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Richard Rorty and Political Liberalism ‘That’s the way we happen to do things around here’: Richard Rorty and Political Liberalism. Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Alan Michael James Bacon Government Department London School of Economics and Political Science University of London UMI Number: U185634 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Disscrrlation Publishing UMI U185634 Published by ProQuest LLC 2014. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 O f POllTICAL L and cui ‘1^V(cs2> /i4^S£S F 8212 1016 700 Abstract This thesis advances a defence of Richard Rorty’s political liberalism. It is widely held that what Rorty calls anti-foundationalism either consciously proposes, or logically entails, the denial both of ethical commitment and the possibility of moral justification. Others argue that Rorty reduces commitment to a parochial concern, and that justification is relative to the standards of a narrowly conceived community. Commitment and justification, it is said, reduce to pointing out whatever it is that constitutes ‘the way we happen to do things around here’. In turn, anti-foundationalism is said to render obsolete any normative project in political theory. The thesis rejects these claims, arguing that Rorty does not reduce commitment and justification in this way. Anti-foundationalism is shown not to reduce reason-giving to ‘what we happen to think around here’, and it is also cleansed of claims that it is relativistic, irrational and nihilistic. Justification as the response for reasonable requests for explanation of our beliefs and practices remains important for Rorty, centrally in his account of justification through ‘wide reflective equilibrium’. The thesis shows how Rorty’s view of liberal ironism is the completion, not the negation, of liberalism. It demonstrates that he is able both to justify and defend liberal principles and institutions, and to do so in a way that undercuts many of the criticisms of liberalism that have been levelled by communitarian critics and others. It examines his view of liberal political thought not as providing a philosophical justification of liberalism, but as offering an articulation of it. It closes by considering the scope of liberal claims, suggesting that Rorty is, in the only meaningful sense of the term, a liberal universaHst. Acknowledgements I would like to thank my supervisors, Dr Paul Kelly and Professor Rodney Barker. Together they have carefully read successive drafts of this thesis, and have been unfailingly helpful, encouraging, and supportive. I have benefited considerably from the Government Department’s Political Theory Workshop, and would like to thank all who participated. Parts of the thesis have been presented at seminars and conferences, and my thanks go to the participants at the Third Essex Political Thought Conference in May 2002, the University of Sussex Social and Political Thought conference in September 2002, and the London Political Theory Group at the LSE. Over the course of writing the thesis, I have had the pleasure of discussing my ideas with many friends and colleagues. I would like to thank Clare Chambers, Chun-Hung Chen, Po-Chung Chow, Philip Cook, Oliver Curry, Paul Dawson, Cécile Fabre, Chico Gaetani, David Graham, James Gregory, Damian Krushner, Martin Lodge, Cillian McBride, Martin Mclvor, Tord Moi, Edmund Neill, David L. Paletz, Phil Parvin, Johannes PoUak, Ramida Vijitphan, Mei-Chuan Wei, and Pete Woodcock. Finally, and most importantly, my thanks go to my parents Linda and Alan, and my brother David, for their unflagging support, despite their having only the haziest idea of what I’ve been doing for the last five years. Contents Abstract Acknowledgements Chapter One: Introduction , 1. The issues outlined 1.1 Foundationalism and commitment 1.2 Anti-foundationalism and political theory 2. The aim o f the thesis 3. The approach adopted in the thesis 3.1 Argument and re-description 4. Organisation o f the thesis Chapter Two: Anti-authoritarianism and political liberalism 5. Philosophical narrative of maturation 5.1 ‘The philosophical urge’ 5.2 Answerability to the world 5.3 Understanding under a description 6. The political narrative of maturity 6.1 Postmodernism and the Enlightenment 6.2 The relationship of philosophy and democracy 6.3 Liberalism and the ‘Enlightenment Project’ 6.4 Political hberalism as the avoidance of cruelty Chapter Three: Contingency and universal validity 7. The inescapabibty of ethnocentrism 7.1 Ethnocentrism, acceptance, and validity 7.2 The order of reasons 7.3 Validity and the contingency of language 7.4 Truth and truthfulness 8. Ethnocentrism, irrationality, and relativism 8.1 Philosophical and political freedom 8.2 Irrationality and moral relativism 8.3 Ethnocentrism and moral arbitrariness Chapter Four: Ironism, liberalism, and conviction 9. Ironism and the possibility of moral commitment 9.1 Anti-foundationalism and ironism 9.2 The impact of ironism on conviction 9.3 Two suggestions in support of ironic conviction 9.4 The nature of ironic doubt 10. Liberalism and ironism 10.1 The liberal ironist? 10.2 Re-description and the avoidance of cruelty 10.3 Ironism and scepticism Chapter Five: Context and the justification of liberalism 11. Pragmatism and justification 11.1 Rorty’s ‘abandonment’ of justification 11.2 The need for justification 11.3 Justification as anthropology? 12. Justifying liberalism 12.1 The impossibility of a non-question-begging justification 12.2 Reasons for supporting liberal institutions 12.3 Challenges to political liberalism 12.4 Modus vivendi as the successor to political liberalism Chapter Six: Interpretation and political theory 13. Liberalism, interpretation and creativity 13.1 Creation and interpretation 13.2 Contested interpretations: liberalism verses mulficulturahsm 13.3 The necessity of argument 14. Rorty and radicalism 14.1 The relationship between philosophy and politics 14.2 The separation of philosophy and politics 15. Political philosophy verses internal social criticism? 15.1 Michael Walzer’s account of ‘internal social criticism’ 15.2 On Rawls Chapter Seven: Liberal ethnocentrism and the boundaries of community 16. Community as foundation? 16.1 Objectivity as solidarity 16.2 What can we say to ‘them’? 16.3 Incommensurability and incomparabihty 16.4 Two attempts to overcome ethnocentric parochialism 16.4.1.Matthew Festenstein: general versus substantive ethnocentrism 16.4.2 Hilary Putnam on ‘warranted assertabüity’ IV.Extending the boundaries 17.1 Justification through wide reflective equilibrium 17.2 ‘Ideal rational acceptability’ as an epistemological and as a pohtical notion 17.3 Degrees of parochialism Chapter Eight: Liberal universalism 18. The ‘universal validity’ o f Hberahsm 18.1 Liberalism and reason 18.2 Liberalism and human nature 19. ‘Universal validity’ verses ‘universal reach’ 19.1 The possibility of extending the scope of Hberahsm 19.2 The legitimacy of extending the scope of Hberahsm 20. Achieving universahty 20.1 A Hberal metanarrative? 20.2 Universahty through free discussion Chapter Nine: Conclusion Chapter One Introduction In this thesis I advance a defence of Richard Rorty’s political liberalism, which he characterises as liberalism shorn of all forms of what he calls ‘authoritarianism’ — both religious and secular — that claim to stand over and above freely arrived at agreement between human beings. Rorty’s political liberalism is a form of what he calls ‘anti-foundationalism’. Anti- foundationalism rejects the idea that there are unquestionable principles that exist independently of, and provide grounds for, our everyday practices. It is widely held that in advancing anti-foundationalism, Rorty either consciously proposes, or that his account logically entails, the negation of ethical commitment and the practice of moral justification. Others argue that Rorty reduces commitment to a parochial concern, and justification to correspondence to the standards of a narrowly conceived community. Anti-foundationalism is held to render obsolete any normative project in political theory; commitment and justification, it is said, are a matter of ‘the way we happen to do things around here’ or ‘merely what we happen to think around here’.’ ^ See for example Paul Kelly, ‘Political theory in retreat? Contemporary political theory and the historical order’, in Noël O ’Sullivan (ed.) Political Theory in Transition (London: Routledge, 2000), pp. 225 - 241 at 233. The thesis rejects these criticisms, arguing that the misunderstandings captured in them disguise Rorty’s actual position, which does not reduce commitment and justification in the way such comments imply. The two main claims of the thesis are, first, that Rorty’s anti- foundationalism does not collapse into parochialism, and secondly, that political liberalism can be justified and defended, indeed better defended, on Rorty’s account, since it undercuts many of the criticisms of liberalism that have been levelled by communitarian critics and others. 1. The issues outlined 1.1 Foundationalism and commitment Rorty
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