Anita Superson

In Realizing Rawls, Thomas Pogge defends a Rawlsian conception of justice. The book is divided into three main parts; this discussion will concentrate on the first two. Part 1 constitutes a defence of some aspects of Rawls's theory against objections raised by Nozick and Michael Sandel. This is followed by a second part on the two principles of justice—what they amount to, and some applications of them. Part 3 argues that the Rawlsian scheme should apply globally, not merely to a single state. Readers will find Pogge's book very detailed and well organized. Pogge defends his claims with numerous helpful references to Rawls and his critics. His is a serious book, though I found the pace to be a bit slow at times, mostly because a lot of time is spent examining alternative interpretations before rejecting them.

Traditionally, the problem of defeating scepticism about the rationality of morality is that of showing that every morally required act is rationally required. Little or no direct attention has been paid to whether we must also show that it is rational for the agent to have and act from the morally appropriate motive, whatever that may be. This is not to say that philosophers have entirely ignored the issue of motives; a fair number—Kant and Aristotle come to mind—are concerned in part with the kind of motive agents ought to have and from which they ought to act. But the link to scepticism has not been clearly made. At issue is whether scepticism is fully defeated if we show that every morally required act is rationally required, even if we leave it possible that a fully rational person who performs the act just “goes through the motions” in doing so

I defend the Interdependency Thesis, according to which rational evaluations of dispositions and actions are made in light of each other. I invoke a model of rationality that relies on various levels of consistency existing between an agent’s reasons for adopting a moral disposition, the argument for the moral theory she endorses (relying on the Kantian notion that all persons are equal in humanity), her desires, disposition, and choice to be a moral person as reflected in the maxim she adopts. The Interdependency Thesis shows that we do not need to demonstrate the rationality of every morally required action in order to defeat scepticism fully.