Citizenship, War, and the Origins of International Ethics in American Political Philosophy, 1960–1975

Abstract

This article examines a series of debates about civil disobedience, conscription, and the justice of war that took place among American liberal philosophers, lawyers, and activists during the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War. It argues that these debates fundamentally reshaped American political philosophy, by shifting the focus from the welfare state to the realm of international politics. In order to chart this transition from the domestic to the international, this article focuses on the writings of two influential political theorists, John Rawls and Michael Walzer. The turn to international politics in American political philosophy has its origins, in part, in their arguments about domestic citizenship. In tracing these origins, this article situates academic philosophical arguments alongside debates among the American public at large. It offers a first account of the history of analytical political philosophy during the 1960s and 1970s, and argues that the role played by the Vietnam War in this history, though underappreciated, is significant.

“A Quite Similar Enterprise … Interpreted Quite Differently”? James Buchanan, John Rawls and the Politics of the Social Contract

“…In Rawls's case, while his published political views were submerged in his larger theoretical edifice, it seems clear that his assessment of the contentious debates and social change of this period was far more sympathetic than Buchanan's. 69 These differences first became evident when Buchanan reviewed A Theory of Justice. Buchanan observed that although, on the basis of Rawls's earlier papers, he had "looked forward to publication of Rawls's long-promised treatise," he in fact found himself "less sympathetic" to Rawls than he thought.…”

What do we do now? Examining civilian masculinity/ies in contemporary liberal civil-military relations

“…It exists in tension with liberal ideas of civic rights against arbitrary violence, non-violent conflict resolution, and individual autonomy. Though the recourse to volunteer militaries has been posited by contemporary liberal thinkers -perhaps paired with a conscript lottery -as alleviating immediate problem of state coercion of individuals, 115 it does not address the underlying normative obligation of service. 116 The confluence of gendered cultural affects, narratives, and ethics regarding (at least potential) military service and citizenship suggests that in a time of war, all "good" masculine citizens ought to serve.…”

Disruptive Disobedience

“…"Insofar as civil disobedience theory assumes that political resistance requires moral justification even in the settings that are morally comparable to Jim Crow, it is premised on serious moral error" (Lyons 1998, 39). For discussion of the historical contextthe Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War-in which Rawls and Walzer developed their theories of disobedience, see Forrester (2014). 6.…”