POLITICAL LIBERALISM IS FLAWED

POLITICAL LIBERALISM IS FLAWED

1. POLITICAL LIBERALISM CANNOT ACHIEVE POLITICAL CONSENSUS

Douglas G. Smith, Lawyer, J.D. Northwestern School of Law, SAN DIEGO LAW REVIEW, Fall, 1997, p. 1594

Similarly, Steven Smith has articulated the following criticism of a criterion of neutrality: “The common denominator argument is fraudulent. Suppose Dad and Daughter are discussing what to have for dinner. Daughter proposes: "Let's just have dessert." Dad suggests that it would be better to have a full meal, with salad, meat, fruit, cooked vegetables, and then dessert. Daughter responds: "Obviously, Dad, we disagree about a lot of things. But there is one thing we agree on; we both want dessert. Clearly the fair and democratic solution is to accept what we agree on. So let's just have dessert." Although he might admire Daughter's cleverness, Dad is not likely to be taken in by this common denominator ploy. The argument that secular public discourse provides a common denominator that all citizens share is comparably clever - and equally unpersuasive.”

Douglas G. Smith, Lawyer, J.D. Northwestern School of Law, SAN DIEGO LAW REVIEW, Fall, 1997, pp. 1594-5.

Furthermore, other commentators have observed that the fact that certain grounds of belief are not "publicly accessible" or are "incommensurable" with other individuals' beliefs is not enough to necessitate a criterion of neutrality in public justification and choice. As Professor Gardbaum has noted: “Incommensurability does not generally appear to require political neutrality.... Conflicts between competing values often arise that have no one rational outcome, and yet the state is not required to remain neutral among them. For example, the following pairs all represent political and economic values or goals about whose priority reasonable people can disagree: economic growth and conservation of natural resources, specialization and self-sufficiency, current and future consumption, expenditure on space exploration and welfare programs. Yet incommensurability does not compel state neutrality in these instances. To the contrary, the competition between these values and goals constitutes the very substance of politics.”
3. RAWLS’S POLITICAL LIBERALISM PRIVILEGES SOME COMPREHENSIVE BELIEFS

Douglas G. Smith, Lawyer, J.D. Northwestern School of Law, SAN DIEGO LAW REVIEW, Fall, 1997, pp. 1595-6.

According to Rawls, his version of political liberalism is not neutral in the sense that it does not result in encouraging certain ways of life while discouraging others. The framework of society is such that no particular comprehensive doctrine is privileged. According to Rawls, this difference distinguishes his version of political liberalism from what he terms "comprehensive liberalism." However, Rawls's own theory is open to the charge that it represents just another comprehensive doctrine - that his political values merely constitute some overarching view of political good - or that his theory at least privileges certain comprehensive doctrines that significantly overlap with his set of political values. The problem is that Rawls does not flesh out the difference between his political values and the comprehensive moral, religious, and philosophical values that he would exclude from public justification and choice. How can Rawls claim that the set of political values does not form just another comprehensive doctrine, or at least privilege certain comprehensive doctrines? Because it tends to privilege certain comprehensive doctrines, Rawls's theory may be vulnerable to the attacks on neutrality to which comprehensive liberalism is subject.

RAWLSIAN LIBERALISM IS BAD FOR INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

1. RAWLS’S LIBERALISM PRECLUDES CONDEMNATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS

Thomas W. Pogge, professor of philosophy at Columbia University, THE PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY, April 2001, p. 247.

Is this ‘liberalism for liberals, cannibalism for cannibals,’ as Martin Hollis famously quipped? Why should we liberals accord equal respect to those who run a decent hierarchical regime abroad, if we do not accord equal respect to those who want to run such a regime in the USA or UK? Conversely, if liberal and decent hierarchical societies really are morally on an equal footing, then should not our move from a liberal to a decent regime be just as acceptable as our previous opposite move was, or as Iran’s now would be? These questions raise the deeper issue of whether Rawls’ moral accommodation of decent societies is contingent on historical facts. This issue is important, because such an accommodation also has moral costs. By accepting an account that makes the interests of peoples morally fundamental, liberals compromise their conviction that social institutions should be assessed by appeal to the interests of individuals (normative individualism), and by appeal to their freedom and fundamental equality in particular.

Thomas W. Pogge, professor of philosophy at Columbia University, THE PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY, April 2001, p. 248.

The latter answer is problematic too, because Rawls makes no effort to show that his concept of a people reflects general and entrenched facts in the contemporary world. Many borders in Africa, Latin America and Asia are colonial constructs which lump diverse communities together (Indonesia) while splitting others over two or more states (Kurds). In Europe, borders are rapidly losing practical significance, so that the notion of a people seems increasingly ill fitted to the old groups (the Dutch and the Danes) and ill fitted also to the new and still expanding population of the European Union. In the midst of globalization, we can easily imagine a broadening of this trend, leading to a world in which most borders have little political and practical significance or do not correlate with “separate languages, religions and cultures.”
4. RAWLS’S THOUGHT IGNORES THE INJUSTICES OF GLOBAL CAPITALISM

Thomas W. Pogge, professor of philosophy at Columbia University, THE PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY, April 2001, p. 253.

Rawls utopia is flawed, then, by excluding the concern to maintain global background justice, and by excluding any preference for structuring the global economy so that it moderates inequalities and enables especially the economically weakest societies to grow. This flaw also mars the book’s implicit judgment of our world, where, in the midst of plenty, a third of all human deaths are due to malnutrition and preventable diseases. Rawls’ account misleads us into perceiving our present moral failure as a case of insufficient assistance to the poor, when it really consists in the imposition upon them of a skewed global order that obstructs and hampers their development.