Book Review: Eric Thomas Weber's Rawls, Dewey & Constructivism more

Review of Eric Thomas Weber (2010) Rawls, Dewey and Constructivism: On the Epistemology of Justice. London: Continuum. 176pp, £65, 978 1 4411 6114 7 Richard Cotter © 2011, submitted to Political Studies Review Journal Eric Thomas Weber’s Rawls, Dewey and Constructivism is a comparative analysis of the epistemologies of John Rawls and John Dewey from the standpoint of pragmatic constructivism. Although Rawls gets first name billing in the book’s title, it is clear from the outset that it is Dewey who will leave with the intellectual laurels. However, Weber’s critique is respectful rather than polemical remaining robust but also judicious and collegial throughout. After a short introduction the work begins with a succinct overview of the most serious accusations levelled at both traditional and contemporary social contract theories. Enlisting some stellar argumentative support in the forms of Hume, Hegel and of course Dewey, Weber succeeds in convincing that social contract theory in general (foundational to Rawls’ work) is a fatally flawed concept. This sets the scene for Weber’s primary critical move, developed in the ensuing chapters. This consists of a forensic disinterring of the residual Kantian tension in Rawls’ theory of justice. A tension which is characterised by the existence of a latent representationalist strand in Rawls’ thinking which contradicts his putatively constructivist stance. Weber neatly marks this paradox as an epistemologically untenable ‘construction within a construction’ (p.82) which inevitably destabilises Rawls wider thesis. As Weber has it, philosophically speaking Rawls seems to subtly wish to have it both ways. Ultimately however he is either epistemologically coherent or he is ‘riding the fence’ which won’t do (p.99). Rawls’ noncommittal approach has been noted by other critics before Weber. R.M. Hare famously said that Rawls’ views were ‘hard to catch’ (1) and Jurgen Habermas (no stranger to normative rationality) once commented that Rawls’ theory of justice is ‘open to competing interpretations’ (2). What distinguishes this work is it’s comprehensive identification of Kant as the primary source of epistemological ambiguity in Rawls and the subsequent force of Weber’s rich illustration of the merits of Deweyan philosophy in plugging these deficiencies and more. Without denying the empirical potential to be found within normative theory, Weber paints a cogent picture of Dewey’s rich and fully committed constructivist epistemology so loaded with history and attentive to context. Beside this Rawls’ ‘thin’ alternative is made to seem too detached and hypothetical to be of practical value. Naturally, some will disagree with his pragmatic assessment but Weber has delivered a powerful, if a times perhaps slightly repetitive, case for making those who would rejoin at least reflect well before doing so. (1) Hare, R.M. (1973) ‘Review: Rawls Theory of Justice – I’, The Philosophical Quarterly, Vol.23, No.91, pp. 144-155 (2) Habermas, J. (2010) Between Facts and Norms, Cambridge: Polity Press