Baldwin Wong (Hong Kong Baptist University), "Is it Sectarian for a Rawlsian State to Coerce Nozick? – On Political Liberalism and the Sectarian Critique“
Baldwin Wong (Hong Kong Baptist University), "Is it Sectarian for a Rawlsian State to Coerce Nozick? – On Political Liberalism and the Sectarian Critique“
Forthcoming in Philosophia
John Rawls and Robert Nozick are no doubt two of the greatest political philosophers of the last century. Let’s imagine the following scenario: One day, Robert Nozick wakes up and finds himself in a “well-ordered society” ruled by his Harvard colleague, John Rawls. Being a libertarian, Nozick believes that heavy redistributive taxation is equal to theft. Nozick is outspoken person. He continues to criticize the government and refuses to pay more tax than the amount he thinks is just. Eventually, he was caught and sent to jail. But now the problem comes: Should the President Rawls punish Nozick?
Through this hypothetical story, I aim to show that Rawls’s political liberalism has long overlooked a kind of citizen like Nozick, the unreasonable but intelligible citizen (hereafter called UIC). Political liberalism is a political theory suggested by the later Rawls. According to Rawls, it is distinctively different from other political theories because it does not assume any epistemological, metaphysical, or religious grounds. In political liberalism, the exercise of political power should be grounded on political values shared among free and equal citizens, such as freedom, equality and fairness. Nevertheless, Rawls also admits that these political values may be rejected by some crazy and extremist citizens, such as Nazis. These citizens are labeled as unreasonable citizens. To unreasonable citizens, they are coerced by the state on the grounds that are objectionable to them, but Rawls, as well as other Rawlsians, do not think this is a problem. As one of the Rawlsians, Burton Dreben claims, “[w]hat do you say to Adolf Hitler? The answer is [nothing]. You shoot him. You do not try to reason with him.”
However, are all unreasonable citizens as crazy as Hitler? My article suggests that many citizens are unreasonable according to the definition of Rawls, but they are not committed to severe epistemic error and still respect a basic code of civility. Instead of using violence to force others to surrender, these citizens are willing to explain their views and listen to others. This group of citizens includes libertarians like Nozick, utilitarians like J. S. Mill, and perfectionists like Joseph Raz. These are all great philosophers in history, but they would be considered unreasonable in political liberalism. I argue that, in political liberalism, this UIC group should be treated more respectfully than the way that Hitler was treated.
My paper suggests that a political liberal state should show more respect for UIC by offering “conjectures” to them. When an official attempts to justify a law or policy to UIC, he can begin the public justification from the UIC’s comprehensive doctrine, religious or secular. By offering a conjecture, the official should try to show that some religious or ethical values in the comprehensive doctrines of UIC can provide good reasons to endorse the laws and policies of the political liberal state on the basis of public reason. Instead of perceiving UIC as blatantly wrong and giving up on convincing them, the state officials should try their best to engage with UIC through conjectures.
I further explain that this respectful attitude toward UIC has two benefits. First, this creates a political culture that is more likely to convert UIC into reasonable citizens. Suppose a political liberal state continues to alienate UIC in public justification. These UIC are unlikely to change their beliefs and appreciate the great values to which political liberalism is committed. They may even deliberate with other like-minded UIC more frequently and come to adopt a more extreme version of what they believed before. Hence, for the sake of stability, conjecture is a more appropriate action that officials should use to address UIC.
Secondly, by using conjecture, the distinctiveness of political liberalism becomes clearer. This enhances the moral confidence of reasonable citizens. While a political liberal state has legitimate grounds for coercing UIC, it seems similar to other regimes guided by religion or sectarian ideologies in terms of coercing dissenters. Reasonable citizens may wonder: Is political liberalism genuinely more tolerant and respectful to citizens than other theories? However, when the political liberal officials engage with UIC by conjectures, they show to the public that the state sincerely engages with dissenters and make every effort to reconcile their disagreement with dissenters. Eventually, UIC may still be unpersuaded by the officials, but the action of conjecture itself is sufficient to enable reasonable citizens to be morally confident in their state.
In sum, to avoid becoming a tyranny of the ideal, the political liberal state should use conjecture as an olive branch to bridge the gap with the UIC.
“Is it Sectarian for a Rawlsian State to Coerce Nozick? – On Political Liberalism and the Sectarian Critique”, Philosophia (forthcoming)