Book Reviews : JOHN RAWLS, Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993, xxxiv + 401 pp., £19.95 (hbk)
| Author | Ian Ward |
| Published date | 01 June 1994 |
| Date | 01 June 1994 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/096466399400300214 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
317
Rushdie,
S.
(1988)
Satanic
Verses.
London:
Viking.
Teubner,
G.
(1989)
’How
the
Law
Thinks:
Towards
a
Constructive
Epistemology
of
Law’,
Law &
Society
Review
23(5): 728-57.
ABDUL
PALIWALA
School
of Law,
University
of Warwick,
UK
JOHN
RAWLS,
Political
Liberalism.
New
York:
Columbia
University
Press,
1993,
xxxiv
+
401
pp.,
£19.95
(hbk).
In
his
recently
published
Political
Liberalism,
Rawls
has
represented
a
number
of
essays
already
familiar
to
students
of
political
and
legal
thought.
The
purpose,
he
acknowledges,
is
less
to
make
any
new
insights,
although
a
number
of
essays
have
been
amended
since
original
presentation,
but
more
to
present
what
he
terms
is
a
more
coherent
’architecture’
of
thought.
Both
the
title
and
the
introduction
to
Polztzcal
Liberalism
are
particularly
instructive,
because
they
symbolize
and
articulate
Rawls’s
increasing
urge
to
stress
the
political:
a
’Theory’
of
Justice
has
become
a
’Political’
liberalism.
In
the
introduction,
Rawls
states
that
the
overriding
purpose
of
his
work
since
1977
has
been
to
’develop’ -
implicitly
to
evolve -
the
previously
’unrealistic
idea’
of
the
’well-ordered
society’
into
an
’overlapping
consensus’
(pp.
xv-xvi).
Thus,
Rawls
asserts,
the
central
principle
in
1972,
of
’justice
as
fairness’,
must
now
become
a ’political
concept
of
justice’,
based
on
principles
of
practical
reason.
The
overall
schema
of
the
book,
however,
reveals
a
continuing
Kantian
impulse.
Essays
are
divided
into
sections
covering
’concepts’,
’ideas’
and
’institutions’.
In
the
first
three
lectures,
Rawls
presents
three
’fundamental
concepts’
of
political
liberalism.
The
first
is
pluralism,
the
second
is
reasonableness,
as
a
substantively
intersubjective
concept -
democratic
society,
Rawls
tells
us,
is
determined
by
the
demands
of
a
’reasonable
pluralism’ -
and
the
third
is
constructivism.
These
first
three
lectures
set
an
unmistakable
tone.
Rawls’s
primary
ambition
in
his
’political’
liberalism
is
to
move
as
far
away
as
possible
from
the
allurement
of
any
’comprehensive’
doctrine.
So
has
Rawls
moved
towards
the
radical
liberal
pragmatist
position,
as
suggested
by
such
as
Richard
Rorty?
The
suggestion
that
Rawls
has
become
a
’critical’
legal
scholar,
as
implied
by
Rorty,
seems
somewhat
adventurous.
Moreover,
the
question
remains
as
to
just
how
critical
the
Rortian
Rawls
is.
The
postmodern
bourgeois
liberalism,
which
Rorty
suggests
that
Rawls
now
espouses,
remains,
as
a
number
of
critiques
have
noted,
at
root
a
classically
liberal
polity:
free
and
equal,
but
only
for
postmodern
bourgeois
liberals.
The
second
series
of
essays
present
the
substantive
’ideas’
of
political
liberalism,
including
the
’Idea
of
an
Overlapping
Consensus’,
which
is
designed
not
only
to
accommodate
pluralism,
but
also
to
stabilize
it.
Something
else
introduced
and
further
developed
in
the
following
two
essays
in
the
sequence
is
the
constructive
nature
of
discourse.
Moreover,
the
most
striking
revision
of
the
1993
version
of the
original
1986
lecture
is
Rawls’s
strengthening
of
the
communicative
nature
of
deep
consensus,
which
he
repeats
is
a
constructive
force.
Thus,
if
communication
’deepens’
consensus,
democratic
politics
can
’broaden’
it.
The
dangers
of
subverting
a
radical
political
critique
by
creating
some
sort
of
Heideggerian
ur-language,
are
familiar.
Indeed
they
are
the
ones
Rorty
has
so
strongly
warned
us
against,
and
then
slipped
into
himself.
In
the
third
lecture
in
this
set,
Rawls
concentrates
particularly
on
the
example
of
the
US
Supreme
Court,
and
its
use
of
a
constructive
public
reason
to
protect
higher
law
against
the
potential
intrusions
of
political
expedience.
Such
an
institution,
he
suggests,
is
the
epitome
of
a
rationally
constructive
and
consensus
forming
force.
But
once
again,
such
an
institution
is
a
very
bourgeois
and
a
very
liberal
one,
and
Rawls’s
overwhelmingly
To continue reading
Request your trial