Rent 9780195393033 | Why Political Liberalism? : On John Rawls's Political Turn

Summary Table of Contents Author Biography

In WHY POLITICAL LIBERALISM?, Paul Weithman offers a fresh, rigorous, and compelling interpretation of John Rawls's reasons for taking his so-called "political turn". Weithman takes Rawls at his word that justice as fairness was recast as a form of political liberalism because of an inconsistency Rawls found in his early treatment of social stability. He argues that the inconsistency is best seen by identifying the threats to stability with which the early Rawls was concerned. Oneof those threats, often overlooked by Rawls's readers, is the thr... MOREeat that the justice of a well-ordered society would be undermined by a generalized prisoner's dilemma. Showing how the Rawls of "A Theory of Justice" tried to avert that threat shows that the much-neglected third part of that book is ofconsiderably greater philosophical interest, and has considerably more unity of focus, than is generally appreciated. Weithman painstakingly reconstructs Rawls's attempts to show that a just society would be stable, and just as carefully shows why Rawls came to think those arguments were inconsistent with other parts of his theory. Weithman then shows that the changes Rawls introduced into his view between "Theory of Justice" and "Political Liberalism" result from his attempt to remove the inconsistency and show that the hazard of the generalized prisoner's dilemma can be averted after all. Recovering Rawls'stwo treatments of stability helps to answer contested questions about the role of the original position and the foundations of justice as fairness. The result is a powerful and unified reading of Rawls's work that explains his political turn and shows his enduring engagement with some of the deepestconcerns of human life. "Weithman has written a masterful work of Rawls scholarship. This book will deepen our understanding of how and why Rawls restructured his theory, and illuminate this fascinating transition in the history of political philosophy." Leif Wenar, Chair of Ethics, Kings College London"Weithman's reconstruction of Rawls's arguments is masterful, convincing and in many ways revelatory. Readers will find that the text provides compelling answers to a lot of puzzling questions about Rawls's project that have lingered for some time. Perhaps most importantly, Weithman gives the best explanation to date of exactly why Rawls felt compelled to revise his theory as he did." Colin Bird, Department of Politics, University of Virginia

Paul Weithman offers a fresh, rigorous, and compelling interpretation of John Rawls's reasons for taking his so-called "political turn."

Acknowledgments	p. xi
List of Tables	p. xiii
Introduction	p. 3
Overview	p. 4
The Road to Come	p. 8
A Deeper Understanding of Justice as Fairness?	p. 9
Unity, Theodicy, and the Attractions of Liberalism	p. 11
A Final Word to the Reader	p. 14
The Public Basis View	p. 17
Initial Statement of the Public Basis Vie... MOREw	p. 17
The Pivotal Argument	p. 21
Imputing the Pivotal Argument?	p. 23
The Public Basis View Restated	p. 28
Difficulties with the Strong Version	p. 32
Difficulties with the Weak Version	p. 36
Conclusion	p. 40
Stability and Congruence	p. 42
Stability, Inherent and Imposed	p. 43
Matching the Right and the Good in Justice as Fairness	p. 51
Congruence and Stability	p. 57
Congruence and Inherent Stability	p. 65
Ideals and Inconsistency	p. 68
An Inconsistency in Justice as Fairness?	p. 70
Ideals and Comprehensive Conceptions	p. 72
Endorsing on the Basis of Shared Ideals	p. 83
Congruence and C₃	p. 88
C₃ and Inconsistency	p. 96
The Acquisition of Four Desires	p. 97
Two Readings of the Aristotelian Principle	p. 99
The Acquisition of Four Desires	p. 103
Four Desires and Thin Reasons	p. 118
Thin Reasons to Be Just	p. 122
Setting up the Problem	p. 124
The Aristotelian Principle and the Argument for Congruence	p. 127
Four Thin Reasons	p. 130
Some Questions about the First Three Arguments	p. 141
Some Puzzles about the Fourth Argument	p. 146
The Argument from Love and Justice	p. 148
Balances and Temptations	p. 149
Two Questions about Table II.3	p. 153
Conditional Balances and Balance Conditionals	p. 158
The Argument from Love and Justice	p. 163
Love's Balance	p. 168
Four Comments on the Argument	p. 176
Kantian Congruence and the Unified Self	p. 183
An Overview of the Kantian Congruence Argument	p. 184
The Argument from C₄a	p. 188
From the Ostensible Conclusion to Congruence	p. 192
Establishing (5.5')	p. 203
Defending (5.2)	p. 206
Finality, Rationality, and the Unity of the Self	p. 209
Kantian Unity	p. 220
Korsgaard, Unity and the Bridge Function	p. 222
Is the OP Necessary?	p. 223
Conclusion	p. 229
The Great Unraveling	p. 234
The Content of Ideals	p. 237
Defending C₃	p. 241
Pluralism and the Failure of Congruence	p. 248
The Failure of Kantian Congruence	p. 254
The Great Unraveling	p. 259
Brief Contrasts with Other Accounts	p. 266
The Political Ideals of Justice as Fairness	p. 270
PL's Basic Argument for Stability	p. 273
C₃' and the Sense of Justice	p. 283
C₃' and the Ideals of Conduct	p. 287
C₃' and the Social Ideals of Justice as Fairness	p. 293
Whither Congruence?	p. 296
Comprehensive Reasons to Be Just	p. 301
Moving from (9.2) and (9.3) to (9.5)	p. 303
Would there Be an Overlapping Clonsensus?	p. 308
Legitlmacy and Justification	p. 312
Why Political Legitimacy?	p. 319
A Question about the Arguments for C₉ and C_PL	p. 321
Public Reason, Mutual Assurance, and Pluralism about Justice	p. 327
Stability, Reflective Equilibrium, and Public Justification	p. 335
Conclusion	p. 339
Conclusion: Why Political Liberalism?	p. 344
The Moral Basis of Political Liberalism?	p. 347
A Conception-Based View	p. 353
Defending Political Liberalism	p. 357
�And very good it was�	p. 362
Bibliography	p. 371
Index	p. 375
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

Paul Weithman is Professor of Philosophy, University of Notre Dame

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