Phil 350: Ethical Theory
(Fall 2011)

Paper #2 (Rawls & Geuss)

Details: 10-12 pp. (1.5 spaced); value: 35 points; place references into text using abbreviations; list all sources at the end 
Due:  Friday, Dec. 16, noon; submit in hard copy, please.

Here are some handles for dealing with the Rawls/Geuss relationship. There is also an option for a more individuated approach – though I would want to review this and discuss it with you before approving it.  In all cases, be sure you set the scene, as it were, by giving a general characterization of Rawls’ and Geuss’s views, and then of the problem or slant that you are taking on it.  Consider the paper as a potential contribution to a student journal.  Even if it needs reworking, keep in mind its possible uses and the sorts of audiences it might attempt to reach.  With this goal in mind, also send me an email version of the paper, in addition to the hard copy you submit.

1.  How is Geuss’s relation to Rawls (and Nozick), or to philosophical liberalism, similar to nihilism’s relation to normative theories of ethics (cf. the first paper)?  How is the confrontation similar in both cases?  Does this analogy tend to make nihilism (or Geuss) more or less appealing, and in what way?  How might Geuss’s realism be seen as well as a sort of intermediate position between amoral Realpolitik and philosophical liberalism?  I.e., could one argue that, in fact, it is not ‘nihilistic’ at all, and that Geuss’s approach challenges the basic normativity / nihilism (ought / is) dichotomy?

2.  How, according to Geuss’s conception of Rawls’s position, is Rawls actually a “nihilist” (i.e., expressivist), and how might Geuss’s view be seen as a normative position instead?  (See Geuss on the ‘aspirational’ nature of Rawls’ view, at pp. 85-86.)

3.  What is Geuss’s notion of political theory / philosophy and its tasks, and how does Rawls (et al.) supposedly violate them?

4.  How is political philosophy (and politics) related to ethics?  Is the latter foundational in some sense (as in the “ethics first” view), or is there some other kind of link between them (as suggested by Geuss)?  How is Geuss’s view of politics as an ethical activity different from that of Kant, Rawls, Nozick, etc.?  Does the notion of ‘ethics’ need to be reconceived for us to consider it in such terms?  Consider, how might Geuss respond to the last paragraph  (p. 128) of Rawls’ Law of Peoples?

5.  How does Rawls’ position relate to contractarianism or proceduralism?  How does it – despite its unwillingness to build on so-called comprehensive views – nonetheless seem more like a substantive, religious, or metaphysical approach than a proceduralist one?  Is Geuss’s approach to political theory and ethics in fact more proceduralist or contractarian than Rawls’ own (cf. the role of Hobbes in Geuss’s theorizing.), and how does this affect its appeal? 

6.  How might Rawls (and other liberals – see the reviews) respond to Geuss’s critique?  What aspects of Geuss’s position will seem problematic or wrong to them, or to anyone else?  What are the gains and losses (of what, exactly?) consequent to adopting Geuss’s critique (= a “position”?) ?

7.  If you have another approach to Rawls and Geuss that you would like to pursue instead, contact me with a short description and get approval before you start on the paper.