The God Trick: ‘In the Shadow of Justice’
Maybe it is necessary to read the book that the article is ostensibly built around. I hope so, because the article seems to do little to offer an argument for why Rawls attempt at a universal notion of &quot;right&quot; is somehow now seen as a mistake. It closes with this claim:<p>&quot;In reminding us that even political philosophers who claim to speak outside any particular time or place are, in fact, the product of a particular time and place, Forrester undoes the pretension to timelessness that Rawls claimed, at least for a time.&quot;<p>At best, there&#x27;s some sort of argument that &quot;a small group of influential, affluent, white, mostly male analytical political philosophers&quot; are now seen less favorably as people, or at least as &quot;influencers&quot;. Fair enough, and almost certainly true, but what does this have to say about Rawls ideas themselves?<p>The closest it comes is by mentioning Haraway&#x27;s &quot;god trick&quot; critique, which is not fleshed out nor given any real standing. Haraway&#x27;s critiques and ideas are not stupid, but they stand in absolute opposition to Rawls (and others of his &quot;kind&quot;) in asserting that there really can be no universal knowledge (because it is all situated). This isn&#x27;t really a critique of Rawls, it&#x27;s just a denial that the entire project of western philosophy can ever be well-conceived. That might be true, but if so it takes down much, much more than just Rawls and his contemporaries.<p>If I had to TLDR the article, I&#x27;d say &quot;philosopher dude from 70s was once super popular, now faces criticisms from others  who never agreed with him.&quot;