Reconstructing Rawls: A utilitarian critique of John Rawls's A Theory of Justice
Sam Fremantle
My thesis argues that Rawls’s attempt to discredit utilitarianism as a viable theory of justice was ultimately unsuccessful. I shall follow the example of Robert Paul Wolff’s 1977 book Understanding Rawls in treating A Theory of Justice ‘not as a single piece of philosophical argument to be tested and accepted or rejected whole, but as a complex, many-layered record of at least twenty years of philosophical growth and development’. Paying close attention to the wording of different variants of Rawls’s arguments as they developed over the years, I shall reconstruct my own argument using the most coherent parts of Rawls’s arguments, along with contributions from various commentators. This will uphold the classical principle of utility, as a principle of distributive justice that is entirely suited to Rawls’s conception of society as a cooperative venture for mutual advantage, with that conception’s commitment to conceiving obligations of justice as essentially obligations of reciprocity. In doing so, I hope to show that the case against utilitarianism is unproven as is the case that justice requires the recognition of inviolable rights. My argument should also explain Rawls’s continued modification of his arguments as largely due to his failure to successfully refute utilitarianism.
Sam Fremantle
My thesis argues that Rawls’s attempt to discredit utilitarianism as a viable theory of justice was ultimately unsuccessful. I shall follow the example of Robert Paul Wolff’s 1977 book Understanding Rawls in treating A Theory of Justice ‘not as a single piece of philosophical argument to be tested and accepted or rejected whole, but as a complex, many-layered record of at least twenty years of philosophical growth and development’. Paying close attention to the wording of different variants of Rawls’s arguments as they developed over the years, I shall reconstruct my own argument using the most coherent parts of Rawls’s arguments, along with contributions from various commentators. This will uphold the classical principle of utility, as a principle of distributive justice that is entirely suited to Rawls’s conception of society as a cooperative venture for mutual advantage, with that conception’s commitment to conceiving obligations of justice as essentially obligations of reciprocity. In doing so, I hope to show that the case against utilitarianism is unproven as is the case that justice requires the recognition of inviolable rights. My argument should also explain Rawls’s continued modification of his arguments as largely due to his failure to successfully refute utilitarianism.
‘The Importance of Education in Plato’s Philosophy’
Adrian Brockless
Abstract: Plato’s concern with education saturates much of his work - most notably in his Republic in which it was required that future rulers follow a rigorous and highly specific curriculum. Less well discussed is the central importance of his conception of education to his philosophy, beyond its instrumental role in the creation of a just state.
It is this lesser discussed conception of education which I intend to talk about; it is a conception that is intertwined with Socrates’ adage that the unexamined life is not worth living (better translated, I believe, as “the unexamined life is unworthy of a human being”) and his well-known suspicion of oratory. Throughout Plato’s early and middle period dialogues, these two features not only shed light on distinctions between education, training, and authentic and inauthentic forms of study of academic disciplines, they also serve to show that true education is about much more than gaining employment or a better paid job.
In this respect, I will conclude by arguing that Plato’s philosophy is more important than ever in a Western culture increasingly disposed to see education as a commodity, whose value can be determined by what can be done with it in terms of social prestige, employment and economic welfare, rather than what it can make of a life in terms of nurturing an unconditional love of the world.
Adrian Brockless
Abstract: Plato’s concern with education saturates much of his work - most notably in his Republic in which it was required that future rulers follow a rigorous and highly specific curriculum. Less well discussed is the central importance of his conception of education to his philosophy, beyond its instrumental role in the creation of a just state.
It is this lesser discussed conception of education which I intend to talk about; it is a conception that is intertwined with Socrates’ adage that the unexamined life is not worth living (better translated, I believe, as “the unexamined life is unworthy of a human being”) and his well-known suspicion of oratory. Throughout Plato’s early and middle period dialogues, these two features not only shed light on distinctions between education, training, and authentic and inauthentic forms of study of academic disciplines, they also serve to show that true education is about much more than gaining employment or a better paid job.
In this respect, I will conclude by arguing that Plato’s philosophy is more important than ever in a Western culture increasingly disposed to see education as a commodity, whose value can be determined by what can be done with it in terms of social prestige, employment and economic welfare, rather than what it can make of a life in terms of nurturing an unconditional love of the world.
There is a youtube video of Professor Ken Gemes giving a talk on 'Nihilism and the Death of God' below