Abstract
The so-called liberal-communitarian debate in the 1980s was one of the most remarkable debates in Anglo-American political philosophy. While John Rawls was the most well-known thinker from the liberal camp, it can be said that Michael J. Sandel best represented the communitarian critique of Rawls' political theory. Nevertheless, for many scholars, especially liberal political theorists, Sandel's criticism of Rawls is misleading in many aspects due to his misunderstanding of Rawls' theory. This paper wants to reexamine this allegation against Sandel by dealing with three objections against Sandel's criticism of Rawls claiming that Sandel misreads and misunderstands Rawls. The sociology objection interprets Sandel as saying that Rawls' conception of the person reflects a sociological account of humans. The metaphysics objection interprets Sandel as saying that Rawls' conception of the person explains a metaphysical account of humans. The private morality objection interprets Sandel as saying that Rawls' conception of the person reflects a moral ideal of humans. This paper offer a careful rereading of Sandel, and argues that he does not misread or misunderstand Rawls as his critics claim. Therefore, these three objections are misleading.
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Notes
Sandel cites from Rawls (1971: 104).
This does not mean that Sandel criticizes distributive justice by saying that since our natural, social, and cultural attributes define our identity, it is unjust to redistribute our natural and social attributes (e.g., social opportunities, natural talents, resources, inheritances, etc.). In fact, Sandel justifies Rawls' distributive justice. He just argues that his difference principle needs to view natural and social assets as a common asset, which is impossible if we are all perceived as a free and independent self (even in the original position). I agree with Taylor (1989: 162) that Sandel's point is not to oppose Rawlsian distributive justice, but to suggest that his distributive justice could be sustained only in a society where people have a strong sense of community.
Some of my argument in this section is based on my discussion in my PhD Thesis (Youngmevittaya, 2021, Ch.4).
For instance, Rawls (1971: 528) writes that “human beings have a desire to express their nature as free and equal moral persons, and this they do most adequately by acting from the principles that they would acknowledge in the original position. When all strive to comply with these principles and each succeeds, then individually and collectively their nature as moral persons is most fully realized, and with it their individual and collective good.”.
For example, Rawls (1971: 574) writes that “the desire to express our nature as a free and equal rational being can be fulfilled only by acting on the principles of right and justice as having first priority,” and that “in order to realize our nature we have no alternative but to plan to preserve our sense of justice as governing our other aims.”.
As Rawls (1971: 462) writes that “the general facts of moral psychology affect the choice of principles in the original position.” Or as Dworkin (1973: 508) argues that “the original position is therefore a schematic representation of a particular mental process of at least some, and perhaps most, human beings.”.
I need to put “partially” here because Rawls' description of the hypothetical person does not reflect the whole picture of human nature (e.g., while he assumes that the hypothetical person is disinterested, he does not claim that this is what the actual person always does or should do); instead, he claims that because a sense of justice is inherent in our human nature, it is reasonable to assume that the hypothetical person has a sense of justice. And by saying that it has a sense of justice, he does not mean that people must only have a sense of justice while rejecting other inclinations (e.g., religious duties); instead, he (1971: 575) means that we must always realize a sense of justice as our fundamental human nature, and given this, we are free to pursue any other inclinations that we might think essential to our human nature.
In Theory, Rawls (1971: 503) explicitly argues that his principles of justice are more stable than utilitarianism because they better correspond to the theory of evolution, which is “the outcome of natural selection; the capacity for a sense of justice and the moral feelings is an adaption of mankind to its place in nature.” But in Political Liberalism, Rawls (2005: 86–88) rejects an appeal to “the science of human nature” and “natural selection.”.
I guess that one of the reasons why Sandel's passage (1982: 14) could be misunderstood is because of his choice of word, that is, he writes that “we cannot regard ourselves” rather than “we should not regard ourselves.” If he used “should not” instead, I believe that this would make it easier to understand that he means to say that we should not regard ourselves as the deontological self (even in the public sphere) because it is unjust. But as he uses “cannot,” this causes a confusion as saying that one is incapable of being the deontological person. I think that this is the language problem; sometimes we may use “can” and “should” interchangeably. For example, I may say that since killing people is wrong, I cannot do so. It does not mean that I am incapable of killing people, but that I cannot do so because it is unjust. Or I may say that since I believe that my religious duty is indispensable to me, I cannot think of myself as a free and independent person even only in the public sphere. Or as Laborde (2017: 1) asks: “Can a liberal state establish a particular religion in its laws and institutions? Can state officials appeal to religious convictions in justifying laws? Can majority religious symbols be displayed in the public sphere? Can churches have male-only clergy? Can faith-based business deny services to LGBTQ citizens?” Laborde does not ask whether the state or churches are capable of doing these but whether they should do it.
I will discuss this point in the next section.
Kant's moral philosophy can be found in Kant (2019).
I agree with Mulhall and Swift (1993: 654–55) on this point: they criticize Caney for failing to see a significant difference between comprehensive and deontological liberalism. Although Caney (1993: 659–60) replies that he never claimed that Rawls' liberalism is similar to other liberals (like Mill, Dworkin, Kymlicka, etc.), I find his reply difficult to accept because he has cited some liberals, whom Sandel clearly states that are not his targets, to criticize Sandel's criticism of Rawls and Kant. For example, Caney (1992: 277) writes that “many liberals explicitly endorse the embeddedness thesis. John Stuart Mill, for example, makes it clear that persons are embedded in communities.” Showing that a comprehensive liberal like Mill could meet Sandel's argument is not equivalent to showing that a deontological liberal like Rawls could meet Sandel's argument.
Sandel cites from Kant (1970).
Sandel's claim that an encumbered self is constituted by community in a way that they cannot even choose their own communal claims, but they can only reflect them is controversial. Many scholars (e.g., Caney, 1992; Forst, 2002; Kymlicka, 1988, 1989b, 2002, etc.) use this claim as a proof that Sandel is inconsistent. On the one hand, they argue, Sandel claims that people cannot choose their ends, but on the other, Sandel sometimes allows people to choose (or revise) their ends. In Kymlicka (1988: 192; 1989b: 55)'s term, Sandel fails to depart from liberalism as he claims because he still allows people to revise their ends. In Caney (1992: 275–76)'s term, Sandel is very ambiguous between what he calls “the partially embedded thesis” and “the wholly embedded thesis.” I have dealt with this allegation elsewhere (Youngmevittaya, 2019).
The “comprehensive identity,” in contrast to the political identity, refers to how people could view themselves in reality, e.g., a national, religious, familial, communal identity. It is very important to note that even an autonomous identity could be the comprehensive identity insofar as someone actually views themselves that way in reality, e.g., in their daily life, they pursue individualistic values and do not take any moral ties related to their history, nation, and community at all. According to Rawls, people are free to choose their preferred comprehensive identity. Whether people would feel obliged to moral duty related to their nation, family, community, and so on, totally depends on them. As a free and independent self, they are free to choose for themselves insofar as they do not harm others. In this sense, I would claim, Rawls' theory cannot accommodate Sandel's conception of the encumbered self, properly understood.
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Youngmevittaya, W. Does Sandel Misunderstand Rawls?. Philosophia 51, 1883–1905 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-023-00650-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-023-00650-z