Abstract
In this chapter, I clarify the debate between Rawls and his communitarian critics. I discuss Charles Taylor’s account of the liberal/communitarian debate. I explain in detail Michael Sandel’s argument that Rawls’s commitment to the priority of the right over the good commits him to a conception of persons as “unencumbered selves.” Sandel argues that Rawls is committed to a Kantian conception of persons, which is a kind of “abstract individualism.” This conception of persons, Sandel and Taylor argue, makes trouble for Rawls because it is inconsistent with the fact that persons are “socially constituted.” These arguments, however, fail fully to explain the conception of persons as “socially constituted.” Because Sandel and Taylor do not clearly spell out their objections, this chapter clarifies these arguments. It sets out Sandel’s metaphysical objections explicitly. It also clarifies the “normative objections,” which are supposed to undermine the justificatory role played by Rawls’s political conception of the person. Clarifying these objections reveals the real point of contention between communitarians and Rawls. I suggest that what is at issue is not really Rawls’s political conception of the person, but whether or not the state should promote a good and how to understand the good that the state should promote.
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- 1.
Sandel (1989, p. 159).
- 2.
Ibid.
- 3.
Ibid.
- 4.
Ibid.
- 5.
While Taylor seems to think that these two claims are either accepted or rejected together, there are plausible views that affirm one claim and deny the other. For example, a coherent view could be that (a) is true, but (b) is false. I thank David Copp for discussion on this point.
- 6.
Ibid.
- 7.
Ibid., pp. 159–160.
- 8.
Ibid., p. 160.
- 9.
Ibid., p. 161.
- 10.
Ibid., p. 160.
- 11.
Ibid.
- 12.
Ibid., pp. 160–161.
- 13.
Ibid., p. 164
- 14.
Ibid.
- 15.
This “foundational priority” is similar to what I called “foundational neutrality” in Chap. 1 (p. 4).
- 16.
Sandel (1998, p. 2)
- 17.
Hall (1994, p. 89) .
- 18.
Sandel (1998, p. 1) .
- 19.
Ibid., p. 2.
- 20.
Ibid., quoting Mill (1973, p. 465) .
- 21.
Ibid., p. 6.
- 22.
Mulhall and Swift (1996, p. 46) .
- 23.
Care (1985, p. 460) .
- 24.
Hall (1994, p. 75)
- 25.
Mulhall and Swift (1996, p. 45) .
- 26.
Ibid., pp. 78–79.
- 27.
Gutmann (1985, p. 311, n. 14) .
- 28.
Sandel (1998, p. 6) .
- 29.
Ibid.
- 30.
Ibid., emphasis mine.
- 31.
Ibid., p. 7.
- 32.
Larmore (1987, p. 120) .
- 33.
Sandel (1998, pp. 6–7) .
- 34.
Sandel (1984, p. 86) .
- 35.
Ibid., p. 86.
- 36.
I am bracketing the issue of what it is for a feature to be “relevant.” By saying a feature is “relevant,” I simply mean that the feature meets whatever criteria has been set forth for it to be used in one’s deliberations about principles to govern social arrangements. In fact, it is precisely what this relevance comes to that is at issue between Sandel and Rawls in this argument. For this reason, I use the term “relevant” in this vague way in order to demonstrate the misunderstanding between the two.
- 37.
Sandel (1984, p. 94)
- 38.
Mulhall and Swift (1996, p. 55) .
- 39.
Kymlicka (1989, p. 36) .
- 40.
Ibid., p. 40.
- 41.
Ibid., p. 22.
- 42.
Ibid., p. 75.
- 43.
Ibid., p. 76.
- 44.
Ibid.
- 45.
Ibid., p. 77.
- 46.
Ibid., p. 33.
- 47.
Ibid., p. 35.
- 48.
Kraut (1999, p. 317) .
- 49.
Ibid., p. 318.
- 50.
Kymlicka (1988, p. 185) .
- 51.
Ibid., p. 2.
- 52.
Care (1985, p. 465) .
- 53.
- 54.
Ibid.
- 55.
Carse (1994, p. 184) .
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Campbell, C. (2014). Clarification of the Liberal/Communitarian Debate and Metaphysical Objections to Rawls’s Conception of the Person. In: Persons, Identity, and Political Theory. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7917-4_3
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