American Political Philosophy Research Articles

Plato and Rawls on the Parameters of a Just Society

What I wish to do on this occasion is to make an attempt to highlight some distinctive features of Plato’s political philosophy by confronting them with the system put forward by a major figure in modern American political philosophy, the philosopher John Rawls of Harvard. I must confess that when I was in America in the 1960’s and 70’s. I did not pay much attention to John Rawls, as I could not see what all the fuss was about. The man seemed to me, from what I could discern of his views, to ...

Mastery, Authority, and Hierarchy in the “Inner Chapters” of theZhuāngzǐ

Mastery, Authority, and Hierarchy in the “Inner Chapters” of the<i>Zhuāngzǐ</i>

Dissertations

APSA is pleased to include here the names of individuals who have completed their doctoral dissertations at political science departments in the United States during 2010 and 2011. The list is based on data collected in the APSA member database and includes information reported by both individuals and departments. Dissertations are listed by fields of interest as labeled by APSA: American politics, comparative politics, international relations, methodology, public administration, political philosophy and theory, public law and courts, and public policy.

In Fascism’s Footprint: The History of “Creeping” and &lt;i&gt;Vineland’s&lt;/i&gt; Poetics of Betrayal

Why have critics of Vineland failed to agree on the nature and scope of the fascist menace looming over the novel? Brad Leithauser’s review typified the book’s negative early reception in claiming that Vineland lacked something “overarchingly malignant” for its characters to combat. Federal agent Brock Vond, while clearly intended as a scaling-down from the operatic portrayal of evil in Gravity’s Rainbow’ s Blicero, looked to Leithauser, “even by cartoon standards, . . . insubstantial,” unable (as his budget line is miraculously cut at the end) to disturb the book’s cloying recurrence to themes of family and home (9, 8). Subsequent, subtler readings noted Pynchon’s reinventions of Orwell, from the 1984 setting to warnings against television’s mind-control and new and improved Thought Police—“Tube Police, Music Police, Good Healthy Shit Police” (313). In more concrete terms, David Thoreen undercut critiques like Leithauser’s by showing Vineland ’s true backdrop of fascist apocalypse to lie in foreboding references to Reagan’s potential invocation of emergency powers and a police state (“Fourth Amendment”). But the surprising trend of recent readings, more rooted in American political philosophy, has been to put Vond’s vision of former radicals as infantilized members of an “extended national Family” on a rational and manageable footing, regarding Vond as extreme but placing him in the broad context of US liberalism’s difficult relationship to community ( VL 269). Thus Jerry Varsava and Cyrus R. K. Patell independently argue for seeing Vond as representative of a communitarianism that is, in Patell’s words, “coercive, majoritarian, and bad”—the wrong path for community to take, they show Pynchon arguing, but far from the accusations of a totalitarian America which Vineland still, however reduced its scale, seems intent to make (Varsava 65, Patell 171).

The Sociology of Vocational Prizes

Artistic and scientific activities pertain to the world of ‘vocation’, which demonstrates a close relationship with recognition issues. Referring to recent trends in French, German and American sociology and political philosophy, this article addresses both the status of recognition in present-day sociology and the necessity of prizes in vocational activities. Grounded on two empirical surveys about literary and scientific prizes, it displays the various axiological problems raised by such a mode of recognition, as the ‘felicity conditions’ of this mode of recognition have to ensure a feeling of justice and avoid envious reactions. On a more theoretical ground, the article aims to demonstrate the necessity for sociology to shift, first, from material to ‘symbolic’ or, rather, ‘intangible’ outcomes; second, from a concern with power and domination to a concern with interdependency; and third, from recognition conceived as egalitarian respect to recognition conceived as un-egalitarian esteem.

Rawls on Race/Race in Rawls

John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice (1971) is widely credited with having revived post–World War II Anglo American political philosophy. This book together with his later writings are routinely judged to constitute the most important body of work in that field. Indeed, with the collapse of Second World and Third World socialist ideologico-political alternatives, liberalism in one form or another has become globally hegemonic, so that for many commentators, the qualifiers “postwar” and “Anglo American” should just be dropped. Thus the blurb on the jacket of The Cambridge Companion to Rawls (Freeman 2003a) simply asserts without qualification: “John Rawls is the most significant and influential political and moral philosopher of the 20th century.” Translated (as of 2003) into twenty-seven languages (Freeman 2003b, 1), the subject of a vast body of secondary literature numbering literally thousands of articles, A Theory of Justice has long since become a canonical text. Yet for those interested in issues of racial justice, philosophers of color in particular, it has also long been a very frustrating text.1 We face a paradox: Rawls, the celebrated American philosopher of justice, had next to nothing to say in his work about what has arguably historically been the most blatant American variety of injustice, racial oppression. The postwar struggle for racial justice in practice and in theory and the Rawlsian corpus on justice are almost completely separate and nonintersecting universes. The remediation of the legacy of white supremacy is apparently not of the slightest interest or concern for Rawls and most of his commentators and critics, as manifested in the marginality of this subject in his own work, and its virtual nonappearance in the secondary literature. Samuel Freeman’s edited Cambridge Companion to Rawls (2003a), for example, which provides a synoptic overview of key themes in the literature, has not a single subsection of any chapter, let alone any chapter, on race, while the 2006 Perspectives on Politics special symposium on Rawls barely has two paragraphs on the subject (Ackerley et al. 2006). So, particularly for people of color in the United States, but also for those elsewhere, for example in the former colonizing powers and in the former colonial world, a weird feeling of inconRawls on Race/Race in Rawls

Why we will miss Ye, Teddy

Abstract In this commentary, written by senior commentator and presidential advisor Michael Sommer, who served all three Kennedy brothers, the author argues that the dying Senator Ted Kennedy has always truly fought for all Americans, has opponents but no enemies, that the world knows it, and that his liberalism is “the best American political philosophy” that America has. The author maintains that the Senator “represents the best that is in Americans, what America really stands for,” and that the world recognizes that, too. The author believes that President‐elect Obama will once again vigorously show the world the same Kennedy‐like enabling vision, hope, great leadership and true American spirit, that the world has tragically missed from America for the past eight years. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley &amp; Sons, Ltd.

Dictionary of Liberal Thought

The purpose of this Dictionary is, in the words of one of its editors, ‘to give readers a sense of the range, depth and diversity of liberal political thought’. It has been produced under the aegis of the Liberal Democrat History Group, by those committed to the cause. Most, though not all, of the contributors are academics, and there are some well-known names, such as Ralf Dahrendorf and Keith Robbins. The Dictionary is an unpretentious but useful volume, which meets the first requirement for a work of reference: a high standard of accuracy. Indeed, it is mercifully free of the numerous factual errors that so disfigure the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. The Dictionary includes entries on ideas and schools of thought, such as classical liberalism, the new liberalism and environmentalism; organisations such as the Anti-Corn Law League and the Liberal International; and biographies of various liberal politicians as well as thinkers. The focus throughout is on Britain. ‘The main criterion for the inclusion of an entry’, the editors tell us, ‘was its relevance to the development of liberalism in Britain’. The entries are not, however, restricted to British liberals; there are, for example, entries on Woodrow Wilson, and on the American political philosophers, John Rawls and Robert Nozick. One can, as always with works of this kind, play the parlour game of arguing about why X is included while Y is not. Why, for example, is Franklin Roosevelt excluded when Woodrow Wilson is in; why are Asquith and Campbell Bannerman excluded when Joseph Chamberlain, Lloyd George, R.B. Haldane, Herbert Samuel, and the not notably distinguished Liberal backbencher of the 1950s and 1960s, Donald Wade, are in? Why is Bright excluded when Cobden is in? Why is H.L.A. Hart excluded when Dworkin is in? Why is Anthony Crosland included? Why is Hobbes included when, as Adrian Blau tells us in his excellent entry, he should certainly not be interpreted as a liberal? More explanation on the part of the editors would have been welcome. The entries, while perfectly reliable, are not particularly penetrating. Nevertheless, while this Dictionary will not tell historians much that they do not already know, and while few will wish to read the whole book through, it will prove useful for the undergraduate seeking to learn something of the variety of the British liberal tradition.

In defence of partisan justice - an ethical reflection on “the preferential option for the poor”

Can one defend a form of partisan justice? This question is answered in the affirmative in the light of two broad arguments: The theological argument arises from the preferential option for the poor from Latin America, and the philosophical argument is derived from John Rawls’ notion of the least advantaged representative person and assistance due to burdened societies in a global context. In closing, a number of important implications of such a partisan notion of both distributive and cultural justice are explicated. This article is developed in three sections. The first section briefly sketches a profile of the different theological arguments underlying a preferential option for the poor as particularly developed by Latin American liberation theologians, and later accepted in wider ecumenical circles. In the second section, philosophical arguments for a position of “prioritarianism” which seems to support such “preferential option” are outlined. This is attempted via a discussion of two influential books by well-known American political philosopher , John Rawls, namely his A theory of justice (1973), and The law of peoples (1999). Section three concludes the article by demonstrating the synergy between these theological and philosophical views, and by pointing out – in a provisional manner - the important consequences of such a “preferential” or “partisan” view for guiding ethical reflection on local and global socio-economic relations.

Illiberal justice: John Rawls vs. the American political tradition

Often considered the greatest American political philosopher of the twentieth century, and the most important liberal theorist since John Stuart Mill, John Rawls enjoys a practically sacrosanct status among scholars of political theory, law, and ethics. In Illiberal Justice, David Schaefer offers the most thorough challenge to Rawls' doctrine yet published, demonstrating how his teachings deviate from the core tradition of constitutional liberalism as exemplified by leading American statesmen from the founders through Lincoln and beyond. Illiberal Justice is the first comprehensive overview of all of Rawls' writings, emphasizing the continuity in his thought and intention to a greater extent than other scholars have done. Schaefer offers a fundamental critique of both Rawls' conception of political philosophy and the policy judgments he derives from his of justice. Schaefer argues that Rawls' failure to ground his teaching about justice in a serious analysis of human nature or an empirical grasp of political life is symptomatic of a larger crisis within contemporary liberal political and jurisprudential theorizing. Although Rawls is commonly viewed as a welfare-state liberal, Schaefer stresses that his writings actually embody a radical transformation of liberalism in the direction of libertarianism that deviates sharply from the American liberal tradition. Citing empirical evidence of the persistence of political and economic opportunity in America, Schaefer challenges Rawls' allegations that our polity suffers from grave injustices. He points out the strikingly apocalyptic tone of Rawls' last writings, in which Rawls even questions whether human existence is worthwhile if his principles are not actualized. Illiberal Justice is not only a critique of Rawls' political program and philosophic methodology, it is also a defense of the American constitutional order against Rawls' dogmatic theorizing, which Schaefer argues has exercised an increasing, and detrimental, effect on our jurisprudence. By combining a thorough critical exegesis of Rawls' texts with a broad engagement with the tradition of political philosophy and American political thought, Schaefer makes an important contribution to both our understanding of Rawls and the enterprise of political philosophy.

Qualifying Cosmopolitanism? Solidarity, Criticism, and Michael Walzer's ‘View from the Cave’

For some, cosmopolitanism is a deeply troubling, even dangerous, ethical position. An ‘embedded cosmopolitan’ variation on this position would strive to take seriously the apprehensions of these critics by eschewing the impartialist perspective to which it is conventionally tied. Specifically, this proposed alternative would adopt a modified version of the particularist moral starting point espoused by so-called ‘communitarian’ political theorists. In order to retain its ethical cosmopolitan credentials, such a stance would have to achieve a moral purview that left no-one, whether compatriot or foreigner, ally or enemy, beyond either concern or comprehension. Trying to construct this qualified cosmopolitanism is a difficult and daunting task. By analysing the various attempts of the American political philosopher Michael Walzer to reconcile a radically situated account of morality (his ‘view from the cave’) with an inclusive and cross-culturally critical moral purview, this article aims to map the most promising route towards an embedded cosmopolitan position. At the same time, it endeavours to pay due attention to a much broader range of Walzer's writings than is generally acknowledged within the study of international relations.

Paradise Lost...: The Meaning of Modernity and the Antinomy of the Law

This essay argues for the centrality of the study of paradoxes of particularity and universality in the interface between law and politics in modernity. Particularly, in order to understand the process of constitution of a political collective and the role of supernumerary elements that re-enter a constituted legal-political system. After introducing the question of paradoxes or antinomies in the relation between law and politics in modernity, the essay engages with current understandings of exceptionalism and the possibility of a leftist or ‘real’ suspension of the law. In order to do so, this essay makes full use of certain theoretical tools developed in anthropological accounts of political and legal processes, and current French-oriented and Latin American political philosophy.

Building American citizenship: a matter of rights or of races?

As proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence, US citizenship is based on natural law. However, the very language of the Declaration also points to the presence of another ideological dimension, alongside natural law and the social contract. The Declaration gives its allegiance to “nature” and to “nature's God”, which are not simply the rational basis of moral laws to be enshrined in positive law, but also express an order reflective of divine will, which establishes distinctions and hierarchies even within such “nature”, including human nature. The alliance, or even the fusion, of the two inherent dimensions of the idea of nature – the ultimate reference underwriting the validity of certain protective principles, as well as the legitimising basis of visible inequalities – is undoubtedly the main distinctive feature of American political philosophy. This article proposes to analyse the intertwining of the two apparently contradictory principles of universalism and “racialism” and the role of this intricate relationship in the birth of the American nation by following their trace from the foundational language of Thomas Jefferson to the subversive critique of W.E.B. Du Bois.

Taking religious pluralism seriously: arguing for an institutional turn: introduction

Discussions of the relations between religions, society, politics, and the state in recent political philosophy are characterized, firstly, by a strong US American bias focusing on limitations of religious arguments in public debate. Even if the restriction or radical exclusion of religious reasons from public debate has recently been extensively criticized, secularist interpretations of liberal-democratic constitutions still prevail. Here it is argued that both strong secularism and weak or “second order secularism” are counterproductive for many reasons. Secondly, separationist interpretations of state-church relations are predominant, even if the severe “wall of separation” is criticized more often nowadays. Here it is argued that there are more and more interesting options than either separationism or accommodationism, that we should not exclusively focus at the constitutional relations between state and churches but address the full reciprocal relationship between society, culture, politics, nation, state and (organized) religions, and that we need more historical and comparative perspectives for the required institutionalist turn in political theory in order to overcome the obstacles inherent in predominant American political philosophy. The articles included in this volume are first, modest steps in this new direction.

On War as Waste: Jane Addams's Pragmatic Pacifism

This essay continues the process, initiated by feminist scholars such as Mary Jo Deegan (1988), Mary Mahowald (1997), Linda Schott (1993), and Charlene Haddock Seigfried (1991, 1996) of recovering the contributions [End Page 86] made by Jane Addams to American pragmatism and political philosophy. While most work on Jane Addams examines her struggles for women's rights, child health and safety, and immigrant rights, I will consider the less studied matter of her unyielding pacifism during the First World War. In looking at Addams's pacifism and trying to gain a posit on why she held this position with such steadfastness when it cost her the widespread respect she earned as an advocate for social justice, I will suggest a reexamination of common assumptions about the theoretical grounding of Addams's pacifism. Ultimately, a careful assessment of her engaged pacifism reveals that she pioneered positions on war and democracy later adopted by dominant figures in American philosophy, and that her work radically challenged dominant assumptions about the proper relationship between war and politics.

Constitutional interpretation: textual meaning, original intent, and judicial review

Constitutional scholarship has deteriorated into a set of armed camps, with defenders of different theories of judicial review too often talking to their own supporters but not engaging their opponents. This book breaks free of the stalemate and reinvigorates the debate over how the judiciary should interpret the Constitution. Keith Whittington reconsiders the implications of the fundamental legal commitment to faithfully interpret our written Constitution. Making use of arguments drawn from American history, political philosophy, and literary theory, he examines what it means to interpret a written constitution and how the courts should go about that task. He concludes that when interpreting the Constitution, the judiciary should adhere to the discoverable intentions of the Founders. Other originalists have also asserted that their approach is required by the Constitution but have neither defended that claim nor effectively responded to critics of their assumptions or their method. This book sympathetically examines the most sophisticated critiques of originalism based on postmodern, hermeneutic, and literary theory, as well as the most common legal arguments against originalists. Whittington explores these criticisms, their potential threat to originalism, and how originalist theory might be reconstructed to address their concerns. In a non-dogmatic and readily understandable way, he explains how originalist methods can be reconciled with an appropriate understanding of legal interpretation and why originalism has much to teach all constitutional theorists. He also shows how originalism helps realize the democratic promise of the Constitution without relying on assumptions of judicial restraint. This book carefully examines both the possibilities and the limitations of constitutional interpretation and judicial review. It shows us not only what the judiciary ought to do, but what the limits of appropriate judicial review are and how judicial review fits into a larger system of constitutional government. With its detailed and wide-ranging explorations in history, philosophy, and law, this book is essential reading for anyone interested in how the Constitution ought to be interpreted and what it means to live under a constitutional government.

"A Tunnel at the End of the Light?": Notes on the Rhetoric of the Great Transformation in Eastern Europe

Why don't we have a new Tocqueville to unravel for us the mystery of the 1989 revolution in Eastern Europe? November 1995 issue of Political Theory attempted to answer this question by publishing a symposium centered on Jeffrey Isaac's essay, The Strange Silence of Political in which he sharply criticized North American political theorists for their failure to reflect on the significance of the great transformation in post-1989 Eastern Europe. Some of the leading publications—Political Theory, American Political Science Review, Philosophy and Public Affairs, and Ethics—have responded to these events with a deafening silence,1 while continuing to publish highly sophisticated critical commentaries on the political revival of liberalism and civil society. Is it even possible to imagine such a posture being assumed by Locke or Paine, Kant or Hegel?,2 Isaac rhetorically asks, and

The Perversion of Autonomy: The Proper Uses of Coercion and Constraint in a Liberal Society

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Book ReviewFull AccessThe Perversion of Autonomy: The Proper Uses of Coercion and Constraint in a Liberal SocietyCharles W. Lidz, Ph.D.Charles W. LidzSearch for more papers by this author, Ph.D.Published Online:1 Sep 1998https://doi.org/10.1176/ps.49.9.1245AboutSectionsView EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail Both American political philosophy and popular discourse about how society should function seem obsessed with autonomy. From a historical perspective, this preoccupation is hardly surprising. The United States developed as a distinct society in the late 18th century during the peak influence of the Enlightenment ideal of the rational man forming society by social contract. Individual rights and personal liberty play a much greater role in our society, and responsibility and social solidarity a much smaller role, than they do in even the highly democratic societies of Western Europe.Like any other ideology, individualism creates both blessings and curses. The authors of this interesting volume—two of the leading bioethicists in America—are clearly aware of the importance of autonomy in protecting important political and religious freedoms. However, the core of their argument is that our obsession with autonomy has taken us to the edge of a precipice, and both civil order and personal civility are at risk of falling off. In our obsession with individual autonomy, we have forgotten common-sense morality.Indeed the book begins with such evidence, the story of a homeless man who dies on the street across from a hospital because the ambulance staff decided that he had "refused medical attention" in spite of his brother's contention that he was delirious. An entire chapter is devoted to homelessness and deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill as another example.Gaylin and Jennings do best discussing the ethics and political philosophy of autonomy. They make a convincing case that society needs social controls because, although lower animals' social functioning depends on a mixture of instinct and fear, human beings' prosocial behaviors rely on shame and guilt as well as fear. Yet if we treat all human beings as deserving of autonomy and dignity even when their behaviors violate the law or basic social decency, these mechanisms become unavailable. If we cannot use shame and guilt as devices of social control, fear will become society's only means of controlling its members' behaviors.The authors are equally persuasive in showing the absurdity of the classical autonomy assumptions that humans are basically rational and self-directing. They draw from psychoanalytic and behavioristic psychology to show the limitations of our rationality. They demonstrate how our beliefs in rationality and self-control lead to using education as a response to social problems.Thus instead of shutting down gay bathhouses in the face of the AIDS epidemic, public health officials tried to educate people in the use of condoms. Instead of restricting children's access to cigarettes, we try to educate them about the health effects. We continually try educational solutions in spite of a long history of failures.Gaylin and Jennings' analysis of the state of American society is less persuasive. For example, they cite as evidence that America is on the edge of disintegration the large number of recent books that suggest serious moral decay and loss of direction in this country. However, such jeremiads have been frequent and persistent from the middle of the 17th century. They are hardly strong evidence that we are now in a unique situation.The authors also blame the autonomy-based deinstitutionalization of mental patients for homelessness, but they ignore that large-scale homelessness is a phenomenon of the eighties and nineties, whereas most deinstitutionalization took place in the fifties, sixties, and seventies. They also overlook that cities in which land prices did not skyrocket in the eighties have little homelessness.Although in places pop sociology weakens the presentation in The Perversion of Autonomy, the authors present a strong case that we need to refocus our political thought and broaden our goals beyond promoting individual autonomy.Dr. Lidz is research professor in the department of psychiatry of the University of Massachusetts Medical Center in Worcester.by Willard Gaylin and Bruce Jennings; New York City, Free Press, 1996, 270 pages, $25 FiguresReferencesCited byDetailsCited ByNone Volume 49Issue 9 September 1998Pages 1245-1245 Metrics History Published online 1 September 1998 Published in print 1 September 1998

American fiction in the Cold War

We tried as hard as we could to believe that politics might be idyl, only to discover that what we took to be a political pastoral was really a grim military campaign or a murderous betrayal of political allies. Thus Lionel Trilling summarized the experience of an entire generation of American intellectuals who had watched with mounting disbelief and disillusion the rise of totalitarianism in the 1950s. In this book, the author makes it clear that Trilling's summary was in itself a mythic reconstruction, a prominent example of the way liberals came to terms with their own political past. Schaub's book analyzes their efforts to reshape an old liberalism alleged to hold naively optimistic views of human nature, scientific reason, and social progress into a new, skeptical liberalism that recognized the persistence of human evil, the fragility of reason, and the ambiguity of moral decision. These reassessments of history, politics, human nature, and distiny - what Schaub calls the liberal - mediated the critical and imaginative production of the literary community after World War II. Schaub shows that the elements of this narrative in American history, political philosophy, and social criticism during the Cold War era. His analysis of the dominant critical communities of the '40s - led by critics such as Lionel Trilling and Irving Howe, Cleanth Brooks, and Allen Tates - recovers the political meanings embedded within their debates over the nature of literary realism, the definition of the novel, and speculations on its death. In the second part of this study, Schaub turns to Ralph Ellison, Flannery O'Connor, Norman Mailer, and John Barth. His readings of their fictions isolate the political and cultural content of works often faulted for their apparent efforts to transcend social history.

Moral Justification of Reform Movements in American Political Philosophy

Moral Justification of Reform Movements in American Political Philosophy