This article aims to explore critically John Rawls’ concept of political liberalism which is meant to be a response to the conflict and contestation of ideologies, religions, and other comprehensive doctrines in contemporary plural society. The key question is how the universalized principles of justice can be formulated in the conditionof radical pluralism characterized by contestation of different comprehensive doctrines. In answering this question, John Rawls suggests the concept of overlapping consensus and public (...) reason. While taking accountof the fundamental contribution of John Rawls’ thought in the process of overcoming conflicts in a plural society, this essay discusses further some weaknesses of Rawls’ concept of political liberalism, and at thesame time proposes a new model of political philosophy which provides room for fundamental dissent. This new political philosophy can be called liberal fundamentalism. Fundamentalism basically expressesitself in public sphere in the form of liberality. This essay argues that liberal fundamentalism can create a social condition where fundamental moral differences are accepted, respected, and recognized. Abstrak Tulisan ini bertujuan membahas secara kritis konsep liberalisme politik John Rawls sebagai jawaban atas konfl ik dan kontestasi pandangan hidup atau doktrin komprehensif yang menandai masyarakat kontemporer yang plural. Pertanyaan pokok yang dibahas dalam tulisan ini ialah, bagaimana prinsip-prinsip keadilan yang berlakuumum dapat dirumuskan dalam kondisi factum pluralisme atau pertarungan doktrin-doktrin komprehensif tersebut. Untuk menjawab pertanyaan ini, Rawls menganjurkan dua konsep yakni overlapping consensus dan public reason. Tanpa mengabaikan kontribusi Rawls dalam menyelesaikan konflik dalam masyarakat plural, tulisan ini lebih jauh menunjukkan kelemahan konsep liberalisme politik John Rawls, dan menganjurkan sebuah filsafat politik baru yang harus memberi ruang bagi disensus-disensus fundamental. Filsafat politik baru itu dapat dinamakan posisi fundamentalisme liberal. Sebuah fundamentalisme yang mengungkapkan diri di ruang publik dalam bentuk liberalitas. Artinya, kondisi sebuah masyarakat yang memberi ruang bagi pertentangan-pertentangan etis fundamental, namun dihadapi dengan sikap pengakuan dan penghargaan atas perbedaan fundamental tersebut. (shrink)

John Rawls argues that A Theory of Justice suffers from a “serious problem”: the problem of political stability. His theory failed to account for the reality that citizens are deeply divided by reasonable and incompatible religious, philosophical, and moral comprehensive doctrines. This fact of reasonable pluralism may pose a threat to political stability over time and requires a solution. Rawls proposes the idea of an overlapping consensus among incompatible comprehensive doctrines through the use of (...) public reasons in his later Political Liberalism. -/- Rawls’s proposed solution to the problem of political stability has received much criticism. Some, such as Kurt Baier, Brian Barry, George Klosko, and Edward McClennen, argue that an overlapping consensus is relatively unnecessary. Rawls should have acknowledged existing resources in his account that might secure political stability over time without major changes to his original views about justice. Others, including Kent Greenawalt, Michael Sandel, Leif Wenar, and Iris Marion Young believe that an overlapping consensus is too fragile to secure political stability. Rawls correctly identifies a major problem for his original account, but he fails to provide a satisfactory solution. -/- I believe these objections rest on a mistake easily overlooked. Each objection claims that, for Rawls, the possibility of future political stability is to be guaranteed by an overlapping consensus alone. This perspective fails to recognize the central importance of the social minimum in securing political stability. There is, in fact, more resources to secure political stability than Rawls or his critics have recognized. -/- My discussion will begin with a brief explanation of why the problem of political stability raises an important challenge to Rawls’s views on justice and why he argues for an overlapping consensus as a solution to it. I will next consider the more important objections to Rawls’s solution and why these fail. I will argue that the social minimum might better support political stability if it is broadly understood in terms of the capabilities approach. This approach is compatible with Rawls’s political liberalism and it provides a more robust understanding of a just social minimum. Political stability does not rely upon an overlapping consensus alone — and it may be better secured where the capabilities approach plays a more central role. Therefore, Rawls does provide a illuminating solution to the problem of political stability that is more compelling if we incorporate the capabilities approach into political liberalism. (shrink)

Since the beginning of the late modern era, modern constitutions have been trying to keep both group rights as minority rights and individual rights. But, in some cases, it is still ambiguous if an action or a phenomenon must refer to individual rights or group rights. Abortion discussions, with regard to political rights, are one example of these ambiguous cases. In this context, whereas Liberal view tends to regard abortion as individual rights of a woman, Communitarian view can be (...) against it by pointing out the right to life and this case may lead to a kind of liberal constitutional crises. This article gains importance as such constitutional crises still emerge even nowadays. John Rawls’s theory of overlapping consensus in Political Liberalism tries to solve these political conflicts that emerged in liberal constitutions by prioritizing public reason. This article conceptionally aims to examine Rawls’s theory in terms of prioritization and value relativity in abortion discussions. The method of article is hermeneutics. In order to extend the universe of the discussion, some important thinkers such as Immanuel Kant, Isaiah Berlin and John Gray, who have related studies on the topic, were included. In conclusion, it is asserted that Rawl’s theory is weak both practically and theoretically as to the principle of utilitarianism violates the rights of communitarians. (shrink)

Reasonable individuals often share a rationale for a decision but, in other cases, they make the same decision based on disparate and often incompatible rationales. The social contract tradition has been divided between these two methods of solving the problem of social cooperation: must social cooperation occur in terms of common reasoning, or can individuals with different doctrines simply converge on shared institutions for their own reasons? For Hobbes, it is rational for all persons, regardless of their theological beliefs, to (...) consent to the sovereign's power. But for Locke, only Protestants with a shared theology could be party to the social contract. Rousseau thought that private reasons are not part of the general will, and in Kant's hypothetical contract, pure noumena reach common principles for the social order through the same reasoning process. In A Theory of Justice, John Rawls agreed with Rousseau and Kant: selecting the principles of justice requires modeling parties to the original position as having identical reasons. But in Political Liberalism, Rawls embraced the idea of an overlapping consensus, which accords distinct reasons justificatory force. (shrink)

Political liberalism’s central commitments to recognizing reasonable pluralism and institutionalizing a substantive conception of justice are inconsistent. If reasonable pluralism applies to conceptions of justice as it applies to conceptions of the good, then some reasonable people will reject even many liberal conceptions of justice as unreasonable. If so, then imposing these conceptions of justice on citizens violates the liberal principle of legitimacy and related public justification requirements. This problem of justice pluralism requires that political liberals abandon (...) their commitment to institutionalizing a substantive conception of justice. Instead, political justification should be limited to the public justification of a modest scheme of rights and a set of constitutional rules. Justice pluralism chastens the ambitions of political liberalism while pushing the political liberal research program in new and promising directions. (shrink)

My aims in this paper are twofold: (1) to develop an account of a kind of respect for persons as reasoners which is motivated by John Rawls’ defense of reasonable pluralism on epistemic grounds, and (2) to demonstrate that this kind of respect vindicates a stronger civic duty to incorporate nonpublic comprehensive doctrines in public deliberation than Rawls provides in his account of public reason. I begin with a discussion of Rawls’ account of the (...) epistemic sources of reasonable disagreement – the burdens of judgment – and argue that this idea provides support for an important conception of respect currently absent in scholarship about norms of public deliberation. I then outline the conception of persons as reasoners and the corollary duties of respect that follow from the recognition of persons as reasoners. I conclude with a discussion of the implications of this conception of respect for the idea of public reason. (shrink)

Unlike his theory of justice as fairness, John Rawls’s political liberalism has generally been spared from critiques regarding what is due to the disabled. This paper demonstrates that, due to the account of the basic ideas of society and persons provided by Rawls, political liberalism requires that the interests of numerous individuals with disabilities should be put aside when the most fundamental issues of justice are settled. The aim is to accommodate within public reason (...) the due concern for the disabled while upholding political liberalism. To achieve this aim, a revision of the basic ideas of persons and society is proposed. The idea of persons should be regarded as more fundamental than that of social cooperation, and persons should be defined in terms of minimal moral powers. (shrink)

John Rawls's transition from A Theory of Justice to Political Liberalism was driven by his rejection of Theory's account of stability. The key to his later account of stability is the idea of public reason. We see Rawls's account of stability as an attempt to solve a mutual assurance problem. We maintain that Rawls's solution fails because his primary assurance mechanism, in the form of public reason, is fragile. His conception of public (...) reason relies on a condition of consensus that we argue is unrealistic in modern, pluralistic democracies. After rejecting Rawls's conception of public reason, we offer an ‘indirect alternative’ that we believe is much more robust. We cite experimental evidence to back up this claim. (shrink)

This article tries to develop a moderate reading of political liberalism applicable to post-Islamist, Muslim-majority societies. Contrary to the strong reading, which considers political liberalism as limited in its scope to those societies that already have a strong liberal tradition, I argue that Rawls’ project does have something to offer to reasonable post-Islamist, Muslim individuals. In part I of the article the idea of a post-Islamist, Muslim-majority society is conceptualized and explained. Part II focuses on the Rawlsian (...) ideas of justification, demonstrating that the conceptions of justification available in political liberalism, i.e. political constructivism, wide reflective equilibrium and a wide view of public reasoning with its ideas of declaration and conjecture, can justify the political conception of justice for reasonable individuals living in any society, including post-Islamist ones. Focusing on Rawls’ notions of stability in part III, I argue that the idea of overlapping consensus should not be considered as the only account of stability offered by political liberalism. Put another way, notwithstanding the strong reading of political liberalism in real western and post-Islamist democracies, liberal stability is always a mixture of overlapping consensus and modus vivendi. (shrink)

A strength of liberal political institutions is their ability to accommodate pluralism, both allowing divergent comprehensive doctrines as well as constructing the common ground necessary for diverse people to live together. A pressing question is how far such pluralism extends. Which comprehensive doctrines are simply beyond the pale and need not be accommodated by a political consensus? Rawls attempted to keep the boundaries of reasonable disagreement quite broad by infamously denying that political liberalism need make reference (...) to the concept of truth, a claim that has been criticized by Joseph Raz, Joshua Cohen, and David Estlund. In this paper, we argue that these criticisms fail due to the fact that political liberalism can remain non-committal on the nature of truth, leaving the concept of truth in the domain of comprehensive doctrines while still avoiding the issues raised by Raz, Cohen, and Estlund. Further substantiating this point is the fact that Rawls would, and should, include parties in the overlapping consensus whose views on truth may be incoherent. Once it is seen that political liberalism allows such incoherence to reasonable parties, it is clear that the inclusion of truth and the requirement of coherence urged by Raz, Cohen, and Estlund requires more of reasonable people than is necessary for a political consensus. (shrink)

In his last works, John Rawls explicitly argued for an overlapping consensus on a family of reasonable liberal political conceptions of justice, rather than just one. This ‘Deep Version’ of political liberalism opens up new questions about the relationship between citizens’ political conceptions, from which they must draw and offer public reasons in their political advocacy, and their comprehensive doctrines. These questions centre on whether a reasonable citizen’s choice of political conception (...) can be influenced by her comprehensive doctrine. In this paper I present two models of the relationship, which give contrasting answers to these questions, and defend the model that is more permissive with regard to the influence of comprehensive doctrines. This has important implications for our understanding of Rawlsian political liberalism, and reduces the force of objections that have been offered by theorists sympathetic to religion. (shrink)

As we read his work, John Rawls was developing an innovative approach to political philosophy, and Political Liberalism struggles with different ways to model these new insights. This article presents four models of political liberalism, particularly focusing on understanding the nature of overlapping consensus and its relation to public reason. Beyond clarifying Rawls’s insights, we aim to spur readers to reassemble the rich elements of Political Liberalism to produce tractable and enlightening (...) models of political life among free and equal citizens under conditions of deep diversity to advance the public reason project. (shrink)

"John Rawls: Del consenso entrecruzado al equilibrio reflexivo. Algunas consideraciones sobre el uso publico de la razón"El autor sugiere una reconstrucción de la idea de razón pública de Rawls a lo largo de su obra como .sí­ su destino de llegada pudiera haber sido trazado desde el principio. Es así­ porque el objeto de este estudio -el uso público de la razón adquiere impulso en la obra rawlsiana, básicamente, sólo a partir del giro operado en ella en (...) los años ochenta y que se afianza en El liberalismo politico, donde es ya preeminente. En sus escritos tempranos Rawls está especialmente concentrado en el diseño de una teorí­a antiutilitarista que permita articular unos principios de justicia básicos de convivencia. "John Rawls: From the overlapping consensus to the reflecting equilibrium. Some considerations about the public use of' reason"The author's suggestion is to reconstruct the idea of public reason through the Rawls' work as the destiny were known since the beginning. The aim of this work is supported by the study of the concept of the public use of reason. That won importance in the eighties and were strengthened in Political Liberalism, were has an important play. (shrink)

(In German.) The book addresses Rawls's post-1985 political liberalism. His justification of political liberalism -- as reflected in his arguments from overlapping consensus -- faces the problem that liberal content can be justified as reciprocally acceptable only if the addressees of such a justification already endorse points of view that suitably support liberal ideas. Rawls responds to this legitimacy-theoretical problem by restricting public justification's scope to include reasonable people only, while implicitly defining reasonableness as (...) a substantive liberal virtue. But this virtue-ethical grounding of political liberalism is itself unreasonable. The phenomenon of disharmony of practical reason gives the reasonable reasons to take it that political legitimacy does not obtain if and where moral-political principles are acceptable from their point of view only. (shrink)

The main objective of Rawls’ Political Liberalism was to explain how a workable theory of justice can be established and sustained within a society that is marked by reasonable pluralism. In order to meet this end, Rawls introduces the following three concepts: political conception of justice, public reason, andoverlapping consensus. By relying on these three concepts, Rawls presents his two principles of justice as a two stage process. In the first stage, the two principles (...) of justice are presented as a freestanding political conception justified solely by public reason. In the second stage, individuals engage in overlapping consensus which enables them to find additional supporting reasons for the political conception of justice from their own comprehensive doctrine. According to Rawls, even classical utilitarianism can support his two principles of justice by participating in overlapping consensus. However, Samuel Scheffler thinks that this is impossible. Scheffler’s argument relies on the fact that classical utilitarianism is decisively rejected by the initial contracting parties of the original position. Iargue that Scheffler misconceives the main purpose of the original position and that his argument doesn’t show that it is impossible for classical utilitarianism to participate in overlapping consensus. (shrink)

Proponents of political liberalism standardly assume that the citizens of an ideal liberal society would be overwhelmingly reasonable. I argue that this assumption violates political liberalism's own constraints of realism—constraints that are necessary to frame the central problem that political liberalism aims to solve, that is, the problem of reasonable pluralism. To be consistent with these constraints, political liberalism must recognize that, as with reasonable pluralism, widespread support for unreasonable moral and political views is an (...) inevitable feature of any liberal society. I call this the fact of unreasonable pluralism. This fact threatens Rawlsian political liberalism's account of stability because an overlapping consensus cannot stably order a society pervaded by unreasonable views. My argument also raises questions about the coherence of Rawls's conception of ideal theory. (shrink)

This essay explores the degree to which public reason can sustain political liberalism's commitment to justice and pluralism without attending to the role of what Jeffrey Stout calls “cultural inheritance” in shaping and justifying political commitments. At issue is whether public reason is the best resource for guiding conversations on political matters that are enmeshed in religious commitments and moral beliefs. Unless public reason can account for cultural inheritance, and foster a deliberative context in (...) which political actors might grapple with the relationship between overlapping political claims and comprehensive doctrines, public reason will remain narrow and inadequate in a contemporary world where epistemic diversity is increasingly at odds with political liberalism's normative model of social cooperation and public deliberation. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine the claim that Rawls’s overlapping consensus is too narrow to allow most mainstream religions’ participation in political discourse. I do so by asking whether religious exclusion is a consequence of belief or action, using conversion as a paradigm case. After concluding that this objection to Rawls is, in fact, defensible, and that the overlapping consensus excludes both religious belief and action, I examine an alternative approach to managing religious pluralism as (...) presented by Adam Smith. I show that Smith’s so-called “marketplace of religions” assumes and encourages religious conversion. I then offer objections to Smith’s approach from Rawls’s point of view, concluding that, while Rawls cannot adequately respond to the Smithian challenge, in the end the two positions are complimentary. (shrink)

Under free institutions the exercise of human reason leads to a plurality of reasonable, yet irreconcilable doctrines. Rawls's political liberalism is intended as a response to this fundamental feature of modern democratic life. Justifying coercive political power by appeal to any one (or sample) of these doctrines is, Rawls believes, oppressive and illiberal. If we are to achieve unity without oppression, he tells us, we must all affirm a public political conception that is supported (...) by these diverse reasonable doctrines. The first part of this essay argues that the free use of human reason leads to reasonable pluralism over most of what we call the political. Rawls's notion of the political does not avoid the problem of state oppression under conditions of reasonable pluralism. The second part tries to show how justificatory liberalism provides (1) a conception of the political that takes seriously the fact that the free use of human reason leads us to sharply disagree in the domain of the political while (2) articulating a conception of the political according to which the coercive intervention of the state must be justified by public reasons. (shrink)

RESUMEN Los defensores del liberalismo político sostienen que el ejercicio del poder político es legítimo solo cuando es justificado por razones públicas que todos los ciudadanos pueden aceptar con independencia de la doctrina religiosa, filosófica o moral a la que se adhieren. Según John Rawls, satisfacer esa concepción de la legitimidad exige apelar, en la justificación pública de la acción del Estado, a "concepciones políticas de la justicia". Se busca elaborar un nuevo tipo de argumento a favor de (...) la posición de Rawls. ABSTRACT The supporters of political liberalism hold that the exercise of political power is legitimate only when it is justified by public reasons acceptable to all citizens, independently of the religious, philosophical, or moral doctrine they adhere to. In John Rawls' view, satisfying this conception of legitimacy makes it necessary to appeal to "political conceptions of justice" when attempting to publicly justify actions by the State. The article sets forth a new type of argument in favor of Rawls' position. RESUMO Os defensores do liberalismo político sustêm que o exercício do poder político é legítimo só quando é justificado por razões públicas que todos os cidadãos podem aceitar com independência da doutrina religiosa, filosófica ou moral à qual se aderem. Segundo John Rawls, satisfazer essa concepção da legitimidade exige apelar, na justificativa pública da ação do Estado, a "concepções políticas da justiça". Procura-se elaborar um novo tipo de argumento a favor da posição de Rawls. (shrink)

Liberalism can be defined as that political system in which the state remains neutral on questions of the good life while providing a framework of rights that respects persons as free and independent selves capable of choosing their own values and ends. Neutrality is the priority of the right over the good . In Political Liberalism, John Rawls describes a liberal society in which political debate is based upon an overlapping consensus. An overlapping (...) consensus consists in agreement about those principles of justice which are held in common by all reasonable citizens. While these principles may be justified by appeal to "comprehensive" doctrines, no such "comprehensive" justifications are permitted within the arena of political debate. ;I examine the theories of Alasdair MacIntyre in order to show where Rawls fails. MacIntyre argues that a conception of the good is inherent in any decision-making procedure and the exclusion of that conception from political debate makes such debate impossible. I argue that traditions which justify conceptions of the good are after the fact constructs identified in light of a unifying theme. I also examine the work of William Galston which underlines liberalism's compatibility with a conception of the good, and argue that Galston's rejection of neutrality should be reconsidered. ;Rawls' attempt to solve the problem of managing pluralism limits pluralism to an unacceptable degree. I offer a theory which widens the scope of freedom while avoiding a reliance on the exclusion of moral goods in political debate. ;The foundation of my theory lies in the moral psychology of Adam Smith, a theory of social interaction and moral judgment that does not rely exclusively on rational deliberation. I argue that Smith's market model of competition should be understood as entailing neutrality between groups and not between goods. Neutrality is identified retrospectively by observing how newer or previously excluded members of society have influenced society's conception of the good. I conclude that if a society's conception of the good fluctuates over time in the ways and under the conditions described in my dissertation, then the society is appropriately neutral and liberal. (shrink)

This article assesses Frank I. Michelman’s constitution-centered and proceduralist interpretation of Rawls’ conception of political legitimacy and argues that it merits attention because it highlights the institutional aspects of Rawls’ understanding of political legitimacy for constitutional democracies. However, the article also questions Michelman’s interpretation of Rawls’ ‘liberal principle of legitimacy’ (LPL) and the later ‘idea of political legitimacy based on the criterion of reciprocity’ (ILBR). As Michelman rightly points out, for the exercise of (...) class='Hi'>political power to be legitimate in a constitutional democracy, it must be in accordance with a constitution that is itself legitimate or reasonably acceptable to free and equal citizens. Yet, the article argues that Rawls’ two legitimacy formulations are attempts to make an additional point: Namely that when democratic citizens exercise political power in ‘the fundamental political issues’, or in issues that shape the basic justice of society or the essentials of the constitution itself, they must respect the ideal of public reason – or ensure themselves and other citizens that their exercise of political power is in accordance with the underlying basic political-moral ideas of persons and society that make the constitution itself acceptable to them. The LPL and the ILBR are conceptions of political legitimacy, not in the sense of setting up a criterion for when a specific law is legitimate, but in the sense of outlining civic or “office-specific” constraints that citizens and public officials must put on their reasoning and exercise of political power in the fundamental political issues for the practice of a constitutional democracy to be legitimate, or well-ordered, reasonably just, and stable for the right reasons – in the long run. The article also discusses why Rawls saw the need to reformulate the LPL, and how the later ILBR assigns a new significance to citizens’ actual use of public reason and their intersubjective deliberation. (shrink)

Tekst razmatra Rolsovu ideju javnog uma kao sredisnji deo njegove koncepcije politickog liberalizma. Ideja javnog uma je shvacena dvostruko, kao norma opravdanja i kao politicki ideal. U tekstu su takodje razmotrene neke kritike Rolsove koncepcije i naznaceni moguci nacini na koji se Rols moze odbraniti od njih. Osnovne teze u tekstu su da se Rolsova koncepcija javnog uma moze odbraniti od standardnih kritika, ali i da sama razotkriva ogranicenja politickog ideala liberalne demokratije. Dosledno shvacen, politicki ideal liberalne demokratije mora se (...) odreci pretenzija na moralnu superiornost i oslanjati se na moralni konsenzus koji moze biti potvrdjen javnim umom politickog drustva.. (shrink)

In Partisanship and Political Liberalism in Diverse Societies I examine political parties and partisanship within the context of John Rawls’s theory of political liberalism. I argue that parties and partisanship are vital to Rawls’s political liberalism, since they offer a distinctive and crucial contribution to the process of public justification that is central to it, which combines the articulation of public reasons with the channelling into the public political realm (...) of the particular values and conceptions of the good emerging from parties’ specific constituencies. Furthermore, I argue, partisanship generates a special kind of political obligations, and this further contributes to state legitimacy under conditions of reasonable pluralism. In this paper, I respond to three commentators who have raised important criticisms against my argument. More specifically, Section 1 provides a response to Lea Ypi’s argument that my normative account of partisanship wrongly presupposes that existing liberal societies are reasonably just. Section 2 answers Daniel Weinstock’s concerns regarding the plausibility and internal consistency of my account of partisan political obligations. Finally, Section 3 addresses Kevin Vallier’s criticisms, which challenge my account of public reason and propose an alternative one. (shrink)

The fact of reasonable pluralism in liberal democracies threatens the stability of such societies. John Rawls proposed a solution to this problem: The different comprehensive moral doctrines endorsed by the citizens overlap on a shared political conception of justice, e.g. his justice as fairness. Optimally, accepting the political conception is for each citizen individually justified by the method of wide reflective equilibrium. If this holds, society is in full reflective equilibrium. Rawls does not in detail (...) investigate the conditions under which a full reflective equilibrium is possible or likely. This paper outlines a new strategy for addressing this open question by using the formal model of reflective equilibrium recently developed by Beisbart et al. First, it is argued that a bounded rationality perspective is appropriate which requires certain changes in the model. Second, the paper rephrases the open question about Rawlsian full reflective equilibrium in terms of the model. The question is narrowed down by focusing on the inferential connections between comprehensive doctrines and political conception. Rawls himself makes a demanding assumption about which connections are necessary for a full reflective equilibrium. Third, the paper presents a simulation study design that is focused on simplicity. The results are discussed, they fit with Rawls’s assumption. However, because of the strong idealisations, they provide a useful benchmark rather than a final answer. The paper presents suggestions for more elaborate study designs. (shrink)

In the global world, momentous migratory tides have produced hyper-pluralism on the domestic scale, bringing citizens with radically different conceptions of life, justice and the good to coexist side by side. Conjectural arguments about the acceptance of pluralism, the next best to public reason when shared premises are too thin, may not succeed in convincing all constituencies. What resources, then, can liberal democracy mobilize? The multivariate democratic polity is the original answer to this question, based on an interpretation of (...) Rawls which revisits Political Liberalism in the light of The Law of Peoples . The unscrutinized assumption is highlighted, often read into Rawls’s Political Liberalism , that a polity moves homogeneously and all of a piece from religious conflict to modus vivendi, constitutional consensus and finally to overlapping consensus. Drawing on The Law of Peoples , a different picture can be obtained. (shrink)

In his Liberalism without Perfection, Jonathan Quong argues for internal conception of political liberalism which goal is to show that a liberal well-ordered society is internally coherent ideal and that citizens who would be raised in such society could endorse and support their own liberal institutions and principles if those institutions and principles are justified in particular way These institutions should be justified by particular conception of public reason which main feature is that overlapping consensus is the (...) first stage of its justificatory structure. So, public reasoning of citizens in well-ordered society should be based solely on values and ideas inherent to liberal conception of justice - freedom, equality, fair system of cooperation and burdens of judgment. Another important feature of Quong?s conception of public reason concerns its scope. Quong argues for a wide scope of public reason which demands that all coercive or binding laws or public policies should be justified on basis of these values alone. Thus, reasonable citizens in well-ordered society by definition accord deliberative priority to public reasons over their other comprehensive or nonpublic beliefs whenever they exercise their collective political power over one another. The problem I raise in this paper is that it is very likely that in well-ordered society there will be a group of citizens that will not accord full deliberative priority to political values, especially not at all levels of political deliberation. On certain issues they will like to see their particular values being realized through common political institutions. If our political theory excludes this group from justificatory constituency on this particular issue or categorize them as unreasonable it can easily undermine their general adherence to liberal conception of justice and endanger stability of well-ordered society. Thus, my point is that we need a further development of political liberalism to solve such problems not as a part of non-ideal theory but as a part of its ideal of well-ordered society. nema. (shrink)

Citizens are politically autonomous insofar as they are subject to laws that are (a) justified by reasons acceptable to them and (b) authorized by them via their political institutions. An obstacle to the equal realization of political autonomy is the plurality of religious, moral, and philosophical views endorsed by citizens. Decisions regarding certain fundamental political issues (e.g., abortion) can involve citizens imposing political positions justified in terms of their respective worldviews upon others. Despite citizens’ disagreements over (...) which worldview is correct, ‘political liberalism’ claims that there is a form of political autonomy that is realizable within pluralist societies. (Political liberalism differs from ‘comprehensive liberalism’ by, inter alia, being ‘freestanding’ vis-à-vis citizens’ different worldviews.) Citizens can be politically autonomous if they enjoy equal political power and justify its exercise with ‘public reasons.’ A political liberal education would aim at ensuring that all students can become politically autonomous citizens by teaching them how to exercise their democratic rights effectively and how to engage in public reasoning. Some political and educational theorists, however, argue that teaching students how to be politically autonomous amounts to teaching them how to be ‘comprehensively’ autonomous. If this is so, then the distinction between political liberalism and comprehensive liberalism collapses, at least with respect to education. This chapter outlines the main elements of political liberalism, summarizes the main requirements of a political liberal citizenship education, and surveys three arguments in support of and against the thesis that a political liberal education amounts to an education for comprehensive autonomy. (shrink)

This chapter is divided into two parts. In the first part, I explain the foundational differences between A Theory of Justice and Political Liberalism, despite the fact that Rawls maintains the Two Principles of Justice in both works. Moreover, I expound why, in view of the fact that reasonable people would subscribe to different comprehensive religious, philosophical, and moral doctrines, Rawls needs a new foundation for social stability in a constitutional liberal democracy. I explain the connection between (...) Rawls’ ideas of overlapping consensus, political conception, and public reason. Moreover, I explain Rawls’ idea of “duty of civility” and the condition under which a controversial issue can be legitimately resolved by way of voting. Further, instead of pursuing Rawls’ idea that bioethical issues could be resolved by way of “reasonable balancing” of “political values,” I turn to T. M. Scanlon’s contractualist approach, which is congenial to Rawlsian political liberalism and can resolve moral, political, and bioethical issues. In the second part of this chapter, I try to resolve the problem of medical assistance in dying by using Thomson’s/Scanlon’s idea that permissibility is not affected by intention. I deal with the Slippery Slope Arguments, the argument from abuse, and the argument from pressure on elderly patients who might feel obligated to die. Finally, I argue that Scanlonian contractualism is preferable to utilitarianism, and that contractualism can defuse the problem from pressure which has plagued utilitarianism. (shrink)

(Please note: the main ideas of this paper are restated in revised/developed form in: "On actualist and fundamental public justification in political liberalism" and "Patterns of justification: on political liberalism and the primacy of public justification". Both papers are available from philpapers.) The paper suggests the deep view of Rawls-type public justification as promising, non-ideal theory variant of an internal conception of political liberalism. To this end, I demonstrate how the deep view integrates (...) a range of ideas, views and commitments at the core of political liberalism’s justification structure, including pro tanto justification, full justification, political values and their priority, justificatory neutrality, the role of reasonable comprehensive views, the nature public reasons, the wide view of public political culture, the role of overlapping consensus and political legitimacy, and not least, the status of reflective equilibrium and the Original Position. I then contrast the deep view with Quong’s ideal theory variant if the internal conception, and argue that we should prefer the deep view. Thus, the prospects of political liberalism depend not so much on whether we find ways to make ideal theory relevant for non-ideal purposes. Rather, it depends on whether political liberalism can devise a credible response to the problem of public dogma. (shrink)

Public reason is central to John Rawls’s political liberalism, as a mechanism for citizens to discuss about matters of common interest. Although free and equal, reasonable and rational, citizens of a democratic society disagree on their understanding of truth and right, giving rise to the fact of reasonable pluralism. Thus, Rawls works out an idea of public reason which allows citizens to argue about political matters and yet remaining divided in their comprehensive doctrines. (...) On the other hand, African culture has developed the practice of palaver as way of dealing with social and political questions of the community. Usually held under a tree, scholars believe that the palaver is the African version of deliberative democracy. In this article, I elaborate the two ideas and compare them in order to see whether they are completely opposite or whether they can enrich each other. Thus, the first section focuses on Rawls’s idea of public reason, the second explores the palaver practice and the last section compares them. (shrink)

Critics of John Rawls' conception of a reasonable pluralism have raised the question of whether it is justified to demand that religious individuals should 'bracket' their essential, identity-constituting convictions when they enter a political discourse. I will argue that the criterion for religious beliefs of being justified as grounds for political decisions should be their ability of being 'translatable' in secular reasons for the very same decisions. This translation would demand 'epistemic abstinence' from religious believers only (...) on the basis of a rigid distinction between the spheres of private opinions and public reasons. To give a more adequate account of the relation between religious beliefs and political reasons in a pluralistic society it seems to be helpful to make use of Niklas Luhmann's functionalistic theory of religion. Key Words: democracy and religious beliefs • philosophy of religion • pluralism • political liberalism • political theory. (shrink)

This article brings to the fore the shortcomings of the type of pluralism advocated by John Rawls both in Political Liberalism and in The Law of Peoples. It is argued that by postulating that the discrimination between what is and what is not legitimate is dictated by rationality and morality, Rawls’s approach forecloses recognition of the properly political moment. Exclusions are presented as being justified by reason and the antagonistic dimension of politics is not acknowledged. (...) This article also takes issue with Rawls’s ‘realistic utopia’, asserting that despite the reference to ‘decent’ hierarchical societies, it amounts to a universalization of the western liberal model. (shrink)

How should broadly liberal democratic societies stop illiberal and antidemocratic views from gaining influence while honouring liberal democratic values? This question has become particularly pressing after the recent successes of right-wing populist leaders and parties across Europe, in the US, and beyond. This book develops a normative account of liberal democratic self-defence that denounces the failures of real-world societies without excusing those supporting illiberal and antidemocratic political actors. This account is innovative in focusing not only on the role of (...) the state but also on the duties of nonstate actors including citizens, partisans, and municipalities. Consequently, it also addresses cases where the central government has at least been partly captured by illiberal and antidemocratic agents. Gabriele Badano and Alasia Nuti's approach builds on John Rawls's treatment of political liberalism and his awareness of the need to 'contain' unreasonable views, that is, views denying that society should treat every person as free and equal through a mutually acceptable system of social cooperation where pluralism is to be expected. The authors offer original solutions to vexed problems within political liberalism by putting forward a new account of the relation between ideal and non-ideal theory, explaining why it is justifiable to exclude unreasonable persons from the constituency of public reason, and showing that the strictures of public reason do not apply to those suffering from severe injustice. In doing so, the book further politicizes political liberalism and turns it into a framework that can insightfully respond to the challenges of real politics. (shrink)

What is the place of religion in a pluralist democracy? The continuous presence of religion in the public sphere has raised anew normative and practical issues related to the role of religion in a democratic polity, generating spirited political debates in Western and non-Western contexts. Contemporary Political Philosophy and Religion provides an advanced introduction to, and a critical appraisal of, the major schools of political thought with a focus on the relationship between democracy and religion. Key (...) features of this book include: -/- - Analyses of different political traditions: liberalism, republicanism, deliberative democracy, feminism, postmodernism, multiculturalism, and interculturalism; -/- - Critical discussions of key contemporary philosophers, such as John Rawls, Jürgen Habermas, Richard Rorty, Charles Taylor, Susan Moller Okin, Martha Nussbaum, Will Kymlicka, Chandran Kukathas, and Bhiku Parekh; -/- - A pluralist approach that questions the strict divide between analytical and continental political philosophy; -/- - Discussion on the place of religion in politics from multiple perspectives by drawing on a plurality of political contexts, both Western and non-Western; -/- - Analyses of legal and political cases related to different religious traditions, for example, Islam, Confucianism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Hinduism. -/- This comprehensive text will be of great use to students of religion and politics in the fields of political and legal theory, and religious and theological studies, while also offering critical insights and arguments that will be of interest to the experts in the field. (shrink)

In "Evangelium Vitae" Pope John Paul II calls for a renewal of culture to combat the culture of death. He criticizes various aspects of a pluralistic, liberal society--a type of society that he claims is based on moral relativism and a view of democracy that becomes a substitute for moral law. He maintains that such a view trivializes moral choice. In this essay I argue that John Rawls's notion of a liberal society as an overlapping consensus (...) of comprehensive doctrines can avoid relativism while allowing for reasonable debate among opposed positions. While Rawls maintains that comprehensive doctrines, including religions, should employ a form of public reason that is not a unique feature of any one comprehensive doctrine, I argue that this requirement is too strong. One is often justified in appealing to features of comprehensive doctrines other than one's own, features that are unique to the doctrines themselves. Such an appeal does not pretend to be neutral as public reason would seem to be. In the final section of the paper I discuss some suggestions made by the Pope regarding actions in civil society that are independent of debates about legal change and suggest some ways in which they might contribute to desired cultural transformation. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to raise some considerations about the role of category of the overlapping consensus in John Rawls’s theory of justice as fairness in Political Liberalism (Lecture IV), Justice as Fairness: A Restatement (§ 11) and Replay to Habermas (§ 2), with a view to identifying a pragmatical justification model in a public scope, understanding the principles of justice for the basic structure of society as a social minimum that aims at (...) the guarantee of the stability and legitimacy, assuring public criteria for the determination of the principal constitution, economic and social arrangements. With affirmation of the political values of the reasonableness and reciprocity, I’ll identify a pragmatical-universalist justification model with basis in a mitigated intuitionism. (shrink)

This book continues and revises the ideas of justice as fairness that John Rawls presented in _A Theory of Justice_ but changes its philosophical interpretation in a fundamental way. That previous work assumed what Rawls calls a "well-ordered society," one that is stable and relatively homogenous in its basic moral beliefs and in which there is broad agreement about what constitutes the good life. Yet in modern democratic society a plurality of incompatible and irreconcilable doctrines--religious, philosophical, and (...) moral--coexist within the framework of democratic institutions. Recognizing this as a permanent condition of democracy, Rawls asks how a stable and just society of free and equal citizens can live in concord when divided by reasonable but incompatible doctrines? This edition includes the essay "The Idea of Public Reason Revisited," which outlines Rawls ' plans to revise _Political Liberalism,_ which were cut short by his death. "An extraordinary well-reasoned commentary on _A Theory of Justice_...a decisive turn towards political philosophy." --_Times Literary Supplement_. (shrink)

What role does and should religion play in the legal sphere of a modern liberal democracy? Does religion threaten to create divisions that would undermine the stability of the constitutional order? Or is religious disagreement itself a force that works to create consensus on some of the core commitments of constitutionalism--liberty of conscience, toleration, limited government, and the rule of law? This essay explores these questions from the perspectives of contemporary political philosophy and constitutional theory. The thesis of the (...) essay is that pluralism--the diversity of religious and secular conceptions of the good--can and should work as a force for constitutional consensus and that such a consensus is best realized through commitment to an ideal of public legal reason instantiated by the practice of legal formalism. The case for these claims is made in six parts. After the introduction, Part II, The Fact of Pluralism in the Context of Contemporary Religious Division, explores the idea of religious division in light of an important notion in political philosophy--the idea that John Rawls calls the fact of reasonable pluralism. Part III, Public Legal Reason, argues that the fact of pluralism has important normative consequences for the foundations of normative legal theory and argues for an ideal of public legal reason. Part IV, Legal Formalism, contends that this idea is best realized in constitutional practice through a formalist approach to constitutional interpretation--one that deliberately eschews direct reliance on religious and secular comprehensive conceptions of the good. Part V, Feasibility and Positive Theory, discusses the question whether this ideal of public legal reason and corresponding conception of constitutional formalism are realistic, given the constraints imposed by democratic politics under contemporary conditions. Finally, Part VI, Religious Division Revisited: From Pluralism to Formalism, brings the discussion to a close. (shrink)

Offering the first developed account of political liberal education, this book combines a thorough analysis of the theoretical groundwork of political liberal education with application-oriented approaches to contemporary educational challenges. Following in depth engagement with the shortcomings of Rawls’ theory and addressing some key objections to neutrality-based restrictions in education, the volume moves on to provide an insightful discussion of topics such as same-sex relations in sex-education, the position of migrant children and the rights of religious parents (...) to determine the education of their children. This book outlines a political liberal account of education which provides a useful contribution to the current debates about liberalism and education in a way unprecedented in the literature on political liberalism so far. It is of interest to anyone working at the intersection of political philosophy and philosophy of education as well as for scholars with a broader interest in how liberalism can respond to the challenges of value pluralism. (shrink)

This paper focuses on recent debates over the nature ofliberalism and its central feature of reason, both inside and outside ofeducational philosophy. Central ideas from Jonathan and Hirst contributeas do those from Rawls, Gadamer, Wittgenstein, Taylor, and Ackermantoward a less traditional contextualized and contingent view.

This book continues and revises the ideas of justice as fairness that John Rawls presented in _A Theory of Justice_ but changes its philosophical interpretation in a fundamental way. That previous work assumed what Rawls calls a "well-ordered society," one that is stable and relatively homogenous in its basic moral beliefs and in which there is broad agreement about what constitutes the good life. Yet in modern democratic society a plurality of incompatible and irreconcilable doctrines -- religious, (...) philosophical, and moral -- coexist within the framework of democratic institutions. Recognizing this as a permanent condition of democracy, Rawls asks how a stable and just society of free and equal citizens can live in concord when divided by reasonable but incompatible doctrines? This edition includes the essay "The Idea of Public Reason Revisited," which outlines Rawls' plans to revise _Political Liberalism,_ which were cut short by his death. "An extraordinary well-reasoned commentary on _A Theory of Justice_...a decisive turn towards political philosophy." -- _Times Literary Supplement_. (shrink)

As discussed by John Rawls, in a well-ordered society, a public political culture’s wide educational role bears the primary responsibility for developing reasonable individuals for the stability of a politically liberal society. Rawlsian scholars have also focused on the stability and enhancement of developed liberal democratic societies by means of those societies’ education systems. In this sense, one thing that is common to Rawlsian scholars’ and Rawls’s own understanding of the role of education appears to (...) be a concern over the stability of a politically liberal society since it is highly dependent on the character of its citizens. Also, it is usually believed that a politically liberal account of education can be implemented in a developed politically liberal society. In contrast, this study discusses the possibility of implementing a politically liberal account of education in a developing liberal society that may become a developed liberal democracy under an overlapping consensus. (shrink)

"In this fresh critique of Rawls’s political liberalism, Dostert offers a bold and stimulating account of the political potential of religion that actually enhances the prospects of a genuinely democratic public discourse. Drawing lessons from the civil rights movement to the Jubilee 2000 effort, _Beyond Political Liberalism_ presents a profoundly hopeful challenge to the ways of thinking about liberalism and religion that dominate both political science and religious studies today. Setting aside worn diatribes and (...) tattered dichotomies, _Beyond Political Liberalism _constructs a promising vision of religion's role in liberal society that will be of interest to anyone concerned about the future of contemporary western culture." —_Daniel M. Bell, Jr., Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary_ "This is a fine book. It is clearly written, accessible to a broad audience, and of special relevance now, both in academia and in the larger political and intellectual culture." —_Eldon Eisenach, University of Tulsa_ In _Beyond Political Liberalism,_ Troy Dostert offers a critical examination of political liberalism, the approach to liberal political theory advanced most forcefully in the later work of John Rawls. Political liberalism's defenders claim that an “overlapping consensus” of shared values holds out the strongest prospects for regulating democratic politics in light of our moral diversity. Dostert contends, however, that the attempt to establish such a consensus in fact works to restrict and control the presence of religious and other moral perspectives that can ennoble and invigorate public life. Dostert argues that there is a steep price to be paid for this conception of politics, for what results is a political vision characterized by a profound distrust and fear of citizens' comprehensive convictions—the animating source of many citizens' political activity. He suggests that a “post-secular” ethics is a more appropriate response to moral diversity than restricting and managing the presence of religion and other moral perspectives in public life. By drawing on the religious witness of the civil rights movement and the work of theologian John Howard Yoder, Dostert elucidates several core dialogic practices and illustrates their value through a consideration of the contemporary debates surrounding international debt relief and abortion. (shrink)

This dissertation extends John Rawls’s mature theory of justice out to address the environmental challenges that citizens of liberal democracies now face. Specifically, using Rawls’s framework of political liberalism, I piece together a theory of procedural justice to be applied to a constitutional democracy. I show how citizens of pluralistic democracies should apply this theory to environmental matters in a four stage contracting procedure. I argue that, if implemented, this extension to Rawls’s theory would secure (...) background environmental justice. I explain why the theory can be viewed as a partially specified political conception of environmental pragmatism, and how it relates to public environmental policy and discourse. While the framework is anthropocentric, it is one that reasonable non-anthropocentrists can endorse. Using this theory, I argue that liberal democracies must take measures to secure basic environmental rights for all presently existing and future citizens. Measures must also be in place to secure a minimum of social goods (including environmental goods) that guarantees that all citizens (present and future) can exercise their basic rights and liberties. Moreover, disparities in environmental goods should only be tolerated if they arise in accord with Rawls’s principle of fair equality of opportunity. I discuss carbon taxes, as well as carbon allocation trading schemes. I also argue that free democracies should employ precautionary reasoning when attempting to meet the demands of background environmental justice. (shrink)

Against arguments that suggest that Rawls’s notion of reasonability is ‘obscure’ and ‘unclear’ I argue in this essay that the idea of reasonability in the later Rawls can be defended in three ways. First, it can be shown that reasonability is fundamental to the architectonic of the later work. Reasonability, and the subordination of reason to reasonability, is fundamental to the later (post-1980) writings. Second, it can be shown that reasonability is not necessarily a vague term as many (...) have claimed. Third, it can be shown that reasonability is fundamental to what Rawls calls the three major new ideas of Political Liberalism: overlapping consensus; the reconception of the priority of the right over the good; and the idea of public reason. (shrink)

This article deals with John Rawls last book, Political Liberalism , in order to point out some of the corrections the author makes to his previous book, A Theory of Justice . In his new book Rawls seems to be closer to Hegel without abandoning Kant. In this way he answer to his communitarian critics as well as to the challenge of multiculturalism. Two ideas are specially representative of Rawls' turn: the idea of an (...) class='Hi'>overlapping consensus and the idea of a public reason. (shrink)

No less an authority than John Rawls identified Judith Shklar as a ‘political’ liberal. However, though their respective conceptions of political liberalism are similar in a number of important respects, Shklar emphasizes that her vision differs notably from that of Rawls. In particular, she explicitly eschews Rawls’s focus on establishing and sustaining an overlapping consensus, arguing that his belief in the possibility of securing such a consensus is naïve and, indeed, dangerous insofar as (...) it embodies an obvious disregard for the painful lessons of history and thereby not only allows but invites the occurrence of new cruelties and horrors. Obviously, such an approach would seem to diverge dramatically from that promoted by Rawls and many other political liberals. The purpose of this essay is to analyze Shklar’s arguments and determine the validity of her claims regarding the differences between her conception and that of Rawls and, in so doing, assess the extent to which Shklar’s ‘liberalism of fear’ can be said to represent a meaningfully distinctive model of political liberalism. (shrink)

Rawls says in Political Liberalism that “the focus of an overlapping consensus is [more likely to be] a class of liberal conceptions” than a single one. In conceding that members of the well-ordered society are unlikely to live up to justice as fairness, Rawls would seem to have conceded that they are also unlikely to live autonomously. This is exactly the conclusion some commentators have drawn. I contend that the likelihood of “reasonable pluralism about justice” does (...) not have the implication for Rawls’s project that it is said to have: political autonomy remains available even when such pluralism obtains. (shrink)

A consensus is emerging in the philosophy of science that value judgements are ineliminable from scientific inquiry. Which values should then be chosen by scientists? This paper proposes a novel answer to this question, labelled the public reason view. To place this answer on firm ground, I first redraw the boundaries of the political forum; in other words, I broaden the range of actors who have a moral duty to follow public reason. Specifically, I argue that scientific (...) advisors to policy makers have that duty—a duty that is needed to create a barrier against any nonpublic values that scientific researchers might let enter their work. Next, I specify how scientific advisors should approach value judgements to satisfy public reason, arguing that they should work within a conception of justice that is political and reasonable in several distinct senses. Scientific researchers at large should instead communicate their value judgements by following norms of transparency that facilitate scientific advisors’ public reasoning. Finally, I contrast my account with the dominant response to the which-values question, which focuses instead on citizens’ values, demonstrating that that response shares several problematic features with the heavily criticised external conception of public reason. (shrink)