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PROCESS
PHILOSOPHY
AND POLITICAL
LIBERALISM
Rawls, Whitehead,
Hartshorne

Daniel A. Dombrowski
Process Philosophy and Political Liberalism
To my son, Damien
Process Philosophy and
Political Liberalism
Rawls, Whitehead, Hartshorne

Daniel A. Dombrowski
Edinburgh University Press is one of the leading university presses in the UK. We
publish academic books and journals in our selected subject areas across the humanities
and social sciences, combining cutting-edge scholarship with high editorial and
production values to produce academic works of lasting importance. For more
information visit our website: edinburghuniversitypress.com

© Daniel A. Dombrowski, 2019

Edinburgh University Press Ltd

The Tun – Holyrood Road, 12(2f) Jackson’s Entry, Edinburgh EH8 8PJ

Typeset in 10/12 Bembo by

Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire,
and printed and bound in Great Britain.

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 4744 5340 0 (hardback)

ISBN 978 1 4744 5342 4 (webready PDF)
ISBN 978 1 4744 5343 1 (epub)

The right of Daniel A. Dombrowski to be identified as the author of this work has
been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, and the
Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003 (SI No. 2498).
 Contents

Acknowledgements vi
Preface vii

1. Reflective Equilibrium as a Process 1

2. Political Liberalism and Process Thought 23
3. Gamwell on ‘The Comprehensive Question’: A
Rawlsian Critique 52
4. Religion, Solitude-in-Solidarity and Snyder’s Bloodlands 79
5. Heidegger, Political Philosophy and Disequilibrium 108
6. Organic Marxism and Process Liberalism 135
7. From Non-human Animals to the Environment 161

Bibliography 198
Index 211
 Acknowledgements

Parts of Chapter 3 appeared in ‘Gamwell on “The Comprehensive

Question”: A Rawlsian Critique’, American Journal of Theology &
Philosophy, 38 (2017): 27–48. Likewise, parts of Chapter 4 appeared
in the same journal in the article ‘Religion, Solitariness, and the
Bloodlands’, 36 (2015): 226–39.
 Preface

The purpose of the present book is to defend the processual char-

acter of political liberalism. This defence will bring together the
thought of the greatest political liberal, John Rawls, who was
also throughout his long career at Harvard the most influential
political philosopher of the twentieth century, and the thought
of the greatest process philosophers, Alfred North Whitehead and
Charles Hartshorne, who spent most of their illustrious careers at
Cambridge and Harvard, in Whitehead’s case, and at University of
Chicago, in Hartshorne’s case. It is unfortunate that Rawls is not
better known as a process thinker; and it is equally unfortunate
that Whitehead and Hartshorne are not better known as political
philosophers. My aim is to remedy these defects such that scholars
in philosophy, politics, theology and religious studies will be better
equipped to defend political liberalism against its illiberal detractors
on both the political right and left.
Despite current illiberal tendencies in politics that are obvious,
the twenty-first century may very well turn out to be the Rawlsian
century. Samuel Freeman is one political philosopher who notes
that some of the giants in political theory had their greatest influence
in the century after they wrote (see Freeman 2007b: 5, 458, 472).
John Locke lived in the seventeenth century, but the American
state based on his views did not come into existence until the late
eighteenth century; Adam Smith wrote in the late eighteenth cen-
tury, but invisible hand economics did not spread across the globe
until the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; and Karl Marx wrote
in the nineteenth century, but the communist revolutions fought
viii process philosophy and political liberalism

in his name did not occur until the twentieth century and in places
Marx did not anticipate. I think it is safe to say that pervasive plu-
ralism is here to stay such that either we will find a fair, politically
liberal decision-making procedure to deal with such pluralism in
the twenty-first century or we will unravel into ethnic or racial or
religious warfare, class or gender conflict, and fratricidal/sororal
chaos of all sorts. To put the point even more dramatically, in the
future we will either continue to advance the politically liberal pro-
cess of inclusion and toleration of reasonable differences or we will
perish. Because it would not be rational to allow the latter option
to occur, the ongoing process of political justification in a democratic
context is our only viable option if we hope to approximate justice.
The book has seven chapters. The first chapter deals with
method and hence informs what occurs in the remaining six chap-
ters. Specifically, it deals with the processual method of reflective
equilibrium. This method is wider than and includes Rawls’s more
famous methodological device of deliberating about justice in an
original position behind a veil of ignorance. The hope is that the
mistaken idea that the Rawlsian method of justification in political
philosophy is static will be thoroughly discredited. My primary
interlocutor in this chapter will be Nicholas Wolterstorff. The
second chapter continues the effort to bring together the twin con-
cepts of ‘political liberalism’ and ‘process’ by tracing the origin and
history of political liberalism and by detailing the politically liberal
views of Whitehead and Hartshorne. The emphasis in these first
two chapters is the ongoing character of both political liberalism
and the method by which politically liberal principles are justi-
fied. In the third chapter I examine the most notable challenge to
Rawlsian political liberalism from a thinker who is very well versed
in process thought: Franklin Gamwell. Here I will try to sort out
the relationship between metaphysics and political philosophy in a
way that is conducive to the justification and flourishing of politi-
cally liberal institutions.
By the end of the third chapter my own processual defence of
political liberalism will be open to view for readers’ consideration.
The next three chapters deal with alternative views that, each in
their own way, are theoretically problematic because they lead us
away from reflective equilibrium. In the fourth chapter I examine
 preface ix

the historian Timothy Snyder’s magisterial book titled Bloodlands

so as to alert (or remind) readers to the disastrous consequences of
illiberal political philosophies of both the right and left. The fourth
chapter prepares the way for the fifth, where I examine Martin
Heidegger’s right-wing, indeed fascist, political philosophy. And
in the sixth chapter I will look at some recent defences of ‘organic
Marxism’ by Philip Clayton and Justin Heinzekehr, who argue for
a close connection between process thought and Marxism. This
contrasts with my own efforts to get political liberals to be more
explicit about their implicit processuality and to encourage process
thinkers to continue to affirm their historic liberality.
In the seventh chapter I offer a politically liberal defence of
both nonhuman animal rights and environmental ethics so as to
call into question the assumptions that in order to understand our
place within nature we need to travel towards either the green
nationalism that often characterizes right-wing political views
or a revised version of Marxism that is alleged to steer us away
from anthropocentrism. Even in light of the mass killing in the
Bloodlands ­discussed in the fourth chapter and the environmental
crisis d­ iscussed in the seventh chapter, I think that it makes sense
to remain cautiously optimistic regarding the processual effort to
asymptotically approach a realistic utopia that is just.
 reflective equilibrium as a process 1

1
Reflective Equilibrium as a Process

Introduction
In the present chapter I will be defending the views that: (1) reflec-
tive equilibrium should be seen as the overall method at work in
political philosophy; and (2) reflective equilibrium should be seen
as an ongoing process. The latter thesis is a novel one that helps
to both clarify what reflective equilibrium is and establishes the
cogency of the former thesis. It is precisely the processual character
of reflective equilibrium that forges a crucial link between liberal
political philosophers like John Rawls and liberal process thinkers
like Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne. In order to
establish this link, however, it will be fruitful to first understand
Nicholas Wolterstorff’s interpretation of Rawls’s theory.
Wolterstorff’s Justice: Rights and Wrongs (2008) was hailed, on its
dust jacket, by one notable critic as the most important work on
the subject since Rawls’s A Theory of Justice in 1971. Quite a com-
pliment! Wolterstorff’s extremely interesting comments on Rawls
raise important questions for how we should interpret Rawls’s
work. Specifically, Wolterstorff provides a most useful frame for
considering Rawls’s overall method of reflective equilibrium. He
presses Rawls’s defenders to account for their belief that human
beings are free and equal, a belief that is an integral part of any
effort to achieve reflective equilibrium in liberal democratic polit-
ical theory. Wolterstorff’s insistence in this regard (and his own
traditional religious account of this belief) helps us develop a richer
understanding of the method of reflective equilibrium. Granted,
2 process philosophy and political liberalism

Wolterstorff is not criticising the idea of reflective equilibrium per

se. Rather, he asserts that there is an unacknowledged reliance on
natural rights in Rawls. But as a result of his criticisms, we acquire a
much better understanding of the method of reflective equilibrium
that will be at work throughout the present book.

Wolterstorff’s View
Wolterstorff makes the startling, but understandable, claim that
Rawls’s theory of justice is an inherent natural rights theory (here-
after I will drop ‘inherent’ and refer simply to natural rights theory),
but that Rawls ‘does nothing at all to develop an account of such
rights. He simply assumes their existence’ (Wolterstorff 2008: 15).
This is why Wolterstorff largely ignores Rawls; Wolterstorff is
concerned with developing an account of natural rights. As he
puts it, ‘my interlocutors will be those who do not just appeal to
such rights but have something to say about them’ (Wolterstorff
2008: 15). Because Wolterstorff’s claim will shock many readers,
we should ask why he claims that Rawls’s early theory of justice is
a natural rights theory. Wolterstorff’s response to this question rests
squarely on the work of two scholars, Michael Zuckert and Ronald
Dworkin.
Zuckert’s thesis is that, whereas John Locke understood rights,
and therefore justice, to derive from ‘property’ (he used the term
to include life and liberty), Rawls understood rights, and therefore
justice, to derive from fairness. There is no idiosyncratic use of
‘rights’ here; the term is used in a familiar way to refer to legitimate
claims.
It seems that what Wolterstorff likes most about Zuckert’s inter-
pretation concerns Rawls’s view of the inviolability of the human
person. Whereas for Locke justice derives from the inviolability of
the human person (i.e. from rights), which in turn is derived from
property, Rawls takes almost the reverse stance: justice derives
from fairness, and inviolability (i.e. rights) derives from justice. As
Zuckert sees things, this stance jars our intuitive or common-sense
notion of justice, in that we normally tend to think that justice
follows from, and does not ground or serve as the source of, rights.
In other words, the Rawlsian account of inviolability is in a state
 reflective equilibrium as a process 3

of disequilibrium with our intuitive or common-sense notion of

justice.
Zuckert and Wolterstorff are in agreement with Rawls, and
against utilitarian thinkers, in thinking that human beings are invi-
olable. For example, all three thinkers agree that the utilitarian
critique of slavery is problematic because it condemns slavery only
contingently. Under certain conditions, a utilitarian might have to
permit, or even encourage, slavery, as is well known. By contrast,
Zuckert and Wolterstorff agree with Rawls that we should con-
demn slavery as a matter of principle.
The key criticism that Wolterstorff, with the aid of Zuckert,
would like to make is that Rawls’s defence of the inviolability
of the person should be based on something like Locke’s (and
Wolterstorff’s) concept of natural rights, a concept that relies on
the biblical tradition of seeing a human person as an imago Dei, as
being made in the image of God. Indeed, Zuckert suggests that
Rawls’s defence of inviolability is in fact parasitic on Locke’s view.
In this respect Zuckert and Wolterstorff are articulating the now
familiar view, endorsed as well by the process thinker David Ray
Griffin and Jürgen Habermas (e.g. Griffin 2007: ch. 7; Habermas
2002), that various ‘postreligion’ ethicists and political philosophers
are living off the capital accumulated during the Judaeo-Christian
ages: they conveniently receive a great deal of insurance without
having to pay any premiums. Think of the reductionistic biologist
who sees human beings as so much protoplasmic stuff, as strictly
accidental by-products of blind evolutionary history, but who also
belongs to Amnesty International. The issue here is not the theory
of evolution per se, which is perfectly compatible with many types
of religious belief, but its reductionist materialist interpretation,
which is very difficult to reconcile with any sort of belief in the
inviolability of the human person. But Rawls muddies the water
by speaking as if the inviolability of human persons is not prior to
justice as fairness, but is derived from it.
Zuckert is not alleging foul play or subterfuge on Rawls’s part.
Rather, he thinks that Rawls is led into genuine confusion as a
result of his belief that there no more could be justice outside of
(democratic) practices than there could be strikeouts outside of the
practice of baseball. An athlete could swing a stick in the air three
4 process philosophy and political liberalism

times, but outside of the practice of baseball this would not be a

strikeout. Likewise, outside of certain political practices there could
be no rights and hence no inviolability of the human person, on
Zuckert’s interpretation of Rawls, adopted by Wolterstorff. On this
interpretation, a Rawlsian would presumably have to admit that
‘Hugo would be perfectly in the right to gratuitously kill Samuel if
they met on a desert island’. Rawls would be better served, Zuckert
thinks, if he considered ‘more carefully the preconditions for his
own edifice of fairness’ (Zuckert 2002: 327).
Now let us consider how Dworkin’s thought, as filtered through
Wolterstorff, can facilitate an appreciation of Rawls. Several features
of Dworkin’s liberal critique of Rawls do not figure in Wolterstorff’s
account. It is Dworkin’s treatment of Rawlsian reflective equilib-
rium that positively influences Wolterstorff, who has complained
about the ‘inarticulate’ nature of Rawls’s epistemology, such that
interpreters of Rawls have to engage in an inordinate amount of
exegetical industry in order to figure out what Rawls means by rea-
sonableness, rationality and reflective equilibrium (see Wolterstorff
and Audi 1997: 69, 75, 77–9, 98–9, 109, 111–12, 148). I assume,
however, that reasonableness can be understood as the willingness
to abide by fair terms of agreement and that rationality can be
understood as the ability to follow arguments and the like. Whereas
it takes a reasonable person to be willing to enter the Rawlsian
original position and to abide by the decisions made there, it takes
a rational person to do the deliberating.
Dworkin, however, correctly makes it clear that it is a mistake to
assume that there is a direct, one-way argument from the original
position to Rawls’s famous two (actually three) principles of justice.
This is a simplistic (because static) approach that is nonetheless the
basis for the pedagogy through which many or most students come
into contact with Rawls’s thought. Dworkin rightly emphasises
that Rawls’s more complex processual method consists in seeking
reflective equilibrium ‘between our ordinary, unreflective moral
beliefs and some theoretical structure that might unify and justify
these ordinary beliefs’ (Dworkin 1977: 155).
On the one hand, the method involves the effort to provide a
structure of principles that supports (i.e. that unifies and justifies)
our ordinary, unreflective moral beliefs. On the other hand, we
 reflective equilibrium as a process 5

should also be prepared to alter or even abandon immediate con-

victions in the face of powerful theory:

We can expect to proceed back and forth between our immedi-

ate judgments and the structure of explanatory principles in this
way, tinkering first with one side and then the other, until we
arrive at what Rawls calls . . . reflective equilibrium in which we
are satisfied, or as much satisfied as we can reasonably expect.
(Dworkin 1977: 156)

Dworkin notices, as few critics do, that for Rawls (and for Dworkin
himself, if not for Wolterstorff) the conditions that are embodied
in the description of the original position are not imposed from
without, but are those that we either do in fact accept or could be
led to accept as a result of the process of philosophical reflection
(Dworkin 1977: 158–9; Rawls 1999c: 19, 514).
Dworkin, along with many commentators, sees reflective equi-
librium as part of a coherence theory of morality. But, unlike most
commentators, he sees two sorts of coherence. One of these is
‘natural’, wherein human beings have a moral faculty that enables
them to discover eternal and static moral reality, as in the intuition
that slavery just is wrong. This faculty is analogous to the physical
observations in science that are the clues to the existence and nature
of physical laws.
The second of these coherence models is processual and ‘con-
structive’, in which the practitioner of the type of moral philosophy
found in the model does not assume that principles of justice have a
fixed, objective existence, as in the natural model. For example, the
intuition that slavery is wrong is not a clue regarding the existence
of an independent, eternal principle, but a stipulated feature of the
general theory to be constructed.
Most commentators do not see the natural model as a type of
coherence theory. Rawls would seem to agree with these com-
mentators. Dworkin’s classification of the natural model as a type
of coherence theory seems to be the result of the analogy he draws
with scientific observation. For example, if an astronomer has clear
observational data that do not cohere with any existing theory, the
astronomer understandably thinks that observational powers have
6 process philosophy and political liberalism

temporarily outstripped explanatory powers and that the task is to

try to have the latter catch up with the former so that coherence is
eventually reached.
By way of partial contrast, when ‘observations’ are made by a
moral faculty, the situation is a bit more complicated in that it is not
automatically assumed that theory has to ‘catch up’. This is because
in the constructive model the ‘observations’ regarding justice or
injustice are more likely to be contested than in the natural model.
There is something gained in the constructive model, however.
Coherence is eventually reached owing to the responsibility and
persistence of the moral agents who take initial intuitions regarding
justice or injustice seriously along with the rational desire to be con-
sistent. The point is not that scientific inquirers are not responsible
or persistent. Rather, the idea is that, although these traits may facil-
itate coherence between observation and theory in science, they are
not absolutely essential, as they are in the constructive model. That
is, in the constructive model, moral philosophers themselves must
take responsibility for the processual drive for coherence.
As before, Rawls’s constructivist notion of reflective equilibrium
is a two-way process that goes back and forth between adjustments
to conviction and adjustments to theory until the most adequate
fit is achieved. (On the natural model this might look like ‘cook-
ing’ the evidence.) Once again, reflective equilibrium is a process
notion rather than an algorithm that gives us the right answer once
and for all. Although such an algorithm might not be found in the
natural model either, it seems fair to claim that scientists at least
hope to approximate such algorithmic thinking.
If one’s tentative theory of justice does not fit some particular
intuition, this should serve as a warning that we should consider
whether we really want to hold on to the intuition. Or perhaps
it leads us to question the theory. The key point here is that the
two-way process of reflective equilibrium is at odds with the nat-
ural model, which Dworkin thinks aims at the ‘timeless features of
some independent moral reality’ (Dworkin 1977: 166). It should be
noted that, although Wolterstorff relies on Dworkin in his criticism
of Rawls, Wolterstorff’s own view of natural rights as ultimately
resting on a theistic basis (on a traditional theistic basis at that,
where God is seen as immutable) would seem to ally him with what
 reflective equilibrium as a process 7

Dworkin calls ‘the timeless features’ of ‘the natural view’. I will

argue in due course that (despite the fact that I am a theist, albeit a
process one) this gets Wolterstorff into trouble.
What is not in dispute among Dworkin, Wolterstorff and Rawls
is that a rights-oriented approach should be defended. For example,
Wolterstorff and Rawls would agree with Dworkin that

there is a difference between the idea that you have a duty not
to lie to me because I have a right not to be lied to, and the idea
that I have a right that you not lie to me because you have a
duty not to tell lies . . . A theory that takes rights as fundamental
is a theory of a different character from one that takes duties as
fundamental. (Dworkin 1977: 171)

The questions before us are how we should account for rights and
how rights fit into the processual method of reflective equilibrium.
Although Dworkin does not give a great deal of evidence of agree-
ing with the conservative elements in Zuckert’s and Wolterstorff’s
views of justice, he does think, along with them, that Rawls’s view
is ultimately a natural rights position:

It must be a theory that is based on the concept . . . of rights

that are natural, in the sense that they are not the product of
any legislation, or convention, or hypothetical contract. I have
avoided that phrase because it has, for many people, disqualify-
ing metaphysical associations. They think that natural rights are
supposed to be spectral attributes worn by primitive men like
amulets, which they carry into civilization to ward off tyranny.
(Dworkin 1977: 176)

Dworkin tries to reassure his readers that Rawls’s natural rights are
not, as perhaps they are in Wolterstorff, parts of a ‘metaphysically
ambitious’ project (Dworkin 1977: 177).
Rather, they are connected to the practical political goal of pro-
tecting citizens. Nonetheless, Dworkin admits, to Wolterstorff’s
delight, that natural rights are assumed by Rawls without argument
in that they are ‘not simply the product of deliberate legislation or
explicit social custom, but are independent grounds for judging
8 process philosophy and political liberalism

legislation and custom’ (Dworkin 1977: 177). Simply put, Rawls’s

social contract assumes natural rights even if Rawls himself prefers
to think of his view as ‘ideal-based’ rather than ‘right-based’, and
even if at times he tries to distance himself from any association
with natural law (see Rawls 1999a: 400; 1996: 406).
Wolterstorff goes along with Zuckert and Dworkin in admit-
ting that Rawls’s presentation of his theory does not appear to be a
natural rights theory. The argument that it is in fact a natural rights
theory is strictly deductive, given other things that Rawls has to say.
For example, it is basic to Rawls’s theory that there be equal respect
for all citizens, or at least for all reasonable/rational agents who
deliberate in the original position. (More precisely, if the agents who
deliberate in the original position are rational but not reasonable,
this is because the information constraints they work under ‘stand
for’ reasonableness [Rawls 1999a: 317].) Wolterstorff unfortunately
refers to agents who bargain in the original position, which confuses
the Rawlsian original position with the Hobbesian state of nature
(Wolterstorff 2008: 16; Rawls 1999c: 116n10, 120–1). The equal
respect that is owed to those deliberating in the original position
is due to . . . due to what? The Rawlsian response to this question
would seem to involve a natural right to equality of concern and
respect, ‘a right they possess not by virtue of birth or characteristic
or merit or excellence but simply as human beings with a capac-
ity to make plans and give justice’ (Dworkin 1977: 182; also see
Wolterstorff 2008: 16).
Wolterstorff cites two passages from Rawls himself to support
the claim that Rawls’s theory of justice in A Theory of Justice is built
on natural rights. The first is in the main body of the text, where
Rawls refers to equality as it applies to the respect that is owed to
persons irrespective of their social position. This sort of equality is
‘fundamental’, according to Rawls. He says that this type of equal-
ity ‘is defined by the first principle of justice and by such natural
duties as that of mutual respect; it is owed to human beings as moral
persons. The natural basis of equality explains its deeper signifi-
cance’ (Rawls 1999c: 447; see Wolterstorff 2008: 16).
A second, more explicit, passage is found in a footnote. Its
location outside the main body of the text Wolterstorff reads as a
sign of Rawls’s reluctance to parade the fact that his theory is built
 reflective equilibrium as a process 9

on natural rights, perhaps because of the aforementioned fear that

he would be interpreted as advancing a metaphysically ambitious
project.
No doubt it is this fear that scares away many potential readers
of explicitly process philosophers like Whitehead and Hartshorne,
both of whom were political liberals who defended the concept of
rights, it should be noted (see Morris 1991; Dombrowski 1997c).
This is unfortunate given their process contributions to political lib-
eralism, most notably their defence of a version of theism wherein
God is not an omnipotent king, the imitation of which gets in
the way of democratic virtues, but is rather the ideal being-in-­
becoming who facilitates the liberal transition from force to per-
suasion (Whitehead 1967a: ch. 5; Hartshorne 1984c; Dombrowski
2002). This is no small accomplishment given that many or most
people in the United States, in particular, and in the world, in
general, are religious believers of some sort. Unfortunately, many
of them have religious beliefs that contradict democratic virtues.
Hence process theism is well positioned to try to persuade religious
believers towards a better social world. Process or relational theism
fits hand in glove with political liberalism even if it is but one
among many reasonable comprehensive doctrines that are compat-
ible with liberal citizenship, including many that are not religious.
My hope in the present chapter is to add another process contri-
bution to political theory by explicating the dynamic character of
reflective equilibrium.
Now back to the second passage, where Rawls says that the fact
that the capacity for moral personality is a sufficient condition for
being entitled to equal justice ‘can be used to interpret the concept
of natural rights’:

For one thing, it explains why it is appropriate to call by this

name the rights that justice protects. These claims depend solely
on certain natural attributes the presence of which can be ascer-
tained by natural reason pursuing common sense methods of
inquiry. The existence of these attributes and the claims based on
them is established independently from social conventions and
legal norms. The propriety of the term ‘natural’ is that it suggests
the contrast between the rights identified by the theory of justice
10 process philosophy and political liberalism

and the rights defined by law and custom. But more than this,
the concept of natural rights includes the idea that these rights
are assigned in the first instance to persons, and that they are
given a special weight. Claims easily overridden for other values
are not natural rights. Now the rights protected by the first prin-
ciple have both of these features in view of the priority rules.
Thus justice as fairness has the characteristic marks of a natural
rights theory. Not only does it ground fundamental rights on
natural attributes and distinguish their bases from social norms,
but it assigns rights to persons by principles of equal justice,
these principles having a special force against which other values
cannot normally prevail. Although specific rights are not abso-
lute, the system of equal liberties is absolute practically speaking
under favorable conditions. (Rawls 1999c: 442–3n30)

It is to Wolterstorff’s credit that he highlights this footnote, for

philosophers should not be startled to hear about the natural rights
dimension of Rawls’s early theory. But my purpose in what follows
is to interpret this crucial statement in a way that differs somewhat
from Dworkin’s interpretation and a great deal from Zuckert’s and
Wolterstorff’s static and religiously conservative interpretations.
Finding the best possible interpretation of this quotation is cru-
cial if we are to confront head-on Wolterstorff’s claim that the
deepest issue in Rawlsian theory is one that is rarely discussed: the
fact that the theory is based on natural rights and that these rights
must somehow be located within the processual method of reflec-
tive equilibrium. From Wolterstorff’s point of view, a theory of
justice that is based on natural rights should give us an account of
these rights, and it should declare that a society is just to the extent
that it honours these rights. In this regard, it is Wolterstorff’s view,
not Rawls’s, that sees political philosophy in static terms amenable
to deductive explication. Rawls, Wolterstorff alleges, does some-
thing different. He develops a theory of justice that appeals to only
one natural right: the right of rational agents (Wolterstorff should
say: reasonable/rational agents) to be treated with equal respect. On
Wolterstorff’s view, Rawls wistfully hopes that if this natural right
is honoured, then all of the others will be secured (Wolterstorff
2008: 17).
 reflective equilibrium as a process 11

Critique of Wolterstorff’s View

One of the classic debates in moral theory concerns the question of
starting points. Should we start with particular moral judgements or
with general (or universal) moral principles? We can call those who
defend the former approach particularists and those who defend the
latter generalists. The debate between the defenders of these two
approaches is perhaps due to the fact that these thinkers are primar-
ily interested in different questions. The particularist is primarily
interested in responding to the question, which actions are morally
right (or wrong)? Whereas the generalist is primarily interested in
the question, what are the criteria of right (or wrong) actions?
Both of these views, it should be emphasised, are opposed to
moral scepticism. But they combat moral scepticism in quite differ-
ent ways. Despite the well-known and powerful Kantian arguments
against particularism, some philosophers continue to insist that the
best way to argue against moral scepticism is to start with particular
moral judgements that are widely shared (e.g. that the mass killings
at Auschwitz were unjust, that the treatment of Africans on the
slave ships in the Middle Passage was immoral) and then try to work
out the theoretical criteria for moral (or immoral) action later. Most
of the major figures in the history of moral theory have made some
contribution to this debate.
I understand Rawls’s contribution to lie in his processual method
of reflective equilibrium, which in effect asks the question, why
does one have to choose between particular moral beliefs and
general (or universal) moral principles when searching either for
starting points in political philosophy (which is only one part of
moral philosophy) or for the source of justificatory warrant? Rawls
thinks it makes better sense to make use of both sorts of belief in the
articulation and defence of moral theory. We sometimes begin a
conversation in moral philosophy with the statement of a particular
judgement; in other conversations we start with an affirmation of
a moral principle, as in a statement of the golden rule. There is no
good reason to restrict ourselves to only one of these starting points
or sources of moral judgement (see DePaul 1988: 72). Or better,
given that both particular moral judgements and general (or uni-
versal) moral principles are necessary conditions for, and perhaps
12 process philosophy and political liberalism

jointly sufficient conditions for, moral discourse, the burden of

proof should be on the person who wishes to crowd out one or the
other of these features.
A partial response to Wolterstorff is available at this point. One
of the reasons, but not the only one, why Rawls does not talk more
about natural rights is that they collectively function only as a part of
a theory of justice, rather than as its cornerstone, as in Wolterstorff.
That is, Wolterstorff needs to manage his expectations regarding
the place of natural rights within the Rawlsian processual method
of reflective equilibrium. He should not expect natural rights to
play as large a role in Rawls’s thought as they play in Locke’s
thought. There are many ways to incorporate the strengths of both
particularism and generalism, of course, and reflective equilibrium
is only one of them. But by pointing out the hybrid character of the
method we can trim Wolterstorff’s expectation that if natural rights
are in play they must take centre stage. As in process thought in
general, reflective equilibrium is thoroughly relational in character.
The mereological character of natural rights in Rawls’s thought
(that is, the fact that it is only one part of the whole theory) is sig-
nalled by the fact that he prefers to label his view ­‘conception-based’
or ‘ideal-based’, rather than ‘rights-based’, despite the obvious part
that rights play. But his view is nonetheless ‘right-based’, in the
singular, so as to signify the Rawlsian commonplace that the right
is prior to the good (Rawls 1999a: 400–1; Freeman 2007a: 18–19,
24).
As Samuel Freeman sees the issue, in Rawls’s revival of ‘the
natural rights theory of the social contract’ there is a transition to a
reflective equilibrium that involves ‘separate strands of argument’,
much like Peircian strands of cable that mutually reinforce one
another and unlike the metaphor that a chain of argument is only as
strong as its weakest link. That is, the cable metaphor comes closer
to what reflective equilibrium is all about than the chain metaphor
does – indeed, the chain metaphor has become so familiar that it is
usually not even perceived as a metaphor (Freeman 2007b: x, 42).
By considering the many situations in which moral questions
arise (i.e. by trying to incorporate the legitimate insights of moral
particularists), we are inevitably led, whether explicitly or implic-
itly, to moral principle and to a region much wider than, but
 reflective equilibrium as a process 13

a­dmittedly not at odds with, natural rights. As Michael DePaul

puts the point, ‘most people have both general and particular initial
beliefs’ (DePaul 1988: 79), including both general and particular
beliefs about natural rights. But the key question is, how are we
to bring these disparate beliefs into some sort of consistent whole?
Particular beliefs, including particular beliefs about natural rights,
can lead to disaster if they are not examined from some sort of
reticulative perspective like that taken by the person who aspires to
reflective equilibrium or the person who thinks systematically along
the lines of Whitehead or Hartshorne. Robert Nozick’s version of
libertarianism, to cite one example, involves some extremely ques-
tionable judgements based on a runaway version of natural rights.
Do we really want to privatise both the national park system and
the public (state) school system, as seems to be required by his ver-
sion of libertarian theory?
Although there are clear differences between natural rights and
natural duties, an important similarity between the two should
not escape our notice. Natural duties are those that all reasonable
beings already agree to and thus need not be adjudicated by a fair
­decision-making procedure. We do not need a social contract to
determine that cruelty is wrong. The natural duty not to be cruel
holds between persons regardless of their institutional relationships,
hence ‘the propriety of the adjective “natural”’ (Rawls 1999c: 99).
No matter what comprehensive doctrine one believes in, if the
doctrine is reasonable it includes the belief that we have a duty
not to be cruel and a duty not to murder. This latter duty would
thus apply even on a desert island, contra Zuckert. In this regard
we should notice that Rawls incorporates the best from Thomas
Hobbes and Locke regarding the concept of natural duties (Rawls
2007: 37, 43, 118–21, 144–6; also see Freeman 2007b: 418, 422).
Likewise, there is something antecedent about natural rights.
These are the rights that are presupposed by the process of reflec-
tive equilibrium, as Wolterstorff rightly notes. But this need not
be a problem, as Wolterstorff assumes. ‘The way in which it is
rational for a person to resolve a conflict between beliefs will not
be determined by which of those beliefs is general and which is
particular, but by which belief seems most likely to be true to the
person after thoroughly considering the matter’ (DePaul 1988: 80).
14 process philosophy and political liberalism

Once again, appeal to particular natural rights is only a part of the

process of developing a defensible theory of justice. That the orig-
inal position, or some other device used to develop a fair decision-­
making procedure, is needed indicates that the critic who alleges
that reflective equilibrium leans more in the direction of generalism
than particularism is on to something. But the method is hardly
an attempt to run roughshod over particular moral beliefs. It is
quite possible for theory as well as intuition to be overridden. The
process of reflective equilibrium here looks similar to Whitehead’s
famous ­metaphor in Process and Reality. Theory is like a plane that
takes off from the ground (of particular intuitions) so as to develop
an abstract account of the phenomena in question, making sure
eventually to touch ground again (Whitehead 1978: 5).
The place of natural rights in Rawlsian political theory is further
contextualised when a distinction is made between narrow reflec-
tive equilibrium, as I have described it thus far in political liberalism,
and the effort to find wide equilibrium between political principles
and non-political principles in philosophy of mind, science and so
on (see Daniels 1979). In both endeavours there is an understanda-
ble reluctance to give up on a seemingly well-established belief (e.g.
that cruelty is wrong) when challenged by an untested one. And in
both there is the requirement of intellectual honesty, such that an
inconsistent or poorly supported belief is relinquished in the face of
a more powerful one that is internally consistent. Further, reflec-
tive equilibrium in its widest sense also involves the effort to reach
coherence between one’s view of justice and one’s comprehensive
doctrine, which will be the topic of Chapter 3 of the present book
(see Daniels 2015).
The starting points in the process of reflective equilibrium can
be seen as shared notions latent in common sense (Rawls 1999a:
327), but this does not mean that they are self-evident. Both Rawls
and Wolterstorff are understandably opposed to the idea of self-­
evident starting points (see Rawls 1999c: 18–19, 42–5). Or at least
self-evident starting points, if such things exist, would have to be
analysed critically along with other proposed starting points (Rawls
1999a: 288–91). Wolterstorff even goes so far as to claim that the
appeal to self-evident rights in the US Declaration of Independence
is ‘a piece of epistemological bluster’ (Wolterstorff 2008: 319n). In
 reflective equilibrium as a process 15

Rawlsian language, to say that our starting points have some basis
in our common democratic heritage is obviously not to say that
they are metaphysically basic moral truths. In fact, they are clearly
open to revision (Ebertz 1993: 196–7, 200, 212). (Nonetheless,
some starting points – e.g. that cruelty is wrong – when revised
put all of our other moral beliefs into a dangerous disequilibrium.)
As Whitehead put a related point, the deadly foe of morality is not
change, but stagnation (Whitehead 1967a: 269).
It is often noticed that behind the initial beliefs that get the
process of reflective equilibrium started lies a Rawlsian view of the
human person. At times Rawls distinguishes between conceptions of
the human person and ideals of the human person (Rawls 1999a:
321–2, 352). The former are connected, once again, to issues in
philosophy of mind regarding, say, personal identity over time,
whereas the latter are connected to issues in moral philosophy
regarding how a human person ought to act and what a human
person ought to be. It should be emphasised that, although there
may well be useful connections between conceptions of and ideals
of the human person, conceptions of the human person under­
determine moral theory. Even if Rawls himself seems to believe in
a Kantian conception of the human person (as free, equal, reason­
able and rational), which pushes strongly in the direction of human
rights, he is well aware that competing conceptions of the human
person must be considered in a politically liberal society.
Granted, there are only a finite number of conceptions of the
human person that see human persons as reasonable. And granted,
each conception of the human person makes some moral theories
more probable than others (Brink 1987: 81–6). But even if one
grants these points, one is still able to defend the thesis that con-
ceptions of the human person underdetermine moral theory. For
example, to grant that a human person is made in the image of God
still leaves unresolved many of the most important issues in political
philosophy. Among Catholics, say, who believe in the imago Dei
hypothesis, we find liberation thinkers who are heavily influenced
by Marxist thought, Opus Dei members who consort with fascism,
and political liberals, broadly construed. Luckily, this last group is
now the largest of the three.
The treatment thus far of the problem that the process of
16 process philosophy and political liberalism

r­eflective equilibrium is meant to solve makes it possible both to

better situate the place of natural rights in Rawls’s view and to
better understand the place of starting points within the process of
reflective equilibrium.
But one of the difficulties that any interpreter of Rawls must
confront is how to navigate among three different methods or
types of justification in his thought: (1) the processual method
of reflective equilibrium; (2) the original position, which can be
understood as that part of reflective equilibrium wherein particular
beliefs or intuitions regarding justice are put to the test of objective
rationality; and (3) public reason, which is more restrictive than
reflective equilibrium in general because it concerns only those
values that can be affirmed by all reasonable beings regardless of the
comprehensive doctrines that they affirm. Regarding (3) it can be
said that not all considered judgements meet the publicity criterion
(e.g. those that concern many religious beliefs). Like the original
position, public reason can profitably be seen as part of the process
of reflective equilibrium, the part that deals with concepts that con-
stitute an overlapping consensus with other reasonable citizens on
the subject of justice (Rawls 1996; Dombrowski 2001a). The orig-
inal position is admittedly, in a way, deductive and non-processual,
but reflective equilibrium as a whole is a process.
However these three methods or types of justification are related,
it is requisite that we understand reflective equilibrium itself as
including three moments: identifying initial beliefs or intuitions
about justice, trying to account for these from some objective point
of view, and trying to reach equilibrium when the previous two
moments diverge. Equilibrium, it should be noted, is a goal or an
ideal rather than an accomplished fact. Thus, we should be wary
of having our starting points do too much work for us, as Thomas
Scanlon emphasises (Scanlon 2003: 139–41).
Scanlon is also helpful in distinguishing between descriptive and
deliberative understandings of reflective equilibrium. Whereas the
former enables us to better understand the implications of what we
already believe, the latter enables us to better understand what we
ought to believe. Once again, the former provides some reason for a
conservative understanding of reflective equilibrium, and the latter
does the same for a radical understanding of it, as when Norman
 reflective equilibrium as a process 17

Daniels has us notice that a society that conformed to Rawls’s three

principles of justice (the first principle – the equal liberty principle
– plus the two parts of the second principle, the equality of oppor-
tunity principle and the difference principle) would be more egal-
itarian than any existing society, including the social welfare states!
(Daniels 2003: 243; Rawls 2001: 135–40, 158–62). Although there
is no compulsion to steer the method of reflective equilibrium into
the descriptive mode, it must be admitted that the method does
require that we account for those judgements concerning which we
are most confident, including judgements regarding natural rights
(Scanlon 2003: 142–4).
The Rawlsian original position (a decision-making procedure that
helps us to achieve a certain degree of objectivity regarding the
concept of justice) requires that we deliberate about justice behind
a veil of ignorance regarding the particularities of our existence such
that we should decide what a just society would look like if we did
not know, for example, what our race would be in such a society. In
this decision-making procedure, reasonable/rational agents would
universally agree that basic goods (whether material or formal)
would be distributed equally to everyone in society, and all of the
goods beyond what it would take to fund the basic goods could
be distributed unequally, but only if such unequal distribution was
in principle open to all and to everyone’s advantage, especially
the least advantaged. This is the radical understanding of reflective
equilibrium towards which Rawls’s theory of justice points.
One of the most common mistakes that interpreters of Rawls
make is to assume that Rawlsian justification occurs only within
the deliberation in the original position. But Rawls is quite clear
that ‘justification is a matter of mutual support of many consider-
ations’ (Rawls 1999c: 507). That is, reflective equilibrium is both
thoroughly processual and thoroughly relational in that all of the
elements can be revised in light of the others.
If there are no good grounds for doubting our beliefs, it is rea-
sonable to grant them initial credibility and a fallible authority.
It is not merely that we believe them that counts, but that they
are credible, as Wolterstorff would otherwise admit as a reformed
epistemologist. The stance of reformed epistemology involves an
innocent-until-proven-guilty quality: we should be free to believe
18 process philosophy and political liberalism

whatever we wish until the belief is shown to be inconsistent,

contradicted by the facts, and so on. Rawls is rightly most famous,
however, for the deliberations that occur in the original position,
so it makes sense for Scanlon to say that, if we had to choose
between the descriptive and the deliberative understandings of the
processual method of reflective equilibrium, the latter deserves the
nod. At least in principle, our initial judgements can change signif-
icantly over the course of time in that reflective equilibrium is not
only a process, but a ‘Socratic’ process. It is because this method is
self-correcting that Scanlon says that it is ‘the best way of making
up one’s mind about moral matters and about many other subjects.
Indeed, it is the only defensible method’ (Scanlon 2003: 149).
This is a remarkable claim. But I do not think that Scanlon
hyperbolises here, for the process of reflective equilibrium is exactly
what is required if we are to avoid the twin evils of reifying either
particular moral judgements or general (or universal) moral princi-
ples. Reflective equilibrium is process ethics at its best. Further, the
results of other proposed philosophical methods (e.g. the transcen-
dental method) are subject to the dialectical criticisms that other
thinkers typically offer.
It must be admitted that at times Rawls gives the impression that
principles of justice are given to us by practical reason, but because
it is our practical reason that does the giving, I assume that there
is no big problem with this impression, in that human actions are
shaped by self-examination and criticism. And it is this criticism that
prevents contractarianism from degenerating into conventionalism.
Reflective equilibrium is an ideal, it will be remembered, rather
than an already accomplished fact; the process of modifying ideas
and rejecting recalcitrant ones is ongoing. This asymptotic effort
is complicated considerably in the later Rawls by the fact that one
must also bring into equilibrium the principles of justice operative
in politics with one’s own comprehensive doctrine. The compli-
cations are especially noteworthy if the comprehensive doctrine
in question does not have an obvious place for human autonomy
(Freeman 2007a: 6, 27, 38, 40, 240; Rawls 1996: 385).
To say that the method of reflective equilibrium is processual
is to say that one always begins one’s thinking about justice in the
middle of things. One ‘starts’ with intuitive considerations, but
 reflective equilibrium as a process 19

one does not exactly ground them, as Wolterstorff hopes to do

in spite of his reformed epistemology. One ‘then’ moves to the
original position, but the rational deliberations found there are
framed by the reasonable, which includes the desire to abide by fair
terms of agreement, a desire that is implied in the willingness to
deliberate under the constraints imposed by the veil of ignorance.
As Burton Dreben emphasises regarding the process of reflective
equilibrium (Dreben is almost alone among scholars in explicitly
referring to reflective equilibrium as a process), the key phrases in
Rawls, which have hardly been noticed, are ‘working through’ or
‘working out’. Rawls spent an entire career working through the
fund of implicitly shared ideas in liberal democracies. His working
out of the concept of justice as fairness gave him more than enough
to do; he ended up contributing more to political philosophy than
any other t­wentieth-century philosopher. Further, he ended up a
more consistent critic of foundationalism than Wolterstorff, once
again despite the latter’s reformed epistemology. Or again, Rawls
himself speaks not so much of ‘analysing’ the idea of a just society
as of ‘unfolding’ it, as Freeman rightly emphasises (Freeman 2007b:
337–8; Rawls 1996: 27).
Because one begins in the middle of things, the preliminary tasks
in political philosophy consist not so much in refuting defenders
of fascism like Heidegger (although we will see that this effort is
needed nonetheless) or various defenders of Marxism (although
Dreben does not mention that Rawls carefully examines Marx
as a political philosopher – Rawls 2007: 319–72; 2001: 176–9).
Rather, one tries to explicate both the benefits of living in a lib-
eral democracy and the conceptual details of what such a society
would look like. ‘A basic task of political philosophy is to work
out the best terms of what would be fair’ (Dreben 2003: 336). This
involves the search for a liberal constitutional democracy that is
stable, but stable for the right reasons. This search, in turn, involves
dialectic, as Rawls himself admits when he compares reflective
equilibrium to Aristotle’s dialectical procedure in the Nicomachean
Ethics. In Aristotle there are starting points (archai), received opin-
ions (endoxa), commonplaces (topoi) and, of course, habits (‘ethics’
is derived from the Greek word for habit, ethos) that enable us
eventually to move dialectically to principle. But it is also possible to
20 process philosophy and political liberalism

move from principle deductively. Both dialectic and deduction are

required (see Hardie 1968: ch. 3; Rawls 1999c: 45).
Dreben confuses matters a bit when he compares the back-and-
forth dialectical character of the process of reflective equilibrium
with circular reasoning, which does not bother him. But because
circular reasoning does bother most philosophers, it is better to stick
with the claim that reflective equilibrium involves the give-and-
take movement of dialectic at its best, wherein conceptual snags
are untangled and inconsistencies exposed (Dreben 2003: 338).
By contrast, Dreben is insightful when he says, ‘You cannot do
substantial political or moral philosophy in any Cartesian-framed
manner’ (Dreben 2003: 343), which is precisely (and ironically,
given his reformed epistemology) what Wolterstorff tries to do
when he attempts to ground natural rights in the imago Dei hypoth-
esis and then judge society’s practice against the standard provided
by such rights.
I would like to emphasise that Wolterstorff is to be commended
for defending theistic philosophy with a capital ‘P’. But I am not
convinced that (1) theism has to be defended in the traditional,
static terms Wolterstorff uses (see Dombrowski 2004a; 2005; 2006),
or that (2) philosophy with a capital ‘P’ is appropriate in political
thought, where the goal is to articulate fair terms of agreement
among reasonable people with different, sometimes uncompromis-
ingly different, comprehensive doctrines, including both religious
and non-religious ones (Rawls 1996). That is, Rawlsian political
philosophy is no less important or difficult because it is done with
a lowercase ‘p’, as we will see (Dreben 2003: 346). As Hartshorne
puts a related point, a liberal is one who knows that he or she is not
God (Hartshorne 1984a: 9).
To those who fear that the process of reflective equilibrium is
relativistic, I would respond that although coherence is a necessary
condition for justification in political philosophy, it is not sufficient.
Common presuppositions in liberal democracies (e.g. that slavery
and cruelty are wrong) and considered moral judgements in liberal
democracies (e.g. that deviations from equality require justifica-
tion) provide stable points that enable us to stave off the horrors of
relativism. Roger Ebertz even goes so far as to refer to these stable
points as ‘modest foundations’ (Ebertz 1993: 206–7), such that the
 reflective equilibrium as a process 21

process of reflective equilibrium can profitably be seen not so much

as an opposition to foundationalism per se as to strong foundation-
alism. We should both allow the defender of slavery to state the case
for slavery and insist that the extremely heavy burden of proof is on
him, not his opponent. As Abraham Lincoln observed, ‘If slavery is
not wrong, nothing is wrong’ (quoted in Rawls 2001: 29; also see
Mandle 2009: 40–1, 170–8).
Further, the method under consideration here is not equilib-
rium at any cost, which would indeed be relativistic. Rather, it is a
method that involves a reflective, dialectically responsible process.
Theories of justice should be viewed historically (i.e. ­processually)
as involving concepts that are gradually purified in the fire of
­reasonable/rational criticism, with the best available concepts (con-
sidered judgements) providing preliminary standards for further
dialectical criticism.
The provisional fixed points mentioned above (e.g. Lincoln’s
claim that if slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong, which Rawls
cites many times – see Lehning 2009: 34) are sufficient to hold the
wolf of relativism at bay. This is consistent with the claim that the
content of public reason is not fixed, particularly if it is an expres-
sion of an especially dynamic society. Think, say, of how attitudes
towards class, race and gender have changed in liberal democracies
over the past several decades. But even in the swift stream of con-
temporary history, the goal should remain to reach equilibrium
between our real beliefs and what would be chosen in the original
position behind a veil of ignorance. Overlapping consensus among
reasonable beings is at least partially in place already, so this goal is
not utopian in the pejorative sense of the term. Society’s political
conception should be publicly, though never finally, justified, as
Rawls himself urges (Rawls 1996: 388–9; also see Lehning 2009:
115, 122–5).
Or, more precisely, the realistic goal is that reasonable people
would come to agree on a family of politically liberal views, of
which Rawlsian justice as fairness is but one representative, albeit
the most egalitarian member of the family. The Rawlsian hope for
justice as fairness, in particular, is that other politically liberal views
would cluster around it for comparison and contrast. It can be seen
as a carefully defended ‘center of the focal class’, as Lehning puts it,
22 process philosophy and political liberalism

in the process of political justification (Lehning 2009: 136, 144; also

see Daniels 1996).
It is to be hoped that the processual character of the method of
reflective equilibrium will become better known to both political
philosophers, in general, and to process thinkers who are political
liberals, in particular, such that these two groups could help to fur-
ther ‘work out’ the concept of justice, which is, as Rawls empha-
sises (Rawls 1999c: 3), the first virtue of social institutions, just as
truth is the first virtue of systems of thought.
It is well known that from the time of his doctoral dissertation
and his first publication, Rawls was very much interested in a pro-
cedure that would correct our considered moral beliefs against a set
of moral principles, a procedure that came to be known as reflective
equilibrium. I have argued in this chapter, however, for a feature of
reflective equilibrium that is not well known: that such equilibrium
is not really a permanent state but a process (see Rawls 1999a: ch. 1;
Pogge 2007: 15, 165; Tebbe 2017: part I). This realisation changes
things significantly, I think. For example, the familiar charge that
Rawls’s method is ahistorical and hence irrelevant to the flux of
historical events begins to look inaccurate in the extreme.
In this regard it is worthwhile to consider the way that Rawls’s
views in A Theory of Justice were later clarified in Political Liberalism.
As a result of the aftermath of the wars of religion, some defended
a liberal, Enlightenment, comprehensive doctrine in an effort to
replace religious comprehensive doctrines. In turn, this comprehen-
sive liberalism is replaced by Rawlsian political liberalism, which is
meant to be congenial to both religious comprehensive doctrines
and sceptical comprehensive doctrines. For this reason, Rawls’s
explicit flirtation with natural rights (and with their implicit relig-
iosity) in A Theory of Justice ends at the level of public, political
discourse in Political Liberalism, even if the affair can nonetheless
continue in the non-public realm of associational freedom.
 political liberalism and process thought 23

2
Political Liberalism and Process Thought

Introduction
It is precisely the inescapability of religious, aesthetic, moral (and
hence political) questions that provides the transition to the present
chapter. How can people live together in a free yet peaceful manner
in a condition of pervasive pluralism of religious and moral com-
prehensive doctrines? It is precisely this question that is the focus
of the present chapter. However, the purpose of this chapter is not
to develop an entire political philosophy on the basis of process
theism, which would be an enormous undertaking. Rather, my
goal is to indicate the ramifications of a version of political theory
based on process theism for one of the themes of the present book:
the transition from force to persuasion that characterises a just soci-
ety. This theme is closely related to conviviality or living together
in a peaceful and fair way with both those who share one’s own
religious beliefs (or lack thereof) as well as those who do not share
them. Although it would be hubristic to claim to have the process
view of politics, the politically liberal stance I will defend nonethe-
less deserves serious consideration if only because the two greatest
figures in process theism – Whitehead and Hartshorne – were
themselves ‘political liberals’, as I will define this term. In fact, the
theme of force to persuasion lies precisely in the area where politi-
cal liberalism has achieved its greatest success: in ending both theo-
retically and practically the wars of religion that plagued Europe in
the early modern period.
The hope is that politically liberal conviviality will continue to
24 process philosophy and political liberalism

spread across the globe in peaceful ways as a result of a willingness

of citizens of various states in a condition of pervasive pluralism
to show respect for fellow citizens, no matter what their religious
beliefs (or lack thereof), so long as they are ‘reasonable’, as this
semi-technical term has been defined. Throughout the chapter I
will be arguing for a conception of political liberalism very similar
to that found in Rawls, whose views help to illuminate the polit-
ical liberalisms of Whitehead and Hartshorne. I will also indicate
how Whitehead and Hartshorne can offer metaphysical support
for political liberalism. To be clear, process philosophy is but one
among many comprehensive doctrines that are compatible with
politically liberal justice. It has the advantage of not only being
compatible with political liberalism but actually facilitating the goals
of political liberalism in a manner that is superior to rival compre-
hensive doctrines that are theistic. Imitation of the omnipotent
tyrant found in classical theism, often criticised by Whitehead and
Hartshorne, is ill-suited to the development of democratic virtues.
Imitation of the persuasive God of neoclassical or process theism, by
contrast, is conducive to such development.

Before Liberalism
Pre-liberal political philosophy or political theology concentrated
on two major tasks: (1) to figure out the characteristics of the good
(the definite article is crucial here); and (2) to figure out how to get
those who understood the good into power and to make sure that
they were succeeded by rulers who were equally knowledgeable.
This characterisation of pre-liberal political thought applies equally
to thinkers who are otherwise quite different: Plato, Aristotle, St
Augustine, St Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, John Calvin and so
on. They may have differed in their accounts of the good, but they
agreed that one of the main tasks of political thought was to come
to grips with it intellectually. And they may have differed regarding
how many individuals were equipped to understand the good, how
difficult it would be to get them into power, and how best to solve
the problem of succession, but they agreed that the overall goal
was to get those who understood the good into power and to keep
them there.
 political liberalism and process thought 25

One very interesting feature of pre-liberal political thought was

that in these views toleration was not seen as a virtue. Indeed, it
was a vice. The reason why pre-liberal political theorists wanted
those who understood the good to be in power was to guard against
those who did not understand it. To cite just three examples, think
of Plato’s expulsion of the poets from the ideal city (e.g. Republic
605b); Thomas Aquinas’s willingness to have recalcitrant heretics
put to death (Summa Theologiae 2a2ae. q. 11. a. 3); and Calvin’s
willingness to kill Servetus, which was noticed more than once by
Hartshorne (see Dombrowski 2001a: ch. 1; Hartshorne 1997: 70,
79). An admirable ruler, in pre-liberal political thought, guarded
the populace against heresy or against anything else that would
lead them away from the good. In fact, not to do so would be
to fail to do one’s duty as a just ruler in that their very success as
rulers was measured in terms of the degree to which they could
lead the populace toward an approximation of the good. In sum,
pre-liberal political thought was characterised more by force than
by persuasion.
Before moving to liberal political philosophy, it will be helpful
to consider in more detail Rawls’s view of two prominent pre-­
liberal political philosophers: Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. In at
least five different ways Rawls’s thought is indebted to Aristotle’s.
First, Rawls’s overall method of reflective equilibrium goes back to
Aristotle’s dialectic in Nicomachean Ethics, as interpreted by W. F.
R. Hardie (Rawls 1999c: 45). Second, his theory of primary goods
(much like Martha Nussbaum’s capabilities approach) relies heav-
ily on Aristotle (Rawls 1999c: 79, 351). Third, Aristotle’s belief
that the fact that human beings possess a sense of justice is what
makes possible a polis is analogous to Rawls’s belief that humanity’s
common understanding of fairness is what makes possible a consti-
tutional democracy (Rawls 1999c: 214). Fourth, Rawls relies on
Aristotle in thinking that justice consists in refraining from pleonexia
– that is, unfairly gaining at the expense of others (Rawls 1999c:
9–10). And fifth, Rawls relies on Aristotle’s idea that no one should
tailor the canons of legitimate complaint to fit his or her own spe-
cial conditions (Rawls 1999a: 200–1).
The chief point of conflict between Rawls’s views and Aristotle’s
lies in the latter’s perfectionism, as Rawls interprets Aristotle (Rawls
26 process philosophy and political liberalism

1999c: 22, 286). He notes that Aristotle was interpreted as a tele-

ological and metaphysical perfectionist at least until the time of
Immanuel Kant (Rawls 1999a: 343). Because perfectionism is a
type of teleological doctrine, it comes under the sway of Rawls’s
critique of teleological doctrines, in general, which is one of the
main aims of A Theory of Justice.
Aristotle’s eudaemonistic perfectionism (along with Thomas
Aquinas’s) is connected to his commitment to the common good.
This commitment is compatible with political liberalism as long as
it is expressed in terms of political values, rather than in terms of a
particular comprehensive doctrine. In the latter case it is subject to
the restrictions on comprehensive doctrines, in general, that are
required in a condition of reasonable pluralism (Rawls 1999a: 583;
1999b: 142). Nevertheless, Rawls acknowledges that Aristotle’s
treatment of happiness as an inclusive end for a human life (rather
than as a dominant end) is the most influential in the history of
philosophy (Rawls 1999c: 481), and even influences Rawls’s own
treatment of a rational plan of life.
Aristotle’s perfectionism led him to affirm only one reasonable
and rational good, on Rawls’s interpretation. Institutions were jus-
tifiable to the extent that they promoted this good (Rawls 1996:
134); and intoleration of those who did not promote this good was
permissible. Aristotle thus set the tone in at least two ways for clas-
sical moral philosophy: human beings by nature desired to know,
and knowledge in ethics centred on the idea of the highest good in
the pursuit of true happiness (Rawls 2000: 4, 47). Rawls uses these
features of classical moral philosophy to better understand Kant and
G. W. F. Hegel. For Kant, contra Aristotle, the religious or the
holy in some fashion transcends happiness. And for Hegel, along
with Aristotle, the highest good is desired for its own sake and is
self-sufficient (Rawls 2000: 160, 371).
The rational intuitionism of Aristotle, wherein moral concepts
are not analysable in terms of non-moral concepts and first princi-
ples of morality are self-evident propositions, is not Rawls’s view.
This ‘self-evidence’, if there is such, is subject to the constraints of
reflective equilibrium, in general. Rawls would hold this view even
if W. D. Ross is correct in claiming that moral decisions almost
always rely on intuitions regarding a balance of reasons (Rawls
 political liberalism and process thought 27

1999a: 343, 350). In fact, such a balance is very close to what Rawls
means by reflective equilibrium.
There are at least two different types of contemporary political
philosophy that are heavily influenced by Aristotle and concerning
which Rawls’s view can be contrasted. Classical republicanism (or
civic republicanism) in the tradition of Aristotle affirms the priority
of ancient liberties to modern ones, such that we should encour-
age active participation in public life in order to preserve basic
rights and liberties. Rawls’s thought is consistent with this view,
at least when classical republicanism is balanced by a commitment
to modern liberties. However, political liberalism is much more
likely to be at odds with civic humanism. This latter view is a type
of essentialist Aristotelianism wherein a human being’s nature is
most fully achieved in participation in political life. Because civic
humanists like Hannah Arendt see politics as a privileged locus for
our complete good, such that without vigorous participation in
politics one’s telos cannot be achieved, it is itself a comprehensive
doctrine that must be held in check along with other comprehen-
sive doctrines in a condition of reasonable pluralism (Rawls 1996:
205–6, 410; 2001: 142–3).
Rawls is also affected by Aristotle’s treatment of particular vices,
like envy, which implies badness of character from the start in that
it does not admit of a mean (Rawls 1999c: 466). In a way, spite
is the flip side of envy in that, if envy consists in negative feelings
towards the good fortune of others, spite consists in the pleasure
brought about by the bad fortune of others (Rawls 1999c: 468).
Rawls, along with Aristotle, thinks it is virtuous, however, to prefer
a short yet noble life to a long life of vice or to many years of ‘hum-
drum existence’. In this regard he uses Aristotle in his critique of
hedonism as a dominant end (Rawls 1999c: 488).
It should also be noted that in Rawls’s undergraduate thesis he
exhibited a very negative attitude towards Aristotle in many differ-
ent passages. We should stop ‘kow-towing’ to him, Rawls thought,
in that ‘an ounce of the Bible is worth a pound (possibly a ton)
of Aristotle’. He was mainly critical of Aristotle’s ‘naturalism’, by
which he did not mean ‘materialism’. Rather, naturalism in ethics
refers to turning desire to its proper object, the good. According to
the very early Rawls, this misses the spiritual or personal element
28 process philosophy and political liberalism

in ethics. In effect, Aristotle turned God into the good, he thought.

Rawls feared that this depersonalising tendency in Aristotle would
eventually lead to egoism and to the destruction of community (see
Rawls 2009: especially 107, 114, 227 et al.).
Now let us consider another major pre-modern political theorist,
Thomas Aquinas. The mature Rawls viewed Thomas Aquinas’s
Summa Theologiae as a ‘magnificent’ achievement. Just as Gottfried
Leibniz rendered the scientific discoveries of the seventeenth cen-
tury compatible with Christian orthodoxy, Thomas Aquinas con-
fronted the new Aristotelianism of the thirteenth century so as
to restate Christian theology in Aristotelian terms (Rawls 2000:
12, 106). Both the very early Rawls and the 1997 Rawls of ‘On
My Religion’ opposed the predeterminism of Thomas Aquinas
(alleged to be every bit as severe as that of Calvin) as well as
Thomas Aquinas’s effort to offer rational proofs for God’s exist-
ence. Throughout his life Rawls seemed to remain a fideist (Rawls
2009: 224, 247, 263–4).
Rawls thinks that his own view that justice is a complex of
three ideas – liberty, equality and reward for services contributing
to the common good (once primary goods are fulfilled regardless
of contribution) – is compatible with Thomas Aquinas’s political
philosophy. But Thomas Aquinas failed to draw out the implicit
egalitarianism of these three ideas. What is needed is not merely
the announcement of these ideas, but also their interpretation and
application (Rawls 1999a: 193).
Rawls’s view is compatible with Thomas Aquinas’s stance
regarding the common good and solidarity when it is expressed in
terms of a political value, rather than in terms of a value associated
with a particular comprehensive doctrine. It can thus be said that
Rawls’s view is that of a (political) common good of (various
comprehensive and sometimes conflicting) common goods. In this
regard Rawls’s view is also compatible with the stances of Thomists
like Jacques Maritain and John Finnis (Rawls 1999a: 582–3; 1999b:
142).
In a similar vein, Rawls’s view is compatible with Thomas
Aquinas’s stance regarding the dignity of the human person when it
is expressed as a political conception of the person, rather than in terms
of a conception of the person peculiar to a particular comprehensive
 political liberalism and process thought 29

doctrine. Regarding the latter, Thomists tend to say that all human
beings desire, even if unknown to themselves, the vision of God,
just as Platonists tend to say that all human beings desire a vision of
the good. Political liberalism sets aside comprehensive accounts of
human nature such as these, although it should also be noted that
it permits them as long as they are reasonable (Rawls 1999b: 172).
Rawls’s view is especially at odds with Thomas Aquinas’s (along
with Plato’s, Aristotle’s, Augustine’s and the Protestant reformers’)
stance that there is only one reasonable and rational good such that
political institutions are justifiable to the extent that they promote
this good. On this basis, intoleration of those who impede this
good is justifiable. This sort of intoleration, which is based on (very
often dogmatic) confidence in one’s own comprehensive doctrine,
is different from (very often reluctant) intoleration based on a con-
cern for justice in a politically liberal society. Decision making in
the original position favours equal liberty of conscience that can be
limited only when it interferes with public order and the liberty of
others. Or again, liberty can be constrained only by liberty itself
(Rawls 1999c: 189–90; 1996: 34).
A dramatic example of the difference between Thomas Aquinas
and Rawls on the basis of intoleration is provided by Thomas
Aquinas’s defence of the death penalty for heretics on the ground
that corrupting the soul is worse than counterfeiting money – the
latter of which was a capital crime in the thirteenth century (see
Summa Theologiae 2a2ae. q. 11. a. 3). The view that intoleration of
heretics is necessary for the safety of souls is only apparently rea-
sonable, according to Rawls, in that it relies on one comprehensive
doctrine that is forced on everyone else (Rawls, 1999c: 189–90;
1999a: 91).
Likewise, in Rawls’s later works comprehensive liberalism, in
contrast to political liberalism, is utopian in the pejorative sense
and is no better than the comprehensive religious views of Thomas
Aquinas or Luther when these are imposed on others (Rawls 1999a:
490; 2001: 188). But Rawls anticipated this point even in A Theory
of Justice in his rejection of the ‘omnicompetent laicist state’ (Rawls
1999c: 186).
Rawls agrees with Thomas Aquinas on the good when simpler
cases are involved, concerning which reasonable people do not
30 process philosophy and political liberalism

disagree (e.g. that cruelty is wrong). Here he is also in agreement

with philosophers who have been positively influenced by Thomas
Aquinas like Philippa Foot (Rawls 1999c: 350–1). And he also
agrees with Thomas Aquinas that play and amusement are crucial
in the effort to moderate one’s pursuit of a dominant end in life,
otherwise such a pursuit, according to Rawls, tends to lead to fanat-
icism or irrationality (Rawls 1999c: 484–5).
The importance of natural duty in Rawls (Rawls 1999c: 293–301)
also indicates overlap with Thomas Aquinas’s view of natural
duty. But because the compatibility between Rawls and Thomas
Aquinas lies at the level of political values, rather than at the level
of comprehensive doctrine, there is no overlap between Rawls
and Thomas Aquinas regarding the latter’s belief that eternal law
is the basis of ethics and politics, regardless of whether eternal
law is defended in terms of divine command theory or natural
law theory. That is, natural duty in Rawls is affirmed without a
metaphysical account of its underlying basis. Such a basis, if there
is such, is left for those who adhere to any one of a number of dif-
ferent comprehensive doctrines (Rawls 2000: 7; 1999c: 293–301).
Nonetheless Rawls appreciates the monumental contributions to a
politically liberal society made by Martin Luther King, who held
the Thomistic view that unjust laws were those that violated eter-
nal law, including natural law, as in Jim Crow laws that denigrated
blacks (Rawls 1996: 250).

Liberal Political Theory

In the early modern period in Europe something of a crisis occurred
in political theory. (Outside of Europe there were historically pock-
ets of religious toleration, as in Asoka’s leadership in India, even if
such commendable toleration did not at the time receive much
by way of theoretical justification.) What are we to do when two
competing conceptions of the good (in Rawlsian terms, compet-
ing comprehensive doctrines) each claim to have the truth (once
again, the definite article is crucial here) on their side and each
claim absolute political authority, such that as a result society is
ripped apart in religious warfare? Locke’s rightly famous ‘A Letter
Concerning Toleration’ is an initial attempt to deal with this crisis.
 political liberalism and process thought 31

Either one could wait until one of the competing comprehensive

doctrines eventually got the upper hand and dominated the other
or one could develop a political theory that would allow adherents
to competing comprehensive doctrines to coexist in peace. Political
liberalism is the disciplined effort to think through carefully and
to justify the latter approach. In contrast to pre-liberal political
thinkers, political liberals see toleration not as a vice but as a virtue.
Indeed, it is usually seen by political liberals as the key virtue that
is necessary for people not only to survive but to flourish in a state
with a plurality of comprehensive doctrines. In other words, in
order for politically liberal states to flourish, there has to be a certain
victory of persuasion over force.
In order to bring about justice in a condition of a plurality of
competing comprehensive doctrines, however, questions regarding
the good have to be largely taken off the table in politics, although
it makes sense to debate them elsewhere. That is, politics is not the
place to debate ultimate questions regarding the purpose of human
life, the meaning of death, the existence of God, or the theodicy
problem. Rather, political questions are penultimate and concern
the conditions under which defenders of different comprehensive
doctrines can nonetheless get along with each other in a peaceful
and fair manner. In short, political liberals concentrate in politics on
justice or fairness in contrast to the good or the truth of any compre-
hensive doctrine, whether religious or non-religious.
It must be admitted that, according to Whitehead, despite the
contributions of liberal democracies to the humanitarian ideal, the
long-term prospects are not good if political liberalism entails a loss
of intellectual justification (Whitehead 1967a: 36). (I have Franklin
Gamwell to thank for this important reference.) But to rightly claim
that political liberalism requires some sort of intellectual justifica-
tion is not to claim that there is only one such justification. The
Rawlsian view I defend is that such a justification could be pro-
vided by a defender of any reasonable comprehensive doctrine. For
example, it makes sense to assume that there is a rather formidable
overlapping consensus among theistic defences of political liberal-
ism and secular defences of the same. All that is needed is sufficient
overlap on the assumptions that in politics human beings are free,
equal, reasonable and rational, and that they are not means only.
32 process philosophy and political liberalism

The fact that there are many ways to do this is indicative of the
fact that we can meet Whitehead’s (and Gamwell’s) understandable
concern for intellectual justification in terms of many different,
yet in some respects compatible, intellectual justifications. That is,
political liberalism is a module that in different ways fits into, and
can be supported by, various reasonable comprehensive doctrines
(see Rawls 1996: 144–5; also see Gamwell 2005).

Two Kinds of Peacefulness

At this point in my argument it is possible to distinguish between
two sorts of peacefulness: peacefulness-L and peacefulness-C.
The former, liberal peacefulness, refers to literal conviviality or
‘living with’ others who are committed to comprehensive doc-
trines different from one’s own, sometimes uncompromisingly so.
Peacefulness-L is found when citizens in a democracy get along
with each other in a peaceful and fair manner despite the fact of
religious pluralism, indeed despite the fact that many citizens in
liberal democracies defend non-religious comprehensive doctrines.
In this regard political liberalism should be seen as one of the great
achievements of human civilisation! No longer do we believe in
principle that everyone has to share the same comprehensive beliefs
about what is important in life in order to get along in a peaceful
and fair manner.
Peacefulness-C, or communitarian peacefulness, generally refers
to the more intimate sort of conviviality present when one banquets
with those who share one’s own comprehensive doctrine. Think
of the Christian Eucharist, the Jewish Passover or the Muslim
post-Ramadan feast. Or again, think of a Thanksgiving meal with
family members or sharing beers after a game with one’s intramural
basketball teammates.

Some Objections
The warmth associated with peacefulness-C leads some to speak dis-
paragingly about the ‘mere toleration’ associated with peacefulness-L,
but political liberals think that this indicates a ­misunderstanding of
peacefulness-L. That is, the two sorts of conviviality are perfectly
 political liberalism and process thought 33

compatible with each other in that, in the context of liberal plu-

ralism, peacefulness-L is the generic sort of conviviality that can
include many different types of peacefulness-C. The politically
liberal hope is that one would have both peaceful-L relations with
all reasonable persons in a democratic state and peaceful-C relations
with those with whom one shares comprehensive beliefs, family
ties or joyful activities. To be precise, to expect that we would have
peaceful-C relations with everyone in the state is both unrealistic
(given the fact of pervasive pluralism) and dangerous (in that it
runs the risk of encouraging some enthusiastic defenders of certain
comprehensive doctrines to ram their views down the throats of
those who do not share these comprehensive doctrines or at least to
proselytise others in disrespectful ways).
In addition to the allegation that peacefulness-L is too tepid, it
is also common to hear something like the following criticism: the
price one has to pay for peacefulness-L is too costly in that one
must ‘privatise’ one’s religious beliefs. According to those who offer
this criticism, it is unfair to demand that one sequester that which
is most dear. One is forced, it is alleged, to segment one’s life in
peacefulness-L between the religious and the political, thus violat-
ing the whole cloth of what should be an integrated life.
To be honest, I think that this criticism is telling against some
political liberalisms, but not all. The issue is quite complicated and
has elicited an internecine dispute among political liberals them-
selves. Some political liberals like Richard Rorty think that in a
liberal democracy religious beliefs do in fact have to be privatised in
order to maintain an approximation to justice or even to maintain
public order. At the other extreme from a pure exclusivist view like
Rorty’s is a pure inclusivist stance that suggests that one should be
able to include one’s comprehensive (religious or non-religious)
beliefs into what one says and does in the public square because
to prohibit them would be to violate citizens’ rights in a democ-
racy. Pure inclusivists are thus not to be confused with pre-liberal
political theorists whose commitment was to the good more than
it was to justice in a condition of pluralism in the midst of com-
peting conceptions of the good. That is, the pure exclusivism/pure
inclusivism debate occurs within political liberalism itself. It should
also be noted that among the pure inclusivists can be found both
34 process philosophy and political liberalism

c­ onservative-leaning liberals like Wolterstorff and progressive liber-

als like Gamwell, who is also a process theist.
My own Rawlsian view on this matter is, I contend, a moderate
one between these two positions. I think that one can legitimately
bring one’s comprehensive doctrine into the public square as long
as one is willing to translate it into terms that any reasonable citizen
could understand and possibly accept. Not being willing to engage
in such translation efforts (a la pure inclusivism) could be seen as
disrespectful of fellow citizens who are not committed to one’s
comprehensive doctrine, or who might not even understand the
terms of that doctrine; and not being willing to have any introduc-
tion of comprehensive doctrine into the public square (à la pure
exclusivism) does in fact violate the basic (first amendment to the
United States constitution) right of a citizen to free exercise of reli-
gion. I am proposing this Rawlsian translation proviso as a moral, if
not constitutional, essential in a just state.
Think of the success Martin Luther King had in translating his
explicitly Christian view into the terms of public reason, the latter
of which became codified in United States law. Even atheists and
agnostics who were reasonable agreed wholeheartedly with him.
By ‘reasonable’ I once again mean a willingness to abide by fair
terms of agreement, in partial contrast to being ‘rational’ in terms of
the abilities to follow a logical argument, weigh evidence and so on.
To put the point in Rawlsian terms, it takes a reasonable person to
be willing to enter the original position, but it takes a rational person
to deliberate there. Full moral agency requires both reasonableness
and rationality, even if moral patiency status is far less demanding
and requires only sentiency.

Not Comprehensive Liberalism

The upshot of my responses to the above two criticisms is that,
first, various peacefulnesses-C can flourish in a peaceful-L state,
and second, reasonable religious believers (along with reasonable
religious sceptics) can bring their comprehensive doctrines to bear
in the public square as long as they do so in terms of the translation
proviso, which is meant to show peaceful-L respect for persons
who do not share one’s own comprehensive doctrine.
 political liberalism and process thought 35

These responses are part of political liberalism, not comprehensive

liberalism. The latter is the view (exemplified by Kant, John Stuart
Mill and John Dewey) that, as a consequence of the Enlightenment,
as people converted to reason they would and should leave behind
the religious ages and move towards liberalism interpreted in terms
of agnosticism or atheism or merely pragmatic theism. The prob-
lem is that this view is just one more comprehensive doctrine that
has to compete with others in the pluralist world that we live in.
It makes sense to see politically liberal democracies as not only
post-religious, but also as post-secular, with ‘secular’ here referring
to the hubristic hopes of comprehensive liberals. (I have benefitted
greatly from Thomas Schmidt regarding the concept of liberalism as
post-secular.) Political liberalism does not privilege comprehensive
liberalism in that it is now clear both that religion is not going away
and that reasonable religious believers can and should be brought
within the sphere of peacefulness-L. Presumably, religious believ-
ers always engaged in peaceful-C relations, but now they can and
should be seen as fully fledged members of the peaceful-L society.
John Courtney Murray is one of several theologians who have
carefully examined the consequences of this view. That is, one’s
peaceful-C relations with co-religionists can coexist with one’s
peaceful-L relations with everyone else in the state who is reason­
able. In stronger terms, in order to ensure the long-term flourishing
of peaceful-C relations with likeminded people it is crucial for all
of us to foster peaceful-L relations. Murray helps to clear up a long-
standing ambiguity wherein religious believers argue for freedom of
religion when they are in the minority and for intolerance of others
when they are in the majority.
In the remaining sections of this chapter I would like to explore
the political liberalisms of Whitehead and Hartshorne so as to bene-
fit from the light they shed on these two sorts of peacefulness. Their
contributions to political theory lie primarily in the metaphysical
background they supply for both types of peacefulness. Political
liberalism and toleration can be seen as parts of what Whitehead
refers to as the transition from force to persuasion. This transi-
tion, in turn, is part of the upward adventure of the cosmos itself;
indeed, the very meaning of life is adventure. Or, in Hartshornian
terms, the best hope for politically liberal democracies is if religions
36 process philosophy and political liberalism

t­hemselves grow up and accentuate worship of Love (Deus est cari-

tas) or of a God who omnibenevolently cooperates with others (see
Whitehead 1967a: 50, 69–86; 1954: 254; Hartshorne 1997: 72–3).

Metaphysical Background
Although neither Whitehead nor Hartshorne developed a system-
atic political theory, they did explicitly identify themselves as liberals
in politics. Whitehead worked tirelessly on the issues of egalitarian
educational reform and women’s suffrage, causes that led him to be
pelted with rotten eggs and oranges. His overall sympathies were
with the Labour Party in England. And Hartshorne was one of
the founders of the Liberal Club at Harvard, although we will see
a certain tension in his political thought: his idealism pushed him
towards socialism and his defence of freedom pushed him towards
some version of free enterprise. Further, his social background (this
is probably true of Whitehead as well) gave him a certain sense of
noblesse oblige (e.g. Whitehead 1941: 13; 1947: 13; 1954: 358;
Hartshorne 1935; 1990: 69–70, 155, 168). By ‘liberalism’ here I
do not mean the laissez faire version of liberalism popular in the
nineteenth century, which Whitehead thought had given to us a
remarkably unconvivial industrial slavery at the base of the state
(Whitehead 1967a: 34). This type of classical liberalism relies on a
view of human persons as independent substances that are unrelated
to the rest of nature and to each other, a view that is opposed to
Whitehead’s and Hartshorne’s metaphysical commitments to events
(rather than substances) as the res verae and to a relational worldview
(rather than to a worldview that emphasises independent existents).
So, although Whitehead and Hartshorne were political liberals at
least in part due to their theism (as in Whitehead’s religious beliefs
as they developed from the 1920s on), they were not classical
liberals if this means a commitment to laissez faire economics. In
Whitehead’s case, at least, his own label for his overall view, philos-
ophy of organism, applies not only to his view of nature, but also in
a way to his view of the state as quasi-organic and relational.
For Whitehead and Hartshorne, to be is to have the dynamic
power to be affected by others and the dynamic power to affect
others, in however slight a degree (see Dombrowski 2005: ch. 2).
 political liberalism and process thought 37

In different terms, to be is to be causally implicated in the lives of

others. One result of this view is that, although it enshrines free-
dom or creativity in every event, it is also at odds with the laissez
faire fetish for absolute freedom or independence. The past actual
world both supplies the possibilities for creative advance and limits
the degree to which this freedom can be exercised. Freedom is
always canalised and social. By metaphysically excluding both abso-
lute determinism and absolute freedom, Whitehead and Hartshorne
provide the context within which we can better understand the
peacefulness-L that characterises social relations with others in a
democratic state. Or again, Whitehead and Hartshorne share an
aesthetic theory wherein both the uniformity and monotony of
collectivist states, on the one hand, and the diversity bordering
on chaos in laissez faire and some other states, on the other, are
deviations from beauty that are extreme. It is the intensity of the
experience of unity in the midst of diversity that is the ideal (see
Dombrowski 2004a: ch. 2; Hartshorne 1970: 97).
Hartshorne agrees with Whitehead that if one were to alter the
data from the past that are prehended by a present event, then one
would alter the subject of the experience. Thus, both thinkers sub-
scribe to a view that could be described as either partial freedom
or partial determinism. In this view God establishes optimal limits
within which this partial freedom (and peacefulness-L) can be exer-
cised, although political rulers are nonetheless needed to protect
this freedom when it is threatened. Both thinkers reject the idea of
a God as a tyrant who decides on all of the details. In fact, political
power should ideally be modelled after divine power in being per-
suasive and peaceful-L rather than coercive, although less than ideal
circumstances sometimes threaten to overwhelm this ideal. Too
little government control (as in the minimal laissez faire state) flirts
with anarchy, whereas too much government control dampens
creativity. The optimal limits for the exercise of partial freedom in
human beings that are set by God ensure that political arrangements
are local exemplifications of cosmic variables (see Loomer 2013).
In different terms, as Whitehead sees things, ‘morality of outlook
is inseparably conjoined with generality of outlook’ (Whitehead
1978: 15).
Although both Whitehead and Hartshorne abhorred the
38 process philosophy and political liberalism

­ echanistic view of the state, they nonetheless thought that con-

m
nectedness was in the order of things, specifically the internal rela-
tions between a present event and its past causal influences. Both
saw time as asymmetrical in that a present event is not internally
related to ‘its’ future (if there be such) in that until future determi-
nables are rendered determinate by some decision they cannot be
prehended and hence they cannot be internalised. The state is the
result of several present lines of inheritance being shaped by the
same or by significantly overlapping causal influences from the past.
We have seen that neither Whitehead nor Hartshorne devel-
oped a systematic political philosophy. Although they are more
famous for their cosmological or metaphysical views, it should not
escape our notice that the most important function of metaphysics,
on Hartshorne’s view, is to help in any way possible to enlighten
us and to encourage us in our agonising struggles in religion and
politics. In the mid-decades of the twentieth century this meant
that the tenuous status of the state as a quasi-organism, as found
in Whitehead and to a lesser extent in Hartshorne, to be discussed
momentarily, made both communism and fascism as metaphysically
indefensible as the near absolute freedom that is required for the
laissez faire state. A metaphysics that makes intelligible the claim
Deus est caritas (God is love) is efficacious in relieving this agony, a
relief that is not given in the classical view of God as strictly per-
manent and immune to human and other influence. Neoclassical or
process metaphysics has us take very seriously the historical strug-
gles of creatures as well as the history of divine reception/response
to these struggles. In fact, because of scientific and metaphysical
problems with simultaneity, even perception is historical in the
sense that it takes a finite amount of time to receive the information
that we see and hear in everyday perceptions, as becomes clear to
us when we perceive really distant events, as in the epistemically
present perception of a star that burned out light years ago. In
effect, history should be our cognitive paradigm, not mathematics
(Hartshorne 1970: 55–6, 119).
The ultimate roots of political freedom can be seen as lying in the
very nature of things, on the process view; hence it is important in
both religion and politics to develop institutions that are compatible
with this fact. As before, the freedom in question does not refer to
 political liberalism and process thought 39

the absence of influence from others. Although Hartshorne admits

that, as a result of entangling influences, political questions are
much harder than metaphysical ones, he is nonetheless convinced
that mistakes at the metaphysical level ensure that political disasters
will follow (Hartshorne 2011: ch. 13; 2001: 93). Equally disastrous,
it seems, would be an unreflective fetishising of either absolute
unity or sheer diversity.

Different Emphases
It must be admitted that there are differences in emphasis in
the political liberalisms of Whitehead and Hartshorne and that
these differences could have an effect on how we might i­nterpret
­peacefulness-L. Whitehead is more likely than Hartshorne to sub-
scribe to the view of the state as a quasi-organic whole. Although
Hartshorne has a view of organic wholes that is similar to Whitehead’s
(in that both see them as being compounded out of organic, feeling
micro-constituents, in contrast to a mere aggregate of microscopic
feeling as found in a plant or a rock), he is reticent to talk of states
as organic wholes. For Hartshorne, political democracies (and other
forms of government) are also m ­ etaphysical democracies in that
they lack a presiding actual occasion that would make them meta-
physical monarchies or true ‘ones’. A cell is a true one or a centre
of experience, an animal with a central nervous system is a true one
or a centre of experience, and God as the soul for the whole body
of the world is a true one (the Truest One) or a centre of experi-
ence, hence all of these are metaphysical ‘monarchies’. But a state is
a metaphysical ‘democracy’, no matter what form of government is
in place and despite the fact that such a state is composed of various
metaphysical monarchies. Although we whimsically personify the
state in the United States in terms of ‘Uncle Sam’, there really is no
organic centre of experience in this state. It is a collection of parts,
some of which are metaphysical monarchies and some of which
are metaphysical democracies. It must be admitted, however, that
Whitehead was aware of the fact that a national hero like George
Washington could become a symbol that could metaphorically
animate the activities of the state (Whitehead 1985: 77). To put
the point in terms of political theory, Hartshorne could be seen as
Another Random Scribd Document
with Unrelated Content
 ACHEVÉ D'IMPRIMER
Sur les presses de Bluzet-Guinier
Typographe
A DOLE-DU-JURA
le 10 février 1878

Pour Édouard ROUVEYRE, éditeur

A PARIS
 NOTES:
[1]
Madame Bovary fut écrit au jour le jour—nous
donnons ces détails pour les Bibliophiles curieux—sur un
de ces longs agendas de ménagère qui portent les
quantièmes, les fêtes, les septuagésimes ou
sexagésimes, les noms aimés de Sainte-Anastasie ou de
Saint Cyriaque, c'est sur ces pages oblongues que
Flaubert fixa son œuvre impérissable,—voilà un agenda
qui vaudrait cher aujourd'hui!
[2]
Mercier entend sans doute désigner ici le pédant La
Harpe et son Lycée.
[3]
Nous venons d'apprendre, avec le plus vif plaisir, qu'un
savant Bibliophile belge, M. Charles de Lorenjaül (vicomte
de S***), bien connu de tous les Bibliophiles pour son
aimable érudition et sa bonne grâce à être utile à chacun,
est parvenu à achever ce travail de bénédictin, qui doit
paraître très prochainement chez l'éditeur Calman Lévy,
sous le titre de: Histoire des Œuvres de Honoré de
Balzac.
[4]
Aujourd'hui cimetière du Mont-Parnasse.
[5]
Quérard dans La France littéraire, Didot, 1835; M.
Eusèbe Girault, dans La Revue des Romans (2 vol. in-8o,
1839, tome II, pag. 199-204), et Pierre Leroux dans les
Lettres sur le fouriérisme (Revue sociale de Pierre Leroux,
mars 1850) avaient déjà rédigé de curieuses notices sur
Restif de la Bretonne.
[6]
Restif de la Bretonne, sa vie et ses amours, etc., par
Charles Monselet, avec un beau portrait gravé par
Nargeot. Paris, Alvarès fils, éditeur, 1854.
[7]
Histoire d'une vie littéraire au XVIIIe siècle.—Les
Confidences de Nicolas. (Restif de la Bretonne) par
Gérard de Nerval, nos du 15 août, 1 et 5 septembre 1850.
—M. Nicolas ou le cœur humain dévoilé, fait partie des
Illuminés ou les Précurseurs du socialisme, Récits et
portraits, par Gérard de Nerval, dont la première édition
fut donnée par Victor Lecou, en 1 vol. in-12, 1852.
[8]
M. Restif de Tonnerre (Yonne), descendant de Restif,
possède aussi au grand complet et dans un très bel état,
les œuvres de son grand parent.
[9]
Nous n'indiquons ici que les principaux Errata Sans
aucun doute, il s'en trouve quelques autres, mais leur
importance est moindre et nous ne voulons pas les
souligner.
(Note de l'Éditeur.)
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