Paul Weithman: Rawls's Political Liberalism
Topic: Rawls's Political Liberalism
Speaker: Paul Weithman, University of Notre Dame
Host: Jie Yin尹 洁
Time: June 20th, 2025 @20:30
Zoom Meeting Details:
Meeting ID：813 645 3804
Password：200433
Lecture Abstract:
The amount of A Theory of Justice Rawls devoted to stability, and the fact that Rawls's concern with it prompted his turn to political liberalism, testify to the urgency Rawls attached to the matter. While his treatment has attracted increased attention, it remains a relatively under-appreciated and understudied part of his theory. The lack of appreciation is regrettable, because the treatment is novel and ambitious. The lack of study is regrettable, because Rawls's continuing worries about stability prompted a significant concession which raised questions that Rawls himself did not pose, let alone answer.
The lecture will begin with some discussion of Part I of Theory of Justice before delving into some details of the treatment of stability in Part III. I will then discuss Rawls's reasons for becoming dissatisfied with that treatment and the ways he attempted to remedy the sources of that dissatisfaction by recasting his view as what he called a "political liberalism". I hope that the lecture will be accessible to those with relatively little exposure to Rawls and will also be of interest to experts.
Paul Weithman
Paul Weithman is the Glynn Family Honors Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Notre Dame, the university from which he received his B.A. in 1981. He earned his Master's and Ph.D. in philosophy at Harvard, where he wrote his doctoral dissertation under the direction of John Rawls and Judith Shklar. He joined the faculty at the University of Notre Dame in 1991, chaired the Philosophy Department between 2001 and 2007, and co-directed the Glynn Family Honors Program from 2014 to 2021. He currently directs the interdisciplinary minor in Philosophy, Politics and Economics.
Weithman's first book, Religion and the Obligations of Citizenship, won the annual book award from the North American Society for Social Philosophy. His Why Political Liberalism? won the David and Elaine Spitz Prize as the best work of liberal democratic theory published in its year. He has lectured on five continents, and is the author of over 100 published articles and thirty book reviews.
