Abstract

Rawls strictly distinguishes between political or neutral conceptions of Liberalism and liberal justice on one hand side and moral or metaphysical on the other. His claim is, that a political understanding of Liberalism and justice has to be and could be free standing, independent of special conceptions of a good life. First of all this work shortly presents the main topics of Rawls’ Political Liberalism. Next, it formulates an antithesis: the political integration of plural modern societies does not depend on an „overlaping consensus“ but on a strong liberal ethos, i.e. a political and metaphysical conception of a liberal way of good life. Furthermore I consider external objections and discuss internal problems of Rawls’ political philosophy. Finally it will be shown, that the description of an original position, given by Rawls, especially the metaphorical „veil of ignorance“, presupposes a certain „metaphysical“ concept of person, that includes what it means to lead a good life from a liberal point of view.