Aeon ignores that Walter Kaufmann crushed John Rawls

 At Aeon, John Lefebvre has a paean to Rawls, apparently an extract from his new book "Liberalism is a Way of Life," which is mentioned and linked in the tagline for the author at top left.

Lefebvre ignores that Walter Kaufmann crushed Rawls in "Without Guilt and Justice." Kaufmann doesn't say that's exactly why he wrote the book, but it basically is. Although rejecting both retributive justice and distributive justice, at least as Rawls framed them in his liberal political science ethics, as ultimately being Platonic ideas (which I didn't think of when I read the book the first time) Kaufmann might actually agree with Rawls that life needs to be "graced" or "redeemed," words that clearly come from the Judeo-Christian ethos, even though Rawls became a secularist.

Let's start with Lefebvre:

This raises a tricky question. If you, like me, are unchurched and don’t draw your values from a religion, then where do you get them from? From what broad tradition do you acquire your sense of what is good, normal and worthwhile in life, and – if I can put it this way – your general vibe too?

When I’ve asked my non-religious friends, colleagues and students this question, they’re almost always stumped. Their impulse is to say one of three things: ‘from my experience’, ‘from friends and family’ or ‘from human nature’. But to this I reply, as politely as possible, that those are not suitable answers. Personal experience, friends and family and human nature are situated and formed within wider social, political and cultural contexts. So I ask again: ‘What society-or-civilisation-sized thing can you point to as the source of your values? I’m talking about the kind of thing that, were you Christian, you’d just say: “Ah, the Bible,” or “Oh, my Church.’’’

OK, he's essentially arguing for something transcendental, if not specifically Platonic.

And, then he presents liberalism as just that.

In my book Liberalism as a Way of Life (2024), I argue that the unchurched in the Western world should point to liberalism as the source of who they are through and through. Liberalism – with its core values of personal freedom, fairness, reciprocity, tolerance and irony – is that society-or-civilisation-sized thing that may well underlie who we are, not just in our political opinions but in all walks of life, from the family to the workplace, from friendship to enmity, from humour to outrage, and everything in between.

Oy.

And, yes, I think Lefebvre is presenting liberalism as something Platonic, even if he doesn't recognize that he's doing just that.

It's made worse that the last half of the piece is an extended essay on Rawls' "A Theory of Justice," which is the core of what Kaufmann was refuting. Above all, Kaufmann crushes the Rawlsian ideas of an "original position" and "a veil of ignorance." And, he does so by looking at N=1 or N=2 ethical situations, not classwide or society-wide ones.

Per my long review of Staeley Corngold's bio of Kaufmann, it's called "moral naturalism," Mr. Lefebvre. And, as a philosophy professor, I know that you know that it exists. Moral naturalism is the non-rhetorical answer to the rhetorical question. And yes, your question to your students is rhetorical.

And, given that I'm a streak of reading semi-crappy to crappy philosophy books (of course, Little Bobby Sapolsky's was by choice, knowing it was crappy in advance and wanting to see the train wreck) I have no need of yours, Mr. Lefebvre.