Friday, December 17, 2021

A REPLY TO A COMMENT

Yesterday, Markus Rutsche posted a thoughtful response to one of my remarks about Rawls, and I think it calls for something in the form of an extended reply. Here is what he wrote:

 

“In my view, too much is missed about what is good and interesting in Rawls when one focuses too much on the contractualist argument from the original position. The more Hegelian – that is to say, the socially and historically conscious – Rawls that comes to light especially (but not only) in his later writings, in my view, is Rawls at his very best.”

This is a perfect example of something about which I have often written, namely the fact that the writings of any interesting philosopher are capable of many alternative and not necessarily contradictory interpretations, determined by the philosophical interests and concerns of the person offering the interpretation. I am interested in the deep structure of arguments as they are found beneath the surface of powerful philosophical texts. That is what I was searching for in my very first book, which was devoted to an interpretation of the first half of the Critique of Pure Reason.  It is what motivated me in my second book on Kant, The Autonomy of Reason. It is also what guided me in my work on the writings of Karl Marx.

 

I first encountered Rawls’s thought in his early journal article “Justice As Fairness.” What I found interesting was Rawls’s attempt to overcome the conflict between the two dominant schools of moral philosophy in his day – Utilitarianism and Intuitionism – by reviving the nearly dormant tradition of the social contract and combining it in an imaginative way with the new discipline of Game Theory. The book I wrote criticizing Rawls – Understanding Rawls – focused entirely on that argument as it came to be revised, first in another article – “Distributive Justice” – and then in his major work A Theory of Justice.

 

I was not much interested in the extraordinary elaborations with which Rawls fleshed out his rather spare argument. Indeed, in private conversations and more recently in blog posts but not in print, I took to referring to those elaborations as the philosophical equivalent of what in the world of movies is called a “fat suit,” which is to say the all – over costume and makeup that an actor wears to look fat before the cameras.

 

Needless to say, I am in a very small minority in this regard. I think it is fair to say that the entire intellectual world shares Markus Rutsche’s interest in what he calls the “socially and historically conscious Rawls.”  That is fine with me. I am quite used to being in the minority on philosophical as well as political matters. All my life I have pursued the ideas that attract me with little or no concern for their popularity, and since a blog is, after all a web log, which is to say a jotting down of one’s personal thoughts, I have no hesitation about continuing in that fashion in my declining years.

 

But fair is fair. I suspect the intellectual world agrees with Dr. Rutsche (who, by the bye) wrote his doctoral dissertation on Rawls.

 

 

5 comments:

  1. Rawls’ appeal to me is more political than philosophical, more real-world than abstract. A few years ago I was in a discussion group on current events. At the time a proposed rent control law was a big local issue. When someone in the group offered his solution, another responded that no land-lord (or tenant, I forget which) would ever agree to that.

    I then asked, “But what would they do if they didn’t know whether they were or would be a land-lord or a tenant?” Jaws dropped; there was silence until someone remarked that in fact we do know where our interest lies.

    That’s true, I had to concede, but as a thought experiment—as a version of parent admonishing an errant child who had injured playmate, “how would you feel if someone did that to you?”—wouldn’t it be a good thing if we routinely applied the veil of ignorance test to questions of public policy?

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  2. If you write as you do above in your "declining years", your mental acuity must have been fearsome in your ascending years.

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  3. Dear Professor Wolff,

    I am thrilled – this is not an exaggeration – that you honoured my comment with such an extensive response, and a very kind one at that (or so I take it).

    If not with the exegetical issues, as it were, I couldn’t agree more with the sentiment of what you say about the value and possible fruitfulness of there being multiple readings of a philosophical text; those being determined in part – though for sure not entirely – by what one brings to the table as an interpreter.

    I will just add that I believe this is the first time I’ve heard anyone suggest that my attitudes about Rawls are situated fairly within the mainstream. Quite frankly, I don’t believe this to be the case at all. But then perhaps it’s a natural thing to think of our intellectual heroes (I struggle to think of a better word) as always somehow under siege, or on their way out, either way: in need of defense.

    May I use your wonderful, perhaps somewhat tongue-in-cheek line „I suspect the intellectual world agrees with Dr. Rutsche“ as a blurb if I should ever decide to turn my dissertation into a book?

    Sincerely yours,
    Markus Rutsche

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  4. Of course! As the old saying has it, just spell my name correctly.

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  5. I spent 6 yrs. as a graduate student studying philosophy at the University of Kentucky. Took courses in political philosophy, political theory, and ethical theory. The work of Rawls was never mentioned. Seems like most of my professors were teaching ancient philosophy, early modern philosophy, and German idealism. Too many ideas and not enough time!

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