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"Clements, Paul, 1961-"
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Rawlsian Political Analysis
In Rawlsian Political Analysis: Rethinking the
Microfoundations of Social Science, Paul Clements develops a
new, morally grounded model of political and social analysis as a
critique of and improvement on both neoclassical economics and
rational choice theory. What if practical reason is based not only
on interests and ideas of the good, as these theories have it, but
also on principles and sentiments of right? The answer, Clements
argues, requires a radical reorientation of social science from the
idea of interests to the idea of social justice.
According to Clements, systematic weaknesses in neoclassical
economics and rational choice theory are due to their limited model
of choice. According to such theories in the utilitarian tradition,
all our practical decisions aim to maximize the satisfaction of our
interests. These neo-utilitarian approaches focus on how we promote
our interests, but Clements argues, our ideas of right, cognitively
represented in principles, contribute independently and no less
fundamentally to our practical decisions.
The most significant challenge to utilitarianism in the last
half century is found in John Rawls's Theory of Justice
and Political Liberalism , in which Rawls builds on Kant's
concept of practical reason. Clements extends Rawls's moral theory
and his critique of utilitarianism by arguing for social analysis
based on the Kantian and Rawlsian model of choice. To illustrate
the explanatory power of his model, he presents three detailed case
studies: a program analysis of the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh, a
political economy analysis of the causes of poverty in the Indian
state of Bihar, and a problem-based analysis of the ethics and
politics of climate change. He concludes by exploring the broad
implications of social analysis grounded in a concept of social
justice.
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