Pragmatist Egalitarianism

Abstract

Pragmatist Egalitarianism argues that a deep impasse plagues philosophical egalitarianism, and sets forth a conception of equality rooted in American pragmatist thought that successfully mediates that impasse. The book argues that there is a division within egalitarianism between those who regard equality as a fundamentally distributive ideal and those who construe it as a normative conception of human relationships. These rival conceptions are referred to as “vertical” and “horizontal” egalitarianism, respectively. Despite their close connection, these ideals may come apart. And yet, so much philosophical writing on equality is marked by what looks like a zero-sum competition for the same conceptual turf, as if the whole truth about equality must be captured by a single idea or an exclusive set of principles. One of the book’s core arguments is that we should reject the central premises upon which such disagreement turns: that equality is a single idea, that it has a fundamental locus, and that there is a singular or primary route to the achievement of a genuinely egalitarian society. The pragmatist view the book sets forth recasts egalitarianism in light of three mutually reinforcing variables—the institutional, the personal, and the cultural—each of which is best accentuated in one of a trio of pragmatists, John Dewey, William James, and Richard Rorty. If the three variables are mutually complicit in promoting inequality, an egalitarianism that takes this seriously will treat all three as equally (though differently) important in making things better.

Cosmopolitan Responsibility

“… It has been notedthat the notion of justiceislargely absent in Dewey'swritings (Dieleman, Rondel et al 2017). While recentlysome have started to address this lacuna (Talisse 2017,Rondel 2018, my own attempttoadvance the project of aglobal political ethics can, as is explained in this chapter,d rawd irectlyf romm anyp ragmatist insights. This first,tentative characterisation invites abrief recapitulation of the concretep roblem for which the turn towardp ragmatism seems to me particularly useful.…”

Richard Rorty and the Demands of Liberalism

“…As with Shklar’s understanding of passive injustice, Rorty’s focus on incuriosity draws our attention to everyday ways in which we can fight cruelty within a liberal community. The ethos of curiosity we find in Rorty’s thought thus vindicates the view that it is “more politically radical than it has usually been given credit for” (Rondel 2018, 139; see also Dieleman 2021, 197–8).…”

Spotlight: Pragmatism in contemporary political theory

“…At the philosophical core of this tradition, Axel Honneth (Honneth, 1998a(Honneth, , 1998b(Honneth, , 2014 has particularly drawn on the formative argument to develop his account of social freedom and democracy while Rahel Jaeggi's influential account of the critique of forms of life draws on a Deweyan account of forms of life and their criticism as experimental problem-solving (Jaeggi, 2018: 318). 5 Outside this tradition, philosophers such as Elizabeth Anderson and David Rondel draw on Dewey's social philosophy to inform current problem-focused explorations of structural injustice (Anderson, 2011;Dieleman et al, 2017;Rondel, 2018) Both in Dewey's own work and recensions, these two arguments and the relationship between them are highly contentious. We can ask whether experimentalism avoids, on the one hand, appeal to a priori standards for the success of social inquiry or, on the other, appeal to the local ethnocentric convention.…”

“…At the philosophical core of this tradition, Axel Honneth (Honneth, 1998a, 1998b, 2014) has particularly drawn on the formative argument to develop his account of social freedom and democracy while Rahel Jaeggi's influential account of the critique of forms of life draws on a Deweyan account of forms of life and their criticism as experimental problem-solving (Jaeggi, 2018: 318). 5 Outside this tradition, philosophers such as Elizabeth Anderson and David Rondel draw on Dewey's social philosophy to inform current problem-focused explorations of structural injustice (Anderson, 2011; Dieleman et al, 2017; Rondel, 2018).…”