A Comparative Evaluation of Michael J. Sandel and Alan Haworth's Views on Rawls's Liberalism

Michael Sandel is communitarian thinker who challenges John Rawls's views in Theory of Justice, holding that there are mistakes in the book's presuppositions, arguments, and conclusions. In contrast, Alan Haworth defends Rawls's views, replying to some objections by Sandel. In this paper, we want to see whether liberalism presupposes abstract individualism, as Sandel and other critics of Rawls maintain, or not. We will also consider the claim made by Sandel that in order to understand our real identity, we need to bear in mind the interests, beliefs and loyalties on which our indetities depend, though Rawlsian 'self' is free of such interests, beliefs and loyalties. Hawort argues that: 1) Sandel’s account of the manner in which constitutive loyalties function as reasons for action presupposes the possibility of there being underivable particular obligations, but that such obligations are, in fact, logically impossible, and 2) Sandel’s account of the self as necessarily encumbered presupposes an account of personal identity which confuses identification with definition, and which is fundamentally flawed.