Political Science
“Rawlsian Political Analysis and the Causes of Poverty in Bihar”
By Paul Clements
Wednesday, April 18
3:30 to 5 p.m.
Department of Political Science Library
3301 Friedmann Hall
Paul Clements is Professor of Political Science and director of the Masters of International Development Administration program at Western Michigan University. He holds a doctorate in Public Affairs from Princeton and a BA in Social Studies from Harvard. His book, Rawlsian Political Analysis: Rethinking the Microfoundations of Social Science, is coming out with University of Notre Dame Press in June 2012.
Content of the talk
In Rawlsian Political Analysis Clements extends Rawls’s critique of utilitarianism from ideal theory to social analysis. While neoclassical economics and rational choice theory model choice as rational utility maximization, Immanuel Kant and John Rawls imagine practical reason to be based on two cognitive capacities, the rational and the reasonable. Kant and Rawls base ethical theories on this model, but Clements uses it as a basis for a new form social analysis. He shows how this form of analysis addresses longstanding problems in rational choice theory, and how it offers more convincing explanations of practical problems than neoclassical economics. Clements gives an overview of the book and, to illustrate the difference between Rawlsian and neoutilitarian approaches, compares his analysis of the causes of poverty in the Indian state of Bihar with those of neoclassical economists.
Questions? Contact:
Susan Hoffmann, Director
Institute of Government and Politics
Department of Political Science
(269) 387-5692