Hetherington, Ross (2012) the Roles of Moral Psychology in the Philosophy of John Rawls
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Hetherington, Ross (2012) The roles of moral psychology in the philosophy of John Rawls. PhD thesis. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/3567/ Copyright and moral rights for this thesis are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Glasgow Theses Service http://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] The Roles of Moral Psychology in the Philosophy of John Rawls Ross Hetherington BSc MLitt Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Ph.D. Philosophy School of Humanities University of Glasgow April 2012 © Ross Hetherington 2012 Abstract This thesis explicates and critically considers the various roles played by moral psychology within the work of John Rawls throughout his career. In the second half of the 20 th Century, Rawls’s development of a sophisticated theory of justice in the social contract tradition played a significant part in reviving the study of normative political philosophy in the western world. Rawls argued that any theory of justice must be closely integrated with our best contemporary understanding of human psychology. Moral psychology is hence widely recognised to play an important role in Rawls’s overall theory. But the precise role played has not been adequately examined. In this thesis, I identify six roles which moral psychology plays within the structure of Rawls’s theory. Moral psychology must defend the idea that the model for a just society which Rawls proposes is realisable and stable (role #1). Moral psychology is also employed to explain how persons now have acquired what sense of justice they have (role #2). By showing that Rawls’s just society can be realised and is stable, moral psychology is then subsequently used in the justification of Rawls’s theory of justice – first by showing that such a society is not futile (role #3), and second by showing that the society is comparatively more stable than leading rivals (role #4). The account of the psychological capacities of the moral person is used to place the limit on the scope of justice (role #5). And moral psychological facts are also likely to be, in some sense, constitutive of the nature of morality for Rawls (role #6). These roles are discussed throughout various chapters. What alterations occur to the overall place of moral psychology following Rawls’s later embrace of political liberalism is also discussed. The overall aim of the thesis is to produce an accurate exegesis on these matters, and in doing so indicate just how important moral psychology is within Rawls’s theory, but also to indicate, clearly and starkly, just how much more psychological and sociological investigation needs to be done in if the theory is to be substantiated, given Rawls’s own criteria. ii To Granma and Auntie Millie, Nanny and Granda, Auntie Marie, and Auntie Kathleen iii Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................................... ii Preface ............................................................................................................................................. viii Abbreviations of Rawls's Works ....................................................................................................... xvi Introduction ........................................................................................................................................ 1 Chapter 1: The Roles of Moral Psychology ......................................................................................... 7 Section 1: Moral Psychology in the Early Rawls .............................................................................. 7 Section 2: The Structure of Justice as Fairness ............................................................................. 11 Section 3: The roles of moral psychology ..................................................................................... 19 3.1 Rawls's moral psychology, moral psychology, human nature, personhood ....................... 20 3.2 Roles #1 and #2: Defence and explanation of psychological realisability and stability ...... 22 3.3 Roles #3 and #4: Justification of principles, through avoiding futility and arbitration ....... 25 3.4 Role #5: Determining the scope of justice .......................................................................... 27 3.5 Role #6: Constitution .......................................................................................................... 28 Chapter 2: Moral Psychology and Justification ................................................................................. 31 Section 4: Justification: The Place of psychological considerations in the Original Position ........ 31 4.1 Two interpretations of the place of moral psychology in justification ............................... 31 4.2 Rationality and the special psychologies ............................................................................ 34 4.3 The two justificatory roles reintroduced ............................................................................ 38 4.4 Initial employment of moral psychological considerations: Arguments from the strains of commitment ............................................................................................................................. 39 4.5 The ambiguity or contradiction in the place of moral psychology in the original position argument ................................................................................................................................... 40 Chapter 3: Moral Psychology as Constitutive ................................................................................... 51 Section 5: Constitution: Moral Psychology as Constitutive of Justice as Fairness ........................ 52 5.1 Raz on our moral sensibility as morality and the reflective equilibrium methodology ...... 52 5.2 Baldwin on Rawls's two accounts of moral psychology ...................................................... 59 iv Chapter 4: The Conception of the Moral Person and Moral Psychology ......................................... 71 Section 6: Developing a Moral Psychology ................................................................................... 71 6.1 Minimal ambitions .............................................................................................................. 71 6.3 First- and second-order interests ........................................................................................ 73 Section 7: The Circumstances of Justice ....................................................................................... 75 Section 8: Rawls's Conception of the Person ................................................................................ 82 8.1 Rationality ........................................................................................................................... 83 8.2 Reasonableness ................................................................................................................... 87 8.3 Equality................................................................................................................................ 90 8.4 Freedom .............................................................................................................................. 90 Section 9: The Conception of the Person and Human Psychology ............................................... 93 9.1 Key interests and the circumstances of justice ................................................................... 94 9.2 Psychological facts in the original position ......................................................................... 99 Chapter 5: Moral Psychology in Political Liberalism ....................................................................... 104 Section 10: Outline of the Chapter ............................................................................................. 104 Section 11: Stability for the Right Reasons ................................................................................. 105 Section 12: The Road to Political Liberalism ............................................................................... 110 12.1 Basic features of political liberalism ............................................................................... 111 12.2 Why was Theory's well-ordered society not stable? ...................................................... 119 Section 13: Moral Psychology in Political Liberalism .................................................................. 125 13.1 Rawls's use of moral psychology in his politically liberal theory .................................... 126 13.2 Psychology and Public Justification ................................................................................. 131 Chapter 6: Moral Psychology and The Scope of Justice ................................................................. 134 Section 14: Turning back the clock on the scope of justice ........................................................ 134 Section 15: The Moral Powers and the Ability to