Cavell and Rawls on the Conversation of Justice: Moral versus Political Perfectionism

Abstract

A primary concern of Stanley Cavell’s Carus Lectures is to respond to the question posed in the first sentence of the Introduction: “Is Moral Perfectionism inherently elitist?” By elitist, he means undemocratic. While there are senses in which he would not want to deny that Moral Perfectionism is elitist, and while he admits that there are perfectionisms that do not require democracy, neither of these are Cavell’s concern. Rather, he wants to showcase his preferred version of perfectionism, variously named Moral, Emersonian and Nietzschean perfectionism.