On Onora O’Neill’s Critique of Rawls, and on Rawls’ non-Kantianism, with a little help from Charles W. Mills

Abstract

In this paper I develop a sympathetic political reading of Onora O´Neill´s Kantian critique of Rawls´ constructivism, using critical tools from Charles Mills´ work too, with the aim of highlighting potential strengths of a modified Kantian political philosophy, tempered by awareness of structural issues relating to racism, sexism, imperialism, and classism. Also, in opposition to a widespread view, I think that Kant´s political philosophy is not constructivist, and that is a good thing because it makes it more able to account for structural injustices and systematic oppression.