Abstract
John Rawls thinks republicanism is compatible with his political liberalism. Philip Pettit insists that the two conflict in important ways. In this paper, I make sense of this dispute by employing David Chalmers’s method of elimination to reveal the meaning underlying key terms in Rawls’s political liberalism and Pettit’s republicanism. This procedure of disambiguating terms will show how the two theories defend the same institutional arrangement on the same grounds. The procedure thus vindicates Rawls’s view of the two theories being compatible. The reason for this compatibility is that both theories are politicized—that is, they are constructed to attract the compliance of all reasonable members of a modern, pluralistic society.
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Notes
However, Pettit (2014: 24) suggests that although Rawls and Ronald Dworkin see freedom as non-interference, they are examples of liberals that lean somewhat towards a republican conception of freedom by holding that legal institution can secure rather than compromise individuals’ freedom. Costa (2009) goes further by arguing that Rawls’s conception of freedom is that of non-domination. Rawls (1999: 176) himself says he tries to avoid any debate concerning the meaning of liberty.
Others have also found important similarities between liberalism and republicanism. In his review of Pettit (1997), Roger Boesche (1998: 863) goes so far as to conclude that Pettit’s ‘whole ideal of freedom as nondomination is simply one variant of liberalism, a conclusion that certainly deflates and diminishes the central argument of the book’. Charles Larmore (2001; 2003) reaches a similar conclusion based on Pettit’s concern with respect for the individual.
A comprehensive doctrine, Rawls (2005: 13) explains, is a set of convictions about how to live, which includes conceptions of the good, how we ought to treat others, and ‘much else that is to inform our conduct, and in the limit to our life as a whole’. A person’s ‘conception of the good’ consists of the ends and purposes the person considers worthy of her or his pursuit over a complete life (Rawls 2005: 104).
Rawls never actually addresses Pettit in his discussion of republicanism. But as I show below, Rawls’s account of republicanism is compatible with Pettit’s, and we can therefore understand this issue as a dispute between Rawls and Pettit.
By focusing on Pettit and Rawls’s theories, I inevitably leave some variants of republicanism and liberalism unexplored. But Pettit and Rawls are leading figures in contemporary republicanism and liberalism, respectively. For a defence of the use of the method of elimination in political philosophy, see Bosworth (2020).
By identifying the aim of his theory to be minimal domination, Pettit (1997: 97–109; 2012a: 123–125; 2017: 337–339) understands it as consequentialist. Rawls (1999: 19–24), on the other hand, is famously opposed to consequentialism. The result of this paper, however, shows that this difference has no implications regarding what institutions they prescribe. In fact, Pettit (2012b) thinks Rawls is a consequentialist—he indeed thinks all political philosophers are consequentialists.
Republicans may, of course, continue to hold that their terminology is superior to that of political liberalism because it has greater rhetorical power, and consequently offers a more effective way of defending liberal institutions. I ignore this matter because it is not what is at stake in the dispute between Pettit and Rawls, and because disputes strictly over terminology is no concern in political philosophy understood as a discipline focusing on the justification and functioning of social and political institutions.
It is difficult to give an explanatory example of a bedrock concept, since any attempt to do so will be controversial. However, Chalmers (2011: 550) notes that ‘some moral theorists may regard ‘ought’ as bedrock, while others may regard ‘right’ or ‘good’ as bedrock’.
Pettit used to refer to such interference as ‘arbitrary interference’, but he now prefers ‘uncontrolled interference’ for two reasons (Pettit 2012a: 58). First, he wants to avoid confusion with ‘arbitrary’ as it is commonly used to describe interference that does not conform to established rules. Interference conforming to established rules may still be uncontrolled, on Pettit’s account, as rules need not be in the interest of those subject to them. Second, ‘arbitrary’ is often used to refer to something that is morally wrong or objectionable, and Pettit wants to avoid this connotation to a moral standard.
Pettit uses the terms ‘neo-Athenian’, ‘Franco-German’, and ‘Continental’ republicanism when he refers to what Rawls calls ‘civic humanism’. Since this theory sees political participation as a necessary component of freedom and the good life, Pettit sees it as importantly different from the ‘neo-Roman’ or ‘Italian-Atlantic’ republicanism that he favours.
See also Rawls (2005: 291) for a similar but less specific list.
Education is an important way of encouraging such virtue. Rawls (2001: 156) notes that in addition to giving children knowledge about the basic liberties, ‘education should also prepare them to be fully cooperating members of society and enable them to be self-supporting; it should also encourage the political virtues so that they want to honor the fair terms of social cooperation in their relations with the rest of society’.
Rawls is less specific than Pettit is about which particular institutions he sees as necessary, but the institutions Pettit see as key in his theory—the mixed constitution, the rule of law, separation of powers, and a contestatory citizenry—seem no less important for Rawls. As already mentioned above, Pettit (2012a: 11) also acknowledges that these institutions are commonly given important roles also in liberal theories.
In A Theory of Justice, the formulation of this principle reads: ‘Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive total system of equal basic liberties compatible with a similar system of liberty for all’ (Rawls 1999: 266).
Pettit cites the 1971 edition of A Theory of Justice at page 233. For the sake of consistency, I cite the revised 1999 edition. The passage in focus here is identical in the two editions.
By thus arguing that satisfying Rawls’s first principle is sufficient for non-domination, I challenge Alan Thomas’s (2017: 375, n. 19) view of the difference principle as exactly what republicans need ‘to make domination structurally impossible’. Andrés de Francisco (2006: 279), similarly, suggests the rational parties in Rawls’s original position would choose the same two principles as in justice as fairness if they were motivated to minimize domination.
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the participants in the Queen’s University philosophy reading group for their insightful questions and comments, and especially Christine Sypnowich for all her help with organizing my visit to Queen’s. I am also grateful to Will Bosworth, Keith Dowding, and Alex Oprea for written comments and discussion.
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Moen, L.J.K. Eliminating Terms of Confusion: Resolving the Liberal–Republican Dispute. J Ethics 26, 247–271 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10892-021-09370-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10892-021-09370-6