Good morning, readers! Happy Friday!
For those interested in political philosophy, John Rawls (at left) is one of the most important figures of the late 20th century. Justice as Fairness, A Theory of Justice, The Law of Peoples, and Political Liberalism are important texts for students of political philosophy. For those readers unfamiliar with Rawls’ work, Leif Weinar provides an excellent overview of Rawls’ work in the heading to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on Rawls:
[Rawls] was an American political philosopher in the liberal tradition. His theory of justice as fairness envisions a society of free citizens holding equal basic rights cooperating within an egalitarian economic system. His account of political liberalism addresses the legitimate use of political power in a democracy, aiming to show how enduring unity may be achieved despite the diversity of worldviews that free institutions allow. His writings on the law of peoples extend these theories to liberal foreign policy, with the goal of imagining how a peaceful and tolerant international order might be possible.
Likewise, Robert Nozick (at right) is also of interest for contemporary students of political philosophy. (For those readers who do not know, Rawls and Nozick were colleagues here in the philosophy department at Harvard.) Nozick’s book, Anarchy, State, and Utopia is a libertarian response to Rawls’ A Theory of Justice. Readers interested in learning more might want to read Peter Vallentyne’s entry on libertarianism in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
From the little that I have read, and through conversations I’ve had here with members of the department over the last few years, Rawls and Nozick are usually viewed as having two different approaches to political philosophy. So, when I was skimming through Bookforum.com a few days ago, this article by David Lewis Schaefer, comparing Rawls’ and Nozick’s political philosophy caught my attention. Schaefer makes the claim that Rawls and Nozick do not differ as much as they are sometimes made out to differ. In fact, Schaefer claims, they are similar in many respects.
I have not read much by either Rawls or Nozick, so I am in no position to judge the accuracy of Schaefer’s claims. What do my readers who are better versed in these matters think of Schaefer’s claims?
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