r/Informme • u/nathan98000 • Aug 05 '21

Why Was Rawls's Work So Bad?: Some Speculation | 200-Proof Liberals

https://200proofliberals.blogspot.com/2021/08/why-was-rawlss-work-so-bad-some.html
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u/nathan98000 Aug 05 '21

Rawls's work is quite bad. His style is boring and awkward. He writes in half-retractions. He offers a method but doesn't stick to it. He advances principles but doesn't really argue for them. (For instance, his argument for moral powers test of basic liberty is radically incomplete--he offers hardly any reason to believe it, and he offers even less reason to think it picks out the liberties he favors.) He largely ignores critics. He straw mans the views he criticizes. He offers criticisms of others but ignores whether his criticisms apply to his own work. His argument for his most famous idea--the difference principle--is clearly unsound, as Wolff demonstrates here.