Germans outplayed by Ahmadinejad in their own Spiegel/Mirror
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—– Original Message —–
From: “Jan Straathof”
> >Is Rawls proposing overlapping consensus merely as a strategy and means,
> >or
>>is he proposing this as a philosophical analysis of certain moral
>>phenomena
>>themselves? If the latter (as I very strongly suspect, given his
>>philosophical thrust), then *any* overlapping consensus would constitute a
>>moral consensus. The relativistic implications of that would be clear.
>
> Anthony, indeed it is interesting where to place Rawls. I think of him
> more as a political therapeut and less as a philospher, if i may be so
> indulgent. I don’t find his ideas particulary origional, the concept of
> justice as fairness is Aristotlean, the hypothetical Social Contract is
> borrowed from Locke and Rousseau, and his ideas of the universality
> of rationality, freedom and equality are from Kant. What i like about
> Rawls are his ideas and proposals for the advancement of delibarative
> democracy, i.e. his thought experiment of the ‘veil of ignorance’, the
> principles of justice, the notion of overlapping consensus, education
> of the ‘citoyen’, the development of public reason and the society as
> a ’social union of social unions’. These are all pratical ideas and their
> impetus is more procedural, aimed at political problem solving.
>
>>That’s still a bit too ambiguous - by that does he mean that overlapping
>>consensus *constitutes* a moral universal (i.e., the search for
>>overlapping
>>consensus is precisely the search for a moral universal)? Again, the
>>relativistic implications of that would be clear.
>
> I’m not sure what relativistic implications you have in mind here, do you
> mean that Rawls is an epistemic relativist ? If so, i agree, yet epistemic
> relativism only claims that all human knowledge is fallible and every
> respectable philosopher and scientist will endorse this nowadays. But if
> you mean that Rawls is a moral relativist in the sense that he doubts the
> basic values of rationality, freedom and equality, then i don’t think you
> are right.
Like many (if not most) scientists, Rawls fails to see the necessary
connection between epistemic relativism and total moral relativism. I agree
that Rawls himself celebrates the basic values you mention, but it’s
difficult to see any basis for that given the ultimate consequences of his
epistemic relativism. If overlapping consensus is not only a means but is
meant to be an explication of the actual constitution of the phenomenon of
moral universality, then *any* overlapping consensus would then by
definition be morally upright.
