JOHN RAWLS - A Theory of Justice to Political Liberalism!

[@VladVexler]

What do you think about Rawls? Leave me a comment below! 📌 What you will find in this video - 00:00 John Rawls at 100! Why even critics are fond of him. 01:05 John Rawls the political philosopher - what were his qualities? 01:27 The one big mistake Rawls never made! (The range of application of Rawls's theory) 03:28 What makes Rawls great? How Rawls moved from A Theory of Justice 1971 to Political Liberalism 1993. 06:55 Why John Rawls's Theory of Justice and Political Liberalism remain relevant even if we reject Rawls's arguments.

[@alexwong8196]

I highly appreciate your more recent videos, but this is the one that made me subscribe. I look forward to a time when you can speak more on Rawls, and all the other things you so obviously love.

[@ninirema4532]

Dear great gentle. very sweet good morning super lecture.

[@MarkGoddard-yb7yy]

I found his Theory to be the most beautiful in the whole of moral philosophy. I had read Nozick's work prior to Rawls so approached the work critically and It took me a while to think through the theory and its implications. I've always seen his later work as an extension of the theory though particularly the Law of Peoples!

[@danwylie-sears1134]

I don't imagine that, if I could think as well as I wish I could, my theories could be air-dropped into a military conflict zone and solve everything by giving the victims all the arguments they need to demonstrate that the bad guys are wrong. Instead, I like to imagine that, if I could think as well as I wish I could and my theories could be air-dropped fifty years into the past, the conflict wouldn't have developed the way it did. Even bad guys have to formulate understandings of the world. The have to use theoretical frameworks. The test of my ideas, as I see it, is whether a bad guy who considers them fairly would find them persuasive. I don't start with any premise like "democracy is good". I start with premises like "given the existence of modern weapons, unlimited conflict is catastrophic for everyone, even the relative winners". It will come as no surprise that I haven't gotten very far. If my writings could be air-dropped into 1972, nothing much about 2022 would change. But that doesn't mean the project is impossible, only that I'm not the right kind of extraordinary genius to complete it successfully on the first try.

[@VladVexler]

We routinely underestimate the power of ideas! About the power of reason: they key error we make, esp in the academy, is to assume that reason automatically comes with social power. That a good argument will persuade because it is a good argument. A good argument is indeed better than a bad argument as far as arguments go, but it's not clear that it's more motivating than a bad argument, or even more realistically, something that isn't an argument at all.

[@SomeOne-mp6ym]

I spent 3 semesters in independent study on Rawls....The most fun and the most difficult part of my undergraduate studies. My final paper was compared Theory of Justice with the Soviet Constitution.

[@mathyys]

Idealization or rather false-consciousness ?

[@VladVexler]

Thanks for asking. You could debate whether the self images Rawls systematises are illusory or not. If they are illusory, his work remains important. But I am slow to see what false consciousness has to do with it... Personally, I am extraordinarily critical of Rawls, but I kept it out of this video.

[@mathyys]

@@VladVexler By theorizing the compatibility of equality and liberty from first principles, Rawls suggests that our societies are in spite of being imperfect still built on the right premises. It thus can be argued that it is a major tool of the cultural hegemony of the institutions of our current power structure, whatever deficient they are. Similarly tov he perfect market assumption in neo classical economics. Since we know those are unrealistic abstractions but nonrthelees we still need it to justify the institutional status quo, I call them part of our false consciousness.