{"id":27335,"date":"2017-12-15T15:47:28","date_gmt":"2017-12-15T14:47:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/libmod.de\/?p=27335"},"modified":"2020-03-28T02:48:12","modified_gmt":"2020-03-28T01:48:12","slug":"hegel-rawls-and-mill-on-the-grounds-of-a-modern-liberalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/libmod.de\/en\/hegel-rawls-and-mill-on-the-grounds-of-a-modern-liberalism\/","title":{"rendered":"Hegel, Rawls and Mill: On the Grounds of a Modern Liberalism"},"content":{"rendered":"

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There can be no liberal modernity without social justice, which is why nothing can surpass the social democ\u00adratic idea, which has been margin\u00adalized in the current SPD. Anyone, who is looking for the founda\u00adtions of modern liber\u00adalism and hence a social liber\u00adalism, will inevitably find the work of the philosopher John Rawls.<\/h2>\n

<\/p>\n

In his prolific academic career, John Rawls (1921\u20132002) put forth a compre\u00adhensive theory of social justice, a theory of political liber\u00adalism that is not condensed along possessive individ\u00adu\u00adalist lines, a supremely modern theory of inter\u00adna\u00adtional law and a history of moral philosophy. His major work, A Theory of Justice<\/em>, published in English in 1971 and before too long in German as well (1975), is based on a critique of utili\u00adtar\u00adi\u00adanism and what initially appears to be an aston\u00adishing basic idea. Contra\u00addicting all those who believe that moral and just action consists in striving to promote the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people and thus can, at least for a time, neglect the welfare and rights of minorities, Rawls showed that policies based on this belief cannot lead to just outcomes worthy of that desig\u00adnation. The only just social order is one arrived at under fair condi\u00adtions, i.e., under condi\u00adtions acceptable to all of those who might be affected. Since such condi\u00adtions can never exist in real life, philosophy finds itself faced with the task of construing a fictive \u201coriginal position\u201d, an existence under the \u201cveil of ignorance\u201d, where people have life plans and intuitions about justice but are ignorant of their place in society: their age, their sex, income level and assets, their rung on the social ladder. Under these condi\u00adtions, reasonable people who are as inter\u00adested in their own interests as they are in the welfare of their fellow human beings would choose a basic order that rests on two principles of justice:<\/p>\n

First: Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others.<\/p>\n

Second: Social and economic inequal\u00adities are to be arranged so that they are both (a) reasonably expected to be to everyone\u2019s advantage, and (b) attached to positions and offices open to all.
\n(p. 60)<\/p>\n

Rawls went on to concretise the second principle by stating that that social and economic inequal\u00adities should always also be arranged in such a way that they always provide the best possible prospects to the least advan\u00adtaged members of society. Accord\u00adingly, any distri\u00adb\u00adution policy that cannot be guaranteed to improve the situation of the poorest of the poor is unacceptable. It must be said that, to ground these osten\u00adsibly simple principles, Rawls made astute use of cutting edge tools from mathe\u00admatical game and decision theory, thus effec\u00adtively disqual\u00adi\u00adfying them as a topic of dinner-table conversation.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, Rawls is never abstract. A Theory of Justice<\/em> has sections on forms and the legit\u00adimacy of civil disobe\u00addience, as well as thoughts about respect and shame, and also on the unity of the self. For the current debate, not least with respect to ecological topics and the issue of debt limits, Rawls\u2019s thoughts on inter\u00adgen\u00ader\u00ada\u00adtional justice ought to be of partic\u00adu\u00adlarly piquant relevance: he addresses this issue under the heading the \u201cjust savings principle\u201d and places it under the primacy of the principles of justice; thus, political recog\u00adnition of this principle leads to measures intended to raise the standard of life of the least advan\u00adtaged in subse\u00adquent generations.<\/p>\n

With this, talk of inter\u00adgen\u00ader\u00ada\u00adtional justice, a concept more often invoked than under\u00adstood, gains a precise meaning: when arguing for the interests of future gener\u00ada\u00adtions, one can only address the general founda\u00adtions of their coexis\u00adtence, such as the environment and education. It does not contradict the principle of justice at all to burden high private income that can be expected in the future by way of loans today and channel it to public benefit purposes.<\/p>\n

Admit\u00adtedly, very early on, Rawls theory of social justice was erroneously under\u00adstood as a compre\u00adhensive, i.e. no longer debatable, theory of liberal democracy, a misun\u00adder\u00adstanding that he corrects in unambiguous terms in writings on political liber\u00adalism published in the early 1990s. There, he says that political liber\u00adalism worthy of the name is possible when the citizens of democ\u00adratic states, holding a plurality of reasonable doctrines of political liberty and equality, agree to accept the histor\u00adi\u00adcally solid\u00adified consensus on univer\u00adsalist legal and consti\u00adtu\u00adtional principles, giving up any univer\u00adsalist claims to ultimate truth.<\/p>\n

None of this can be said to apply to the case of the emerging global political community, with its individual states under nonde\u00admo\u00adc\u00adratic rule. Rawls\u2019s studies on the \u201claw of peoples\u201d therefore distin\u00adguish between an ideal theory and a nonideal, realistic theory of inter\u00adna\u00adtional law, which contains criteria for the assessment of undemo\u00adc\u00adratic states and the possible legit\u00adimacy of wars, under which consid\u00ader\u00adation of human rights, partic\u00adu\u00adlarly those of the citizens on undemo\u00adc\u00adratic states, is assigned particular significance.<\/p>\n

Philosophy \u2013 so Hegel famously wrote \u2013 \u201cis its own time compre\u00adhended in thoughts\u201d (p. 21 in H.B. Nisbet\u2019s trans\u00adlation). Unlike many analytic philoso\u00adphers, Rawls\u2019s stance towards Hegel was not one of rejection:<\/p>\n

\u201cA Theory of Justice<\/em>\u201d, he writes in his Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy<\/em>, \u201cfollows Hegel in this respect when it takes the basic structure of society as the first<\/em> subject of justice. People start as rooted in society and the first principles of justice they select are to apply to the basic structure. The concepts of person and society fit together; each requires the other and neither stands alone\u201d (p. 366).<\/p>\n

Finally, let us not forget John Stuart Mill (1806\u20131873), who won recog\u00adnition as a theorist in the field of democracy and pluralism. It is still far too little known that Mill \u2013 though only the briefest reference to this can be made here \u2013 was, strictly speaking, a feminist and a socialist, despite his reluc\u00adtance to be described as such. After all, looking back over his life in the seventh chapter of his Autobi\u00adog\u00adraphy<\/em> (a German trans\u00adlation of which is also available), Mill wrote:<\/p>\n

Our ideal of ultimate improvement went far beyond Democracy, and would class us decidedly under the general desig\u00adnation of Socialists. While we repudiated with the greatest energy that tyranny of society over the individual which most Social\u00adistic systems are supposed to involve, we yet looked forward to a time when society will no longer be divided into the idle and the indus\u00adtrious; when the rule that they who do not work shall not eat, will be applied not to paupers only, but impar\u00adtially to all; when the division of the produce of labour, instead of depending, as in so great a degree it now does, on the accident of birth, will be made by concert, on an acknowl\u00adedged principle of justice; and when it will no longer either be, or be thought to be, impos\u00adsible for human beings to exert themselves stren\u00adu\u00adously in procuring benefits which are not to be exclu\u00adsively their own, but to be shared with the society they belong to.<\/p>\n

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