What Can Historicising Rawls Achieve?

3.1 ‘Cannot Account For’ as Failing to Offer Adequate Political Recommendations

Forrester must thus have some other understanding of adequately accounting for social reality in mind. In order to see what it might be, let us return to the notion of a theory of justice being intimately connected to some set of social conditions. On an analytic reading of the connection, the relata are propositions rather than political and mental events. One way to establish such a connection is to view the theory of justice as consisting, not only of the two principles of justice, but also of some set of empirical claims about the social conditions of society.

This raises the further question of the role of these empirical claims, and how exactly they relate to the normative principles. On one possible account of this relation, the role of the empirical claims is to guide the application of the normative principles. After all, normative principles need to be combined with empirical claims in order to provide particular political recommendations. Recommendations, that is, concerning what kind of institutions and policies that ought to be adopted in society. For example, Rawls’s two principles of justice cannot by themselves tell us how to organise the healthcare system in the U.S. in the 2020s. In order to derive a particular political recommendation about its organisation, empirical claims about what organisation best satisfies these principles in the U.S. in the 2020s are needed. The relationship can be illustrated in the following way:

General normative claim: We ought to adopt the healthcare system that best satisfies the principles of justice.

Particular empirical claims about the social conditions: In the U.S. in the 2020s, healthcare system X best satisfies the principles of justice.

Particular political recommendation: Thus, in the U.S. in the 2020s, healthcare system X should be adopted.

Consequently, a political philosopher who persists in using obsolete empirical claims from the postwar period may end up offering inadequate political recommendations in the 2020s. If the social conditions of the 2020s are sufficiently different from the conditions of the 1950s, it will simply not be the case that the recommended health care system satisfies the principles of justice.

This account of how normative principles relate to empirical claims about social conditions suggests how we can understand the idea that the theory cannot account for social reality. To say that a political theory cannot account for social reality in the 2020s is simply to say that the theory cannot provide adequate political recommendations in the 2020s. This fits quite well with Forrester’s claim that “egalitarian liberals do not recognize that the very dynamics of capitalist societies they find objectionable may not be remediable by the institutional fixes they advocate” (Forrester 2022, 17, see also 18). This criticism seems not to be directed against the normative convictions of Rawlsians, but rather against the “institutional fixes” that they falsely believe that their theory recommends. They have simply failed, Forrester appears to suggest, to appreciate the fundamental changes in social conditions since the 1950s. And this results in them offering political recommendations that are in fact in conflict with their own normative principles.

However, this interpretation does not align well with Forrester’s stated goal of initiating a discussion about the proper “relationship of normative theory to the study of social conditions within liberal political philosophy” (Forrester 2022, 2–3). Even if it were the case that Rawlsians are profoundly mistaken about what social conditions presently obtain, that would not raise new or interesting questions about the relationship between normative theory and the study of social conditions. After all, it is obvious that any set of normative principles must be combined with an adequate account of the social conditions we find ourselves in if we are to effectively satisfy their requirements. Thus, rather than providing reasons to rethink the relationship between normative theory and the study of social conditions, it merely calls for Rawlsians to update their understanding of current social conditions. This is no challenge to Rawls’s principles of justice themselves and provides no reasons to believe that the complete dissolution of the theory is called for. Consequently, this interpretation renders the argument toothless.

3.2 ‘Cannot Account For’ as Failing to be Applicable

If Forrester’s argument is to deliver the intended kind of criticism of Rawls’s theory, we need another account of how his principles of justice relate to empirical claims about social conditions. It must be the case that the account of social reality presupposed by Rawls’s theory of justice is not merely used to guide the application of the normative principles of the theory; instead, the principles themselves must somehow depend on this mistaken account. If this were the case it would be impossible to consistently affirm both the theory of justice and an accurate description of the social conditions of the 2020s. Since an adequate theory of justice should be compatible with our best understanding of our social conditions, so this reasoning would go, the normative component of Rawls’s theory must be abandoned or drastically revised. This line of thought appears to align with Forrester’s ambition of providing a criticism that calls for a complete dissolution of the theory.

One way of making sense of this kind of relation between normative principles and social conditions is by way of the idea of applicability conditions. As an example of this idea, consider that one of the main assumptions in Rawls’s Theory is that we find ourselves in the circumstances of justice. These circumstances include moderate scarcity of resources. That is, there is not such an abundance of resources that cooperation becomes superfluous, nor is scarcity so severe that cooperation inevitably breaks down (Rawls 1971, 127). Hence, it can be argued that the theory in Theory presupposes the social condition of moderate scarcity in the sense that the principles of justice are only applicable in situations where this condition obtains.

On this reading of ‘intimately connected,’ the third premise becomes plausible: if a normative theory presupposes certain social conditions S that are incompatible with social conditions S’, then the theory cannot account for a social reality characterised by S’, in the sense that its principles are not applicable under conditions S’. If, for instance, Rawls’s theory of justice presupposes the social condition of moderate scarcity, it becomes logically impossible to consistently affirm that the theory should be used to evaluate some particular society while denying that this society is characterised by moderate scarcity.

However, the fact that its principles are inapplicable under certain conditions does not show that Rawls’s theory of justice is false. A theory may be correct although its applicability is limited to circumstances where conditions such as moderate scarcity holds. Nonetheless, showing that the two principles of justice are only applicable if the social conditions of the 1950s obtain would be a serious criticism of the view. Rawls’s theory is surely intended to apply to our present conditions as well, and to provide us with an account of what our societies ought to be like in order to be just. Hence, it would be a significant problem if it turned out that while not false, the two principles are completely irrelevant for questions of justice in our present circumstances. In order to make the theory relevant, it would perhaps have to be revised to such an extent that the result could be described as its complete dissolution.

For this argument to work, however, we need an account of the applicability conditions of the theory, such that the two principles are inapplicable in the social conditions of the 2020s. It has to be shown that the theory presupposes something false; something other than moderate scarcity, as that obviously still holds. One possible account of such applicability conditions that might do the trick is one in terms of feasibility. That is, in order to be applicable, Rawls’s political theory must be feasible.

Forrester claims that we want our political theories ‘to be realistic’, and then goes on to argue that Rawlsians are insufficiently realistic since they “have come erroneously to believe that the institutions their visions of justice defend and promote can satisfy their own commitments to justice and equality” (Forrester 2022, 17–18). This is, as we have already explained above, a complaint that in no way challenges the two principles of justice, which make up the normative core of Rawls’s theory. But this appeal to realism could perhaps be understood as an appeal to a political version of the Kantian demand that ‘ought implies can’. According to this understanding of realism, political theories ought to be action guiding, to be action guiding they must be feasible, and to be feasible they must offer recommendations that somehow could be accepted under current political, social and economic circumstances.

It could be suggested that an egalitarian view like Rawls’s was feasible in the optimistic political climate of the 1950s, which was “characterized by a new consensus” (Forrester 2019, 277), and its “exceptional, unprecedented economic growth” (Forrester 2019, 180). In the 2020s, where economic growth has been stifled, inequality soared, and political partisanship rules supreme, Rawls’s political recommendations are no longer realistically realisable, and therefore his theory is “unable to deal with the current political situation” (Forrester 2019, 277). Thus, it could be argued that Rawls’s theory of justice is no longer feasible, and therefore not applicable.

There are several problems with this line of reasoning. One is that applicability conditions of this kind cannot be derived from Rawls’s theory. While he was indeed concerned with feasibility, it was feasibility of a very different kind. According to Rawls, a theory of justice must be feasible in the sense of being “realistically utopian”, where “the limits of the possible are not given by the actual” (Rawls 2001, 4–5). On this view, the recommendations of Rawls’s theory of justice are utopian in the sense that they may be highly unlikely to be realisable in our present circumstances and given the current political climate. But these recommendations are still realistic, in the sense that they are possible under favourable conditions and given the fundamental and enduring facts about human societies. On this account of feasibility, the principles of justice are no less applicable today than they were in the 1950s. Hence, it could not be reasonably claimed that it somehow follows from Rawls’s theory itself that it is not applicable in the 2020s.

Another, and more serious, problem is that it appears highly implausible to hold that principles of justice are only applicable in circumstances where the political climate and public opinion make their recommendations feasible. If we have some set of principles of justice that apply to us, then it seems strange to suggest that we could free ourselves from their demands simply by making the social conditions such that it becomes unrealistic to expect justice to be realised. If the principles truly apply, then we cannot escape their demands by making our society less just, or by making people not believe in the principles. Though some feasibility constraints may make sense, this one does not.

There is, regardless of what one thinks about the plausibility of this suggestion, a more fundamental problem with it. But before explaining that problem, we shall consider yet another possible interpretation of Forrester’s argument.

3.3 ‘Cannot Account For’ as Failing to be Justified

There is yet another way of understanding the idea that Rawls’s principles of justice depend on an outdated and hence mistaken account of social conditions. Forrester claims that “the possibility of consensus was assumed at a very deep level” (Forrester 2022, 9) in Rawls’s theory; that it presupposed “that deep down, social life rested on the possibility of consensus and ethical agreement” (Forrester 2019, xx). Though she does not specify what ‘deep level’ she has in mind, this could be understood as referring to the underlying justification of the principles of justice. That is, to the original position.

The primary justification of Rawls’s two principles of justice is that they would be selected by the parties in the hypothetical original position. Consensus features in a fundamental way in this thought experiment, as the resulting principles are justified by being agreed to by all the parties (Rawls 1971, 17–21). Since the justification of the two principles of justice depends on a certain kind of agreement, it could plausibly be claimed that Rawls’s theory presupposes the possibility of consensus ‘at a very deep level’.

Further, one could reason that the rationale for building agreement into the original position in this way is drawn from a certain account of social conditions. In the optimistic circumstances of the 1950s, consensus on principles of justice seemed a genuine possibility. The principles of justice are therefore intimately connected to the social conditions of the 1950s in the sense that their justification depends on empirical assumptions regarding the possibility of widespread agreement that seemed plausible at that time.

It could be further argued that what appeared possible in the 1950s is very different from what appears possible given the social conditions of the 2020s. The political and social developments leading up to our present day have shown us that the faith in the possibility of consensus was misguided. Some of the assumptions that underlie the original position are thus simply false. Rawls’s theory of justice cannot, on this view, account for social reality in the 2020s in the sense that the justification of the two principles rely on assumptions that we now know to be mistaken. Hence, Rawls’s justification of his two principles of justice fails.

This line of reasoning is unpersuasive since it fundamentally misconstrues why the original position incorporates agreement. Nowhere in Theory (or in Rawls’s later writings) can we find the claim that the role of agreement in the original position depends on the possibility of consensus in the sense described above. The claim that the correct principles of justice are those that would be agreed to in the hypothetical original position is not premised on the assumption that such agreement can be realised, but rather on moral assumptions. The idea is that if certain principles would be chosen, then “it will be true that whenever social institutions satisfy these principles those engaged in them can say to one another that they are cooperating on terms to which they would agree if they were free and equal persons whose relations with respect to one another were fair” (Rawls 1971, 13). The original position models citizens as free and equal, and the principles they could agree to as such, under conditions that are fair, are the correct principles of justice. The rationale for caring about what would be agreed to in the original position is thus not that agreement is actually possible, but rather that it shows us what principles of justice that follow from certain moral assumptions – in particular, the account of citizens as being free and equal.

But an even more fundamental problem, for this suggestion as well as the one in Section 3.2 above, emerges once we remind ourselves of what kind of argument it is that Forrester claims to provide. The argument is supposed to be a historicist one; it depends on archival evidence and is intended to reveal the intimate connection between Rawls’s theory of justice and the social conditions of the 1950s. However, the type of analytical connection between propositions required for the argument to work simply cannot be established through such evidence.

To further elaborate this point, let us distinguish between two different ways of construing the versions of Forrester’s argument considered in this and the previous section. On the first construal, it is claimed that Rawls’s theory incorporates certain philosophical claims, which establishes an analytical connection between social conditions and the two principles of justice. As mentioned earlier, archival evidence provides insights into causal relations between events, such as social or political events influencing Rawls’s development of Theory. However, no number of archival insights into Rawls’s influences, inspirations, or mental states can establish that his theory presupposes some set of propositions. It makes no difference if, say, the optimistic political and social environment of the 1950s played a causal role in shaping how Rawls thought about the original position. What matters is the content of the theory he came up with, not what made him think in some way or another. Hence, establishing a claim about the analytical relation between social conditions and the principles of justice requires philosophical engagement with the content of Rawls’s theory. The kind of philosophical analysis that we find, for instance, in G. A. Cohen’s critical analysis of how the Rawlsian methodology makes principles of justice dependent on certain empirical facts (Cohen 2008).

On a second understanding of these arguments, the claim is not about what is already present in Rawls’s theory. Instead, it is claimed that we ought to think about applicability conditions and the justification of principles of justice in certain ways. It could, for instance, be argued that we have good reasons to reject the account of applicability conditions that we find in Rawls’s theory. It is a philosophical mistake, according to this line of argument, to think that principles of justice are applicable in social conditions where they fail to provide political recommendations that are realistically feasible.

Though we have already suggested that applicability conditions of this kind are philosophically implausible, one could certainly try to argue otherwise. But that would, once again, require doing philosophy. No amount of historical evidence could possibly establish philosophical claims of this kind. This route thus involves going way beyond the historicist project of exposing the social and political factors that influenced the development of certain philosophical theories.