John Rawls

Nuova laicità vo cercando per non essere laicista

by Mario Ricciardi

published on "Il Riformista", 1 may 2010

A review of Claudia Mancina's book on bioethics and the role of religion in public life. A review of Claudia Mancina's book on bioethics and the role of religion in public life.

Political Philosophy Across the Atlantic: a Difficult Relationship?

by Mario Ricciardi

published in “Journal of Modern Italian Studies”, X (2005), pp. 59-77.

Discriminations systémiques et égalité des opportunités

by Marc-Antoine Dilhac

L’analyse des contraintes de la justice dans l’argumentation juridique

by Marc-Antoine Dilhac

Rawls's Duty of Assistance: Transitional Not Humanitarian or Sufficientarian

by Caleb Yong

Draft only; comments welcome.

The Original Position Revisited: Duty and Justification. Manuscrito 33-2 (2010): 407-24.

by Mauro Engelmann

Prenatal Fair Equality of Opportunity

by Michele Loi

Co-authored with Eszter Kollar. Draft (excerpt)

Sobre los usos de situaciones imaginarias en filosofía política

by Ernesto Riffo Elgueta

From Rawlsian Autonomy to Sufficient Opportunity in Education

by Liam Shields

This paper argues that a commitment to the priority of a certain kind of autonomy, what I call Rawlsian Autonomy,... more This paper argues that a commitment to the priority of a certain kind of autonomy, what I call Rawlsian Autonomy, entails a commitment to self-realization, which includes the development of our natural talents and interests. Educational institutions, then should be designed so as to provide sufficient opportunity to develop those talents and interests. Moreover, since the account of autonomy, from which sufficient opportunity is derived, is given lexical priority in Rawls theory, the primary aim of a just educational system is not equal opportunity but sufficient opportunity. Some of the practical implications of taking sufficient opportunity are considered for the charitable status of independent schools and curriculum design.

harman

by stephen Roberts

Understanding The Basic Structure of Society as The Primary Subject of Justice

by Audra Jamai White-Stadnik

Germ-line enhancements and rough equality

by Michele Loi

ETHICAL PERSPECTIVES 19, no. 1(2012): 55-82.

Enhancements of the human germ-line introduce further inequalities in the competition for scarce goods, such as income... more Enhancements of the human germ-line introduce further inequalities in the competition for scarce goods, such as income and desirable social positions. Social inequalities, in turn, amplify the range of genetic inequalities that access to germ-line enhancements may produce. From an egalitarian point of view, inequalities can be arranged to the benefit of the worst-off group (for instance, through general taxation), but the possibility of an indefinite growth of social and genetic inequality raises legitimate concerns. It is argued that inequalities produced by markets of germ-line enhancements are just if it they are embedded in a framework of social institutions that satisfies two conditions: (i) Rawls’ Difference Principle, which states that inequalities of income and wealth should benefit the worst-off group; (ii) the lexically prior 'principle of rough equality', which states that citizens’ initial life-chances should be similar enough, so that extreme inequalities in income, wealth and power are not produced or accumulated through institutions justified by the Difference Principle. The principle of rough equality replaces the Rawlsian principles of the Fair Value of the Political Liberties and Fair Equality of Opportunity in a post-genomic society and expresses a concern with background political equality, which is argued to be a condition of the freedom and equality of citizens that should not be traded off with material benefits. Extreme inequalities are defined in terms of political equality.

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John Rawls y el Paradigma del Desarrollo Humano

by Mauricio Uribe López

Publicado en el Libro: "Pluralismo, Legitimidad y Economía Política: Ensayos Críticos sobre la Obra de John Rawls". Jorge Iván González y Mauricio Pérez, Editores. Bogotá 2008, Universidad Externado de Colombia, Universidad Nacional de Colombia

TESTING THE LIMITS OF LIBERALISM: A REVERSE CONJECTURE

by Ali Rizvi

Heythrop Journal LIII (2012): 382-404

In this paper, I propose to look closely at certain crucial aspects of the logic of Rawls' argument in Political... more In this paper, I propose to look closely at certain crucial aspects of the logic of Rawls' argument in Political Liberalism and related subsequent writings. Rawls' argument builds on the notion of comprehensiveness, whereby a doctrine encompasses the full spectrum of the life of its adherents. In order to show the mutual conflict and irreconcilability of comprehensive doctrines, Rawls needs to emphasise the comprehensiveness of doctrines, as their irreconcilability to a large extent emanates from that comprehensiveness. On the other hand, in order to show the possibility and plausibility of the political liberal solution he needs to emphasise that most of these doctrines are reasonable: i.e., they are willing to cede a portion of their authority to political liberalism for the right reasons. Yet, if they are willing to cede a portion of their authority to a political conception they cannot be as comprehensive as we initially thought they were. All these elements highlight the tension in the argument itself. I suggest that many of these tensions can be removed by making Rawls' account more flexible. In this context I propose certain amendments to Rawls' account, which may overcome some of the tensions mentioned above.

Philosophical Foundations for 'Good Capitalism'? Labour's Business Agenda, John Rawls, and Property-Owning Democracy

by Martin O'Neill

co-authored with Thad Williamson

Why Liberal Neutrality Prohibits Same-Sex Marriage: Rawls, Political Liberalism, and the Family

by Matthew O'Brien

Forthcoming in The British Journal of American Legal Studies, Vol. 1, Issue 2 (Summer/Fall 2012).

John Rawls’s political liberalism and its ideal of public reason are tremendously influential in contemporary... more John Rawls’s political liberalism and its ideal of public reason are tremendously influential in contemporary political philosophy and in constitutional law as well. Many, perhaps even most, liberals are Rawlsians of one stripe or another. This is problematic, because most liberals also support the redefinition of civil marriage to include same-sex unions, and as I show, Rawls’s political liberalism actually prohibits same- sex marriage. Recently in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, however, California’s northern federal district court reinterpreted the traditional rational basis review in terms of liberal neutrality akin to Rawls’s “public reason,” and overturned Proposition 8 and established same-sex marriage. (This reinterpretation was amplified in the 9th Circuit Court’s decision upholding the district court on appeal in Perry v. Brown.) But on its own grounds Perry should have drawn the opposite conclusion. This is because all the available arguments for recognizing same-sex unions as civil marriages stem from controversial comprehensive doctrines about the good, and this violates the ideal of public reason; yet there remains a publicly reasonable argument for traditional marriage, which I sketch here. In the course of my argument I develop Rawls’s politically liberal account of the family and defend it against objections, discussing its implications for political theory and constitutional law.

"Nussbaum's Feminist Critique of Rawls on International Justice"

by Eileen Hunt Botting

Submitted to Feminist Interpretations of John Rawls, ed. Ruth Abbey (under contract, Penn State Press).

In her book Frontiers of Justice: Disability, Nationality, Species Membership (2006) , Martha Nussbaum has advanced a... more In her book Frontiers of Justice: Disability, Nationality, Species Membership (2006) , Martha Nussbaum has advanced a feminist critique of Rawls’s theory of international justice. While she identifies herself as a student of Rawls and dedicates the book to his memory, Nussbaum seeks to show the insufficiency of his theory of international justice, particularly as found in his Law of Peoples (1999) , when it comes to defending the rights of women in developing countries. She contends that this insufficiency is mainly due to his use of social contract theory, and its attendant concepts of basic human rights, nationality, and the public-private distinction. In contrast, she offers an alternative human rights approach to global justice: the capabilities approach. The capabilities approach seeks to establish and defend a just and robust standard of human development across nation-states. While the capabilities approach gives Nussbaum an edge over Rawls in making strong, universalistic critiques of unjust patriarchal, religious, and familial practices toward women in developing nations, it runs the risk of seeming imperial and appearing as though it seeks to impose “Western” and “feminist” values on such nations. For this reason, the universalistic language of Nussbaum’s capabilities approach is more valuable for defending women’s human rights in situations of minimum cultural or religious conflict. Because of his stricter commitment to tolerating a reasonable pluralism of values across nations, Rawls’s basic human rights approach is more useful for defending women’s human rights in situations of cultural or religious conflict. Moreover, Rawls provides an argument for the just, emergency use of military force to defend women’s human rights, a hard case from which Nussbaum’s theory steers clear. Through the comparison of their theories of justice, both Rawls’s and Nussbaum’s human rights approaches emerge in different ways as useful resources for advancing feminist values in international and transnational relations.

Keywords: John Rawls, Law of Peoples, Martha Nussbaum, Capabilities Approach, Feminist Theory, International Justice

LOI normal functioning and public reason

by Michele Loi

Quasi-final draft, please do not quote. Submitted to Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 9.02.2012

The concept of normal functioning is used by Norman Daniels to define health needs and set limits to obligations of... more The concept of normal functioning is used by Norman Daniels to define health needs and set limits to obligations of health justice. This concept is intended to be naturalistic: it is up to the biomedical sciences to establish whether a condition is normal or pathological. In his last book “Just Health: Meeting Health Needs Fairly”, Daniels defends this feature of his theory against the view that health and disease are fully normative notions (notions whose definition does not rely on a naturalistic concept of normal function). He uses two arguments: the first argument is based on actual linguistic usage: doctors and patients recognize the distinction between a health need and a mere undesired condition that is not a health need. The second argument claims that the (biomedical) concept of normal functioning plays a central role in establishing a consensus on the proper boundary and primary rationale of health care. Here it is argued that both arguments are flawed. The first argument is flawed because it conflates two properties in virtue of which a normative conception of health and disease can be “extreme”: (a) identifying diseases with mere (unqualified) unwanted traits and (b) failing to refer at any point to a naturalistic conception of normal functioning or pathology. Daniels’ endorsement of “weak” normativism in opposition to the “extreme” forms needs to be an argument against type (b), but his “linguistic” argument only works (if at all) against type (a). The second argument if flawed because the social model of disability militates against the centrality of normal functioning in a publicly shared definition of what citizens owe each other and to citizens with disabilities in particular.

On Self-Realization Through Work

by Michele Loi

Quasi-final draft, please do not quote. Submitted 2.04.2012 to Philosopher's Imprint

Rawls In Italy

by Mario Ricciardi

published in “European Journal of Political Theory”, I (2002), pp. 229-241.