SW58
“POLITICAL NOT METAPHYSICAL” READINGS OF RAWLS
CONVENOR: JAYANI NADARAJALINGAM
In his later work Rawls puts forward a “political not metaphysical” methodology of political philosophy. A “political not metaphysical” methodology is contextualist and neither transcendentalist nor universalist; it is grounded in social and historical facts. Rawls’s “political not metaphysical” account of liberalism is grounded in the contingent social fact of “reasonable pluralism”, which is the result of a particular history (including the Protestant Reformation and the wars of religion). In contexts where this fact has limited or no salience, liberalism has no distinctive normative force; this is why Rawls, in The Law of Peoples, does not treat liberalism as a universal project.
This special workshop invites submissions that deepen our understanding of, or shed new light on, Rawls’s “political not metaphysical” methodology and, in doing so, potentially steer the methodology – and Rawlsian political philosophy more generally – in new and fruitful directions. Possible topics include:
(i) the implications of the method for political action;
(ii) what the method reveals about the ideal/nonideal theory distinction and political/social possibility more generally;
(iii) the similarities and differences between the method and realist approaches to politics;
(iv) the similarities and differences between the method and those put forward by scholars in the socio-theoretic traditions (i.e. Durkheim, Marx and Weber);
(v) the limits of the method.
Jayani Nadarajalingam will present a paper (co-authored with Associate Professor Patrick Emerton) which advances a Rawlsian “political not metaphysical” response to Marx’s diagnosis, in “On the Jewish Question”, of a failure of reciprocity in the liberal state. Professor Henry Richardson will provide informal comments on the paper. Marx argues that the failure of reciprocity arises from the tension between universal citizenship and individual particularity, and concludes that human emancipation is impossible in the context of a liberal state. The paper argues that what Marx takes to be a paradox (or contradiction) that cannot be resolved within the liberal state is in fact an ongoing process, driven by the political action of those whose unhappy experiences of particularity lead them to make public claims, including claims upon the state, in pursuit of universality. The paper illustrates this process by way of the change in the application of the Fourteenth Amendment from Plessy v Ferguson 163 US 537 (1896) to Brown v Board of Education 347 US 483 (1954), and argues that this ongoing process drives the liberal state in the direction of ever-greater recognition and inclusion of diverse identities. Thus these rights claims are best understood as an outcome of quasi-pure procedural justice; contra Rawls himself, the content of rights is neither intuition-based nor fixed. Indeed, it would be complacent to think that the project of constitutionalism, or human rights, can ever be completed.
This special workshop is open to all participants. Abstracts (of no more than 500 words) and a short biography should be submitted by no later than Friday 3 June 2022. Please submit abstracts/bios in English. The workshop will be held in English.
Contact: jayani.nadarajalingam@unimelb.edu.au
This special workshop invites submissions that deepen our understanding of, or shed new light on, Rawls’s “political not metaphysical” methodology and, in doing so, potentially steer the methodology – and Rawlsian political philosophy more generally – in new and fruitful directions. Possible topics include:
(i) the implications of the method for political action;
(ii) what the method reveals about the ideal/nonideal theory distinction and political/social possibility more generally;
(iii) the similarities and differences between the method and realist approaches to politics;
(iv) the similarities and differences between the method and those put forward by scholars in the socio-theoretic traditions (i.e. Durkheim, Marx and Weber);
(v) the limits of the method.
Jayani Nadarajalingam will present a paper (co-authored with Associate Professor Patrick Emerton) which advances a Rawlsian “political not metaphysical” response to Marx’s diagnosis, in “On the Jewish Question”, of a failure of reciprocity in the liberal state. Professor Henry Richardson will provide informal comments on the paper. Marx argues that the failure of reciprocity arises from the tension between universal citizenship and individual particularity, and concludes that human emancipation is impossible in the context of a liberal state. The paper argues that what Marx takes to be a paradox (or contradiction) that cannot be resolved within the liberal state is in fact an ongoing process, driven by the political action of those whose unhappy experiences of particularity lead them to make public claims, including claims upon the state, in pursuit of universality. The paper illustrates this process by way of the change in the application of the Fourteenth Amendment from Plessy v Ferguson 163 US 537 (1896) to Brown v Board of Education 347 US 483 (1954), and argues that this ongoing process drives the liberal state in the direction of ever-greater recognition and inclusion of diverse identities. Thus these rights claims are best understood as an outcome of quasi-pure procedural justice; contra Rawls himself, the content of rights is neither intuition-based nor fixed. Indeed, it would be complacent to think that the project of constitutionalism, or human rights, can ever be completed.
This special workshop is open to all participants. Abstracts (of no more than 500 words) and a short biography should be submitted by no later than Friday 3 June 2022. Please submit abstracts/bios in English. The workshop will be held in English.
Contact: jayani.nadarajalingam@unimelb.edu.au