Rawls on Race/Race in

Rawls
Presentation by Imbesat Meer
John Rawls
Rawls was an American moral and political philosopher. In fact, he is considered by many as one of the
most significant and influential political and moral philosophers of the 20th century.

This reading discusses the lack of work on racial justice in his work and secondary literature generated
from his work. While his work Focuses on social injustice, which is the natural place to look for guidance
and thoughts related to race, there is nothing of substance actually mentioned about racial justice.
Some terms to understand
- Affirmative Action - attempting to protect a minority group (gender, race), we although this can
confirm that they need these protective/supportive measures and would not be able to succeed
without them.
- Ideal theory - In political philosophy, ideal theory refers to argument concerning political or
social arrangements under favorable assumptions. Racism is a non-ideal theory.
- Social contract theory - the view that person's' moral and/or political obligations are
dependent upon a contract or agreement among them to form the society in which they live eg we
all agree not to kill someone else.
- Normative matters - In philosophy, normative statements make claims about how things
should or ought to be, how to value them, which things are good or bad, and which actions are right
or wrong.
Textual Record for Rawls on Race
1. A theory of justice

This allows us a look at how Rawls sees race. Rawls seems to regard race as natural. Thus at one point
he refers to “fixed natural characteristics” that “cannot be changed.”

Rawls does explicitly condemn racism. He declares “we are confident that religious intolerance and racial
discrimination are unjust” and continues on to say that, “no one behind the veil of ignorance would “put
forward the principle that basic rights should depend on the color of one’s skin or the texture of one’s
hair”
Acknowledges that racial injustice is not moral conception, rather it is a means of suppression.

Race is not initially listed as one of the features you do not know about yourself behind the veil of
ignorance
Textual Record for Rawls on Race
2. Political Liberalism

Here he admits, two decades after A Theory of Justice that the book did not deal with race.

He also cites Race in a list of factors that give rise to conflict among citizens - “[conflicts deriving] from
their different status, class position, and occupation, or from their ethnicity, gender, and race”

“Race and ethnic group” are now explicitly mentioned as something you do not know behind the veil

Now, Rawls refers to American slavery and its legacy: “similarly, slavery, which caused our Civil War, is
rejected as inherently unjust, and however much the aftermath of slavery may persist in social policies
and unavowed attitudes, no one is willing to defend it.”
Textual Record for Rawls on Race
3. Collected Papers

“The Justification of Civil Disobedience,” discusses civil disobedience in the context of oppressed
“minorities,” though race is not mentioned. Apart from the implicit and brief 1951 Nazi reference, then,
race does not appear in any of the essays leading up to the 1971 publication of Theory.

A 1975 essay lists “sex and race” among the data about themselves to which parties behind the veil
should not have access.

A 1988 essay says it is permissible for “a constitutional regime” to discourage “various kinds of religious
and racial discrimination (in ways consistent with liberty of conscience and freedom of speech)”
Textual Record for Rawls on Race
4. The Law of Peoples

This is focused on international relations.

Rawls condemns the World War II firebombing of Japanese cities and the use of nuclear weapons on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but he does not, unlike some other authors, link these military decisions to anti-
Japanese racism
Textual Record for Rawls on Race
5. Justice as Fairness: A Restatement

Rawls reiterates the point that conceptions of the good “requiring the repression or degradation of certain
persons on, say, racial, or ethnic, or perfectionist grounds—for example, slavery in ancient Athens or in the
antebellum South”—would be ruled out

He rhetorically asks, “ How can one ignore such historical facts as slavery ?” and answers himself, that he is
only concerned with the ideal theory for a well-ordered society with justice as fairness.
Hence, using ideal theory to justify the absence of race. Race would fit into a non-ideal theory.

He addresses the lack of discussion on racism and points out that omission is not as such a fault, not in the
purpose of his work nor in the conception of justice. If there would be a fault, it would be on how someone
expresses and addresses political values.

He insists that the principles he articulated there can be adapted and utilized to address racial injustice, even
if he himself did not so use them.
Critique: Rawls on Race
Out of the five books, that total around 2k pages, only a dozen pages reference race. These are repeated
and generalized even.
Race, racism, and racial oppression are marginal to Rawls’s thought.

nowhere in these 2,000 pages on justice penned over five decades by the American philosopher most
celebrated for his work on social justice, are the following discussed: affirmative action, institutional
racism, white supremacy as a global concept.

A question raised by the reading: How theoretically useful is it then going to be in the philosophical
investigation of social justice to start from a raceless ideal so remote from this reality?
Critique: Rawls on Race
The Jewish Holocaust is represented, in keeping with conventional Western wisdom and amnesia, as
unique, a “demonic” event of “manic evil,” linked to the history of Christian anti-Semitism,15 but with no
apparent continuity with the West’s own racist history in the nonwhite world.
Rawl’s Eurocentrism
Rawl’s eurocentrism, according to the author, is a systematic ignoring of the experience of the nonwhite
political subject.
It is particularly manifest in the “whiteness” of Rawls’s perspectives on matters, and his ignorance of
these previously mentioned epochal crimes.

He focuses on Europe, on europeans and their problems and issues that affect the white population.
Even though he is from America, he does not discuss blacks or native americans. And when he does
discuss the european issues, he does it in a very cleansed way, without bringing up the previously
mentioned monumental crimes against humanity, where ethnic cleansing was carried out.

For rawls the pivotal period for politics is determined by the origins of political liberalism. So for him the
crucial date is 1648 Peace of Westphalia which started the international system, but he skips over the
fact that 1492 might have more resonance for the non european world, as this was when racialized
liberalism came about with separate rules for whites and non whites.
Rawl’s Eurocentrism
Even when he looks at United States, his focus is on the European population, albeit in a generalised,
abstract manner that is typical for philosophy overall and particularly typical for the construct theory.

Just by looking at Rawls’s work and how the contractarian founding is supposed to be a normative
starting point to what audience? It seems clear that it is intended for white settlers and their descendants.

Only for the white settlers, would all this not be ridiculously inapposite to represent society as a
“cooperative venture for mutual advantage”
Rawl’s Eurocentrism

Why can it only be applied to white settlers?

Because Native americans did not “agree” to be killed and to end up losing 98 percent of their land
through a “conquest by law”

Similarly, the captured and enslaved africans never gave their consent to that happening to them.

Overall, one cannot and must not ignore as Rawls conveniently does, that domination and coercion of the
non-white population are the founding moments for the American (and not just the American) polity, not
democratic inclusion and consent
Rawl’s Eurocentrism
By ignoring this basic, political agenda and framework establishing reality, one can see that Rawls was
only addressing a white population.

The author states that one cannot simply justify this by saying that we are dealing with normative matters
or with the ideal theory, and that these admitted and deplorable unhappy truths will detain or derail us.

In an attempt to map the ideal ideal, we have ended up on a path focused on the racially privileged rather
than on their victims.
Rawls and the Difference Principle
The Difference Principle permits diverging from strict equality so long as the inequalities in question
would make the least advantaged in society materially better off than they would be under strict equality.

The principle aims to address the problems of the wort-off in a constrained society. However, it doesn't
offer any guidance on dealing with the specific demands of the racially oppressed eg Native peoples’
land claims. Rather, it is inspired by long tradition of European social democracy and really focused on
the white working class.

However, by taking class as the main axis of social disadvantage, he is importing a socio-political
framework from europe which can only be applied to america if if the non-white population and their
distinctive experiences are ignored.
Rawls and the Difference Principle
Personally I find it odd, that a philosopher who is well-versed and focused on social matters, can so
smoothy ignore and gloss over the racial differences manifested in every aspect of his native land
society. How he can forget or refuse to acknowledge the social hierarchy of races is worrisome.

As the reading states, if you ignore race, its makeup, ie essentially marganize race in your apparatus,
your framework from the beginning becomes inadequate for comprehending their workings and by
extension, prescribing justice for them.
Rawl’s Eurocentrism
Another point brought up by Mills is that for Rawls, he considers “race and ethnicity” to be “new” political
questions, which is revealed in his 1996 book Political Liberalism. This is fascinating, considering that
white and black abolitionism and native people’s struggles against white encroachment go back
centuries. Of course, these crimes, while pertaining to society are also political.

However, as Rawls takes the Euro-American and European experience to be normative, he might easily
gloss over this.
Rawl’s and Non-Ideal Theory
In The Law of People, Rawls talks about the non-ideal theory. However, the focus is on “outlaw states”
who who “refuse to comply with a reasonable Law of Peoples” and “burdened societies” whose
“historical, social, and economic circumstances make their achieving a well-ordered regime … difficult if
not impossible.”

So here, the perspective, implicitly or explicitly is that of the privileged West, who were formerly colonial
powers. They have records of enslavement, expropriation and genocides which massively constitute
violation of “laws of the people”

He excludes that third world countries would be burdened by underdevelopment due to an exploitative
economic system established by these very nations.
Rawl’s Eurocentrism: Conclusion
So overall, there is an Eurocentric idealization, by Rawls, both domestically and internationally, and not
just in ideal theory but also in non-ideal theory. There is systematic white idealization with focus away
from the ugly empirical non-ideal realities that affect the non-white population.
Rawls’s Argument for not dealing with race:
1. The Classical Tradition
When we refer to classical tradition of political theory we refer to the first works of political theory that
were written in the ancient world, particularly the Greeks and later the Romans.

Rawls explains in Justice as Fairness why he did not address race. He states two factors: his self-
location within the “classical” (Western) political tradition and his focus on ideal theory.

Counter Arguments by Mills: It is worth mentioning, that on occasion, if admittedly not often and in any
detail, the classical tradition has dealt with non-ideal theory. (Example: Aristotle on rectificatory justice).
Hence, one cannot say it is precdent that is lacking.

Moreover, it is pertinent to mention, that at least for the modern period and possibly even earlier, most of
the “classical”modern Western philosophers, such as Hume, Locke, Kant, Mill, Hegel,and others, had
racial views that arguably shaped how they intended their principles to be applied to the non-white
population
Rawls’s Argument for not dealing with race:
1. The Classical Tradition
Hence, Race is very much central to that tradition in the modern period, even if it is not currently
acknowledged as such by the History of Philosophy.

The author says that recognizing and correcting for its legacy rather than abstracting away from it and
pretending it does not exist is extremely important. However, I ask, does this responsibility lie with
Rawls?

Even if the classic European thinkers had themselves all been blamelessly non-racist, we cannot ignore
the fact that the principles of Western Tradition were applied in a world made by the West.
Rawls’s Argument for not dealing with race:
1. The Classical Tradition
1980s onward Rawls started seeing Justice as “political,” not “metaphysical” which is an opinion of the
western tradition. Based on this, race declares itself even more imperatively as a subject that needs to be
addressed, since, of course, modern Western societies and the world they made were deeply racist.

According to his criterion, Rawls is restricting his ambit of concern to the specific features of the modern
Western tradition. Then how can he ignore one of the most salient features of that tradition? More so, if
your rationale for developing a revisitionest contractarianism adequate for “political liberalism” is that
concern is now explicitly supposed to be on the local and contingent, instead of transhistorical and
international, then the investigation and adjudication of matters pertaining to racial justice have to be
central to you.
Rawls’s Argument for not dealing with race:
1. The Classical Tradition
Mills also criticizes Rawls for being tendentious in how he the “Western” tradition, due to his
eurocentrism.

Rawls seems unaware that there is a long intellectual counter tradition of those subordinated by the West
contesting its racial oppression. It is not always possible to separate colonial theory from the West. For
example, for African Americans they are ineluctably “Western,” with a long history of African American
political thought, whether in terms of black nationalism and Pan-Africanism, or black liberalism and black
Marxism. This needs to be seen as an oppositional element within this tradition, both shaped by and
reacting against it.
Rawls’s Argument for not dealing with race:
1. The Classical Tradition
We can look at the work of people like Martin Luther King Jr., Malcom X, David Walker etc, to see that
there does exist a political tradition for which race and the fight against racial injustice have been integral.
Whether it be in terms of abolitionism, anti-Jim Crow, anti-imperialism, or anti-segregation.

However, Rawls only brings up King’s name, and besides that ignores all of this other work. Thus,
defining the West do that the West is white and the political problems of the West are limited to the
political problems of its white members. Thereby in effect ignoring all of the non-white population.
Rawls’s Argument for Not Dealing with Race
2. The Focus on Ideal Theory
Ideal theory is not supposed to be an end in itself but is instrumental to the goal of more adequately
dealing with injustice. Rawls himself said that the point of starting with ideal theory was to provide a
foundation for the more “ pressing and urgent” matters of non-ideal theory

One cannot deny that one of the most pressing issues of justice in the American polity. Why did Rawls
not focus on this? There was no principled refusal. If he could address international issues through non-
ideal theory why could he not do the same for America’s issues on race? Especially if one considers that
these issues were within his power to affect, raising acute urgency for questions of the “especially deep
inequalities” in “men’s initial chances in life” about which a theory of justice was supposed to be
particularly concerned. So why even at the end of his life had he still not even begun to tackle this non-
ideal issue?
Rawls’s Argument for Not Dealing with Race
2. The Focus on Ideal Theory
Mills does state that criticizing an author for articles and books he did not write is perhaps a completely
misguided enterprise. After all they can choose where to focus their energy.

However, he points out that Rawls was following Theory, the best-known and most celebrated political
philosopher in the country. He was also at most prestigious academic institution in the country, at one of
the most prestigious philosophy departments in the country. He had the opportunity to influence public
policy and intellectual debate. He also fought in a Jim Crow army in WWII, grew up in America
segregated by the Plessy v Ferguson decision of 1896, and attended university when blacks were
commonly barred from “white” institutions.
Rawls’s Argument for Not Dealing with Race
2. The Focus on Ideal Theory
His academic career started around the time of the birth of the modern (postwar) civil rights movement,
the demonstrations and marches organized by Martin Luther King Jr., and the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference in the 1950s, and the later more radical movements and ghetto uprisings of the
1960s.

Surely he could not have been oblivious to the racial subordination, injustice and segregation? Especially
considering these events would have been making headlines which he could have only missed if he was
living under a rock.

This does indeed call into question his priorities, and more so calls into question white political philosophy
in general.
Rawls’s Argument for Not Dealing with Race
2. The Focus on Ideal Theory
Let us look at distinctions between ideal ideal (ideal theory in ideally just circumstances) ie an ideally just
society in the sense of a society with no past history of injustice, and, the rectificatory ideal (what is
ideally required to remedy past injustices) ie an ideally just society in the sense of a society whose past
unjust history has been corrected for.

Now to decide which public policy option is morally superior, the the rectificatory ideal is a goal to be
approached,

Why? Well, the non-ideal cannot fit the role because we would have to abandon our present social order
and build a new “basic structure” from scratch, from the ground up.
Rawls’s Argument for Not Dealing with Race
2. The Focus on Ideal Theory
The Rawlsian ideal would need to start ground zero - a society with no history of racial (or any other kind
of) injustice. Then we only need an appropriate anti-discrimination legislation to ensure that this injustice
does not penetrate the basic structure. This produce a racism-free polity and a race-free polity.

Now, literature over the last three decades in critical race theory and critical white studies demonstrates
that race is socially constructed and without systemic discrimination race would not even existed in the
first place. Hence, we would not just need a basic structure without systemic racism; we would have a
basic structure without races existing as social entities at all. It is not merely that there would be no need
for rectificatory public policy measures like affirmative action and, more radically, reparations, but that
there would be no identifiable groups to whom these policies could even be targeted.
Rawls’s Argument for Not Dealing with Race
2. The Focus on Ideal Theory
Hence, ideal ideal theory would not only be absent of past histories of racial or other injustice, but would
have no races at all.

Now how would this ideal ideal theory compete with the corrective measures already implemented?
Obviously, it cannot. It is an ideal with little to no practical worth as it would require us to somehow turn
back time. So with theory one might also create a time machine.

So we are back to the non-ideal (rectificatory) ideal.

Retrieving Contractarianism
Mills states, that contractarianism is not a completely useless apparatus for the exploration of these
matters of racial justice. In fact, it can be revived, however with fundamental modifications to its crucial
assumptions.

The issue is with the focus on the ideal theory. We must modify the apparatus to work with the non-ideal
theory. Then the moral framework would be centered on the imperative of eliminating the structures of
socio-political domination (class, gender, or race) that preclude the realization of genuine equality for the
majority of the population, thus creating an altogether different variety of contractarianism from what
Rawls created.
My Two Cents
For me the reading has raised the following points:
Firstly, does a philosopher has an onus of responsibility to discuss all aspects in his field. Did John Rawls
have an obligation to discuss race as a social philosopher or a justice philosopher? Can we criticize a
philosopher for not focusing on a particular topic, even if it was right in front of him?
While the reading did make me feel very much as if he was living under a rock, especially considering the
monumental events that took place in America while he was alive, I also believe it is his choice to ignore
them in his work, and to focus entirely on other topics.

Secondly, did the absence of these topics in his work, make the work and ideas any less worthy or
applicable? Especially considering if his work can be adjusted to be applied to the realities of today’s
racially unjust world, and thus, perhaps allow us better arguments and understanding of the issues we
face today. If we can apply his work to these issues, rather than losing value, they might be quite helpful.