John Rawls is dead

John Rawls, influential political philosopher, dead at 81: Author of "A Theory of Justice" was James Bryant Conant University Professor Emeritus By Ken Gewertz Gazette Staff

John Rawls, the James Bryant Conant University Professor Emeritus, whose 1971 book, "A Theory of Justice" argued persuasively for a political philosophy based on equality and individual rights, died Sunday (Nov. 24) at the age of 81.

Rawls is considered by many to be the most important political philosopher of the second half of the 20th century and a powerful advocate of the liberal perspective. His work continues to be a major influence in the fields of ethics, law, political science, and economics, and has been translated into 27 languages.

Harvard University President Lawrence H. Summers said, "I am deeply saddened by the death of John Rawls. He combined profound wisdom with equally profound humanity. Few if any modern philosophers have had as decisive an impact on how we think about justice. Scholars in many different fields will continue to learn from him for generations to come."

Charles Fried, the Beneficial Professor of Law at Harvard, said of Rawls, "He was the dominant figure in political and moral philosophy in the second half of the 20th century. He developed an approach to the questions of moral and political philosophy which was substantive and analytic at the same time, proposing concrete answers to many questions."

In "A Theory of Justice," Rawls sets forth the proposition that "Each person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override. Therefore, in a just society the rights secured by justice are not subject to political bargaining or to the calculus of social interests."

Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Rawls attended the Kent School in Kent, Conn., and earned a B.A. degree from Princeton in 1943. From 1943 to 1945 he served in New Guinea, the Philippines, and Japan as an enlisted man in the U.S. infantry, later describing his military career as "singularly undistinguished." He returned to Princeton in 1946 to take up graduate studies, receiving his Ph.D. in philosophy in 1950.

Before joining the Harvard Philosophy Department in 1962, he was an instructor at Princeton (1950-52), assistant and associate professor of philosophy at Cornell (1953-59), and professor of philosophy at M.I.T. (1960-62). He was appointed the Conant University Professor at Harvard in 1979.

University professors hold Harvard's highest professorial posts. These special endowed positions were established in 1935 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College for "individuals of distinction ... working on the frontiers of knowledge, and in such a way as to cross the conventional boundaries of the specialties."

In addition to "A Theory of Justice" (nominated for a National Book Award), his publications include "Political Liberalism" (1993), "The Law of Peoples" (1999), "Collected Papers" (1999), "Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy" (2000), and "Justice as Fairness: A Restatement" (2001).

He was a member of the American Philosophical Association (president, 1974), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association of Political and Legal Philosophy (president, 1970-72), the American Philosophical Society, the British Academy, and the Norwegian Academy of Sciences. In 1999, he received the National Humanities Medal from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Rawls died of heart failure at his home in Lexington, Mass. He had suffered a series of debilitating strokes that eventually left him unable to work. He leaves his wife, Margaret Warfield Fox Rawls, four children – Anne Warfield, Robert Lee, Alexander Emory, and Elizabeth Fox – and four grandchildren.

oh thank you thank you thank you for your post.

I thought I was going insane here with despair. I don't expect everyone on Free Republic to be well-read on everything, but is there no one here who understands that when it is written "powerful advocate of the liberal perspective," they are referring to the small "l" liberal perspective that admits of classical markets operating with natural rights and strong protection of individual freedoms and little government intervention.

When I was but a young girl, children were still taught about John Locke and John Stuart Mill and people that libertarians here would hail as heroes. It saddens me to think that people on this thread went "off to the races" on the world "liberal," because a good classical education would warn then that that word does not mean Democratic in modern political philosophy.

Libertarians: I do claim Rawls as one of us.

I am reminded that a politician's influence lasts but a short time, a philosopher's in terms of centuries. Those philosphers whose lives are spent corrupting young minds in the universities are a special case of evil. And don't forget that the dominant university philosophers like Rawls are able to keep better professors out of their departments. No, I am not saddened over this man's death, though I felt that Wellstone's was tragic. After all, Wellstone had no original ideas, he was taught his at the university.

"classical liberal approach"

Classically liberal approaches include those of John Stuart Mill and the like. Ones with free market economies and little government interventions. Ones closer to our economy than to Europe's.

The sad fact is that Rawls WAS criticized from the left for supporting capitalism!! And now, in his death, on Free Republic, the right calls him a socialist?

Nowhere to run too, baby.
Nowhere to hide . . . .

I am reminded of the Auden poem upon Yeats' death. One I know by heart and love.

Earth, receive an honoured guest:
William Yeats is laid to rest.
Let the Irish vessel lie
Emptied of its poetry.
In the nightmare of the dark
All the dogs of Europe bark,
And the living nations wait,
Each sequestered in its hate;

Intellectual disgrace
Stares from every human face,
And the seas of pity lie
Locked and frozen in each eye.
Follow, poet, follow right
To the bottom of the night,
With your unconstraining voice
Still persuade us to rejoice;
With the farming of a verse
Make a vineyard of the curse,
Sing of human unsuccess
In a rapture of distress;

In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountain start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.

Indeed, teach the free man how to praise. People have to free their minds to learn how and what to praise. The prison of our days is ignorance. These labels, such as the wild misuse of "liberal" out of the philosophical context, just won't do justice to Rawls' work.

You're allowed not to be saddened. I found the dancing-on-the-grave, which you haven't done, unseemly.

Rawls, for the record, did not corrupt. He didn't even politically prescribe. He was particularly open and warm to people who were conservative such as me. He even encouraged me to major in philosophy and he gave me an "A" for a paper that he plainly disagreed with. The man was a true intellectual. We could use more like him at the university. He is not an example of the problem which you accurately describe as besetting places like Harvard.

Thanks for your comments. It's always a mistake to oversimplify the views of a philosopher, and perhaps with John Rawls, who by all accounts was a man of probity, decency and integrity, some on the right have made that error.

I would add, however, that the able moral philosopher John Kekes gave Rawls and Dworkin a pretty good caning just a year ago. I'd be interested to learn your objections, if any, to his assessment.

Fried is a major conservative legal figure, who served in the Reagan administration's Justice Department. He must have been Rawl's drinking buddy in Cambridge or something.

I reread your post.

"Why should the least advantaged in society obey the law?"

I guess we all have our predictions out of the Original Position as to whether Rawls' lexically-ordered principles will, in the background setting of modern capitalism, give an easy answer to the question. I think there is enough prosperity achieved by those who are given more advantages under capitalism at their birth to make it in the interest of the least advantaged to buy in. One of the really interesting questions that I don't think Rawls' answers successfully is why the 2 principles of justice ARE lexically ordered and why natural rights are the pre-eminent trump card.

Ultimately, the answer in all of this is that Rawls did not create a mechanistic machine when he created the OP. He realized it was all subject to reflective equilibrian (a la philosopher Sedwick). He realized ultimately we all just could stand back, tap our feet, say "hmmm" and buy in or not.

I don't buy in to the lexially ordered principles. I don't think Rawls' discussion of why natural rights and Locke won't do are satisfying.

Charles Fried, former Solicitor General for Reagan, praises Rawls' work.

Theory one: he's a drinking buddy.

Theory two: as I've been saying insistently on this post, you guys are going way too fast to the races on the fact that Rawls wrote in the "liberal" tradition -- that's a reference to political philosophy, and classical liberals in that context often want minimal governmental intervention and free rein of markets. Rawls did not stand on the right of this spectrum but he was far from the left too.

There are people on this thread who seriously don't understand Rawls' work. They hear the label "liberal," which I'd remind y'all shares a root with "liberatarian," and they willy nilly assume were talking Democrat here.

Charles Fried is right. Reagan's former Solicitor General was not drunk and I assure you he was not Rawls' drinking buddy. He said Rawls is a great philosopher because it's true.

It should give you all pause about accusing him of being a socialist and dancing on his grave.

For shame. For shame.

"I was going insane here with despair..."

Some would describe that as an over-reaction, but the transmutation of liberal ideals of FReedom and self-responsibility to Lib'ral Socialist Dogma and Tyranny is but one of the many crimes with which the Left has afflicted America!!

Gotta admit to being clueless as to this character's bona fides as a libertarian, but I'll take yer word fer it that he was no Lib'ral!!

FReegards...MUD

May I pass on analyzing the objections to Rawls in a polite kinda way by noting that I think there are many good ones? And that I am not a Rawlsian? And that when I wrote a very clear and stinging and politically charged paper, Rawls read it and gave me an A? So of course I agree that there are many good critiques of Rawls. I think I have one and, frankly, I know for a fact Rawls agreed I did! (He would not give out an "A," as opposed to an "A-," unless he read the student's paper himself. He didn't like to delegate such tasks to grad students -- rare for a Harvard professor. I took his course as a freshman. He took me seriously despite my youth.)

The man was an intellectual, not a politician. He liked debate and he had great intellectual integrity. The reading list in his course including political critiques of his work from both the left and the right, collected in a sort of "Rawls Reader."

When he stood before the class and spoke, one had the distinct impression that Kant had come back to life. That this guy really cared about moral philosophy and philosophical rigor, not about political philosophy and the particular political cares of a political age. He worked very hard on his lecture notes and indeed -- to ensure that students were actually listening to him when he lectured -- he published his lecture notes with each class so that we could focus on what he was saying rather than copying it down. No other Harvard professor I ever met, outside of the math and physics department, cared so much that their students actually learn something.

He was a really good guy, tolerant of differing political views, and totally accessible to students.

We could use more like him at the university

I'll take your word for his academic character. We could use more of this all across the board. The opposite character, which I think is one of belligerence, stems from an inordinate estimation of law, an estimation that is the substitute of every common citizen's dispensing of their past.

Rawls starts out well in his Theory of Justice, but where he went astray is the same thing that leads so many leftists/socialists/statists astray: he failed to comprehend that wealth is not a given to be "distributed", but must be created through human action. Give people freedom of action and the incentives that go with it, and lots of wealth will be created; deny freedom, and you are left with poverty. The problem with Rawls's theory is that a society that applied his theory could end up in wreched poverty, but as long as everybody were equally poor, that would be just and OK with him.

According to Rawls's theory, inequalities were just if advantageous to the least advantaged member of society. Yet Rawls was forever blind to the fact that it was far more advantageous to be a semi-poor person in a rich and free but unequal society like America than to be a wretchedly poor person in an "equal" society like Cuba.

"he failed to comprehend that wealth is not a given to be "distributed", but must be created through human action"

His book has a whole chapter on trickle-down, basically. He's rightly accused by leftists as being an apologist for capitalism. Because if you believe in trickle down, then under this difference principle, in theory great inequalities of wealth can be justified.

I don't think it's a meaningful statement to say he failed to understand that wealth is created through human action. That would be true of socialists, whom Rawls directly critiqued. Are you just assuming he believed these things because some uninformed posters above says he does? That's kinda a problem, if you ask me.

But don't tell Ronald Dworkin or the other great conservative philosophers of our time that he's some socialist hack.

BTW, I can't let this howler go without comment. You're not actually suggesting that Dworkin is a "great conservative philosopher," are you?

Both these men (Dworkin and Rawls) have been championed by modern day, statist (i.e., Dewey-Roosevelt-LBJ-Carter-Clinton) liberals. While you say you want to clearly demark the distinction between classical and Roosevelt liberals (a distinction well known and often commented upon by legions of Freepers over the years), and put Rawls in the JSMills camp to the exclusion of today's liberals, in actuality you are assigning a position to Rawls that his own contemporaries never gave him! The Martha Nussbaums of the world love Rawls, and the Russell Kirks disdain him. You seem to be saying that the the political groups who claimed Rawls should have no bearing of our opinion of him, as if Rawls, even if he wanted to, was somehow incapable of straightening out the confusion while he lived. This is facile poppycock. Rawls was very comfortable with the statist views of today's liberals. And Dworkin is even further to the left.

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