Rawls, Dewey, and Constructivism

Eric Thomas Weber is assistant professor of Public Policy Leadership at the University of Mississippi, USA. He has published in Human Studies, Review of Policy Research, Skepsis, William James Studies, Contemporary Pragmatism, and Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society.

• 1. Introduction; 2. Social Contract Theory, Old and New; 3. Worlds Apart: On Moral Realism and Constructivism; 4. Freedom and Phenomenal Persons; 5. Rawls's Epistemological Tension: The Original Position, Reflective Equilibrium, and Objectivity; 6. Dewey, Rawls, and Education; Bibliography; Index.

... Weber's critique is respectful rather than polemical, remaining robust but also judicious and collegial throughout... What distinguishes this work is its 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.