suggest the substitution of an “empirical” test of governments that only a liberal democracy could pass. He admits, however, that this is merely a “personal view, or prejudice if that word is preferred”; unlike Rawls, he acknowledges that such a preference “has nothing philosophical about it and may be rejected by anyone who disapproves of it” (The Vocabulary of Politics [London, 1952], pp. 14, 87–101, 176Google Scholar).

40 Cf. Warnock's criticism of the failure of previous generations of “moral philosophers in England to commit themselves to any moral opinions,” and what turned out to be her well-founded optimism that this would change (Ethics Since 1900, pp. 144–45). Responding to such exhortations, Janik and Toulmin conclude their study of Wittgenstein by mocking “attempts to impose conventional standards of sexual morality by legal or political means” and suggesting the need for revision in the outdated “constitutional arrangements of 1776” (Wittgenstein's Vienna, pp. 264, 270).

41 Cf. Montaigne, , Essays, 3. 4Google Scholar.

42 Cf. Miller, Eugene, “Positivism, Historicism, and Political Inquiry,” American Political Science Review, 66, no. 3 (09, 1972), 796–817CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the connection between Wittgenstein and historicism, see Rosen, Nihilism, chap. 1; and Janik, and Toulmin, , Wittgenstein's Vienna, pp. 231–32, 245Google Scholar.

43 Cf. Schaefer, , “The ‘Sense’ and Non-Sense of Justice,” pp. 20–22, 27–30Google Scholar.

44 Cf. Zuckert, Michael P., “Fools and Knaves: Reflections on Locke's Theory of Philosophical Discourse,” Review of Politics, 36, no. 4 (10, 1974), 544–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

45 Thus, although one recent commentator, Phillip Hallie, rightly describes Montaigne's Essays as an antecedent of contemporary ordinary language philosophy, by virtue of the essayist's contention that confusions about “grammar” are a major cause of the controversies that trouble the world, Hallie fails to recognize the conscious political intention underlying Montaigne's grammatical “therapy” (The Scar of Montaigne [Middletown, Conn., 1966], chap. 5Google Scholar). The Essaysis one of the earliest modern statements of the view, now presupposed by the ordinary language movement, that all human thought, including thought about morality, is a human construct, rather than a reflection of nature of Being. But Montaigne recognizes that it is impossible to prove his contention, and argues merely that the classical view of an inherent link between logos and Being is itself unprovable. He then contends that, since nature leaves us free to choose our “presuppositions,” men should choose that set of “presuppositions” that promise to be more salutary for human life. Montaigne argues that it is more beneficial to “presuppose” that man is necessarily ignorant of the true constitution, and hence the meaning and purpose, of the universe, for this view directs humanity away from the vain quest for immaterial goods that throw them into conflict with one another and encourages them to pursue the “tangible” goods of which they stand in greatest need. If Montaigne is correct, then no analysis of logic can suffice to demonstrate the “presuppositions” of the ordinary language movement. (Cf. my forthcoming article, “Montaigne's Political Skepticism,” to be published in Polity.)