This article revisits one of John Rawls's rare forays into activist politics, his proposal presented to the Harvard faculty, calling for a denunciation of the “2-S” system of student deferments from conscription. In little-studied archival papers, Rawls argued that the draft both exposed “background” structural racial injustice and constituted a burdening of black Americans that violated the norms of fair cooperation. Rather than obscuring racial injustice and focusing exclusively on economic inequality, as Charles Mills has claimed, Rawls rejected the ascendant conservative views that naturalized black poverty or else attributed it to cultural pathologies in black families. Thus Rawls found nothing illicit in taking the position of a disadvantaged racial group as a relevant comparison when applying his ideal theory to nonideal circumstances. However, I contend in this article that Rawls's account of political philosophy as an attempt to find a consensus may be similarly ideological, leading him to displace the reality of conflict through begging descriptions, expressivist formulations, and historical romanticism.

中文翻译：

---

征兵和色线：罗尔斯、种族和越南

这篇文章重新审视了约翰·罗尔斯罕见地涉足激进政治领域之一，他向哈佛教职员工提交了提案，呼吁谴责学生推迟征兵的“2-S”制度。在很少研究的档案文件中，罗尔斯认为该草案既暴露了“背景”结构性种族不公正，又构成了违反公平合作规范的美国黑人的负担。正如查尔斯·米尔斯所声称的那样，罗尔斯并没有掩盖种族不公正并只关注经济不平等，而是拒绝了将黑人贫困归化或将其归因于黑人家庭的文化病态的占主导地位的保守观点。因此，罗尔斯在将他的理想理论应用于非理想情况时，将处于不利地位的种族群体的位置作为相关比较并没有发现任何非法行为。