Rawls's Political Liberalism. A Reassessment

Ratio Juris 24 (1):1-24 (2011)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Since Rawls's Political Liberalism is by now the subject of a wide and deep philosophical literature, much of it excellent in quality, it would be foolhardy to attempt to say something about each of the major issues of the work, or to sort through debates that can easily be located elsewhere. I have therefore decided to focus on a small number of issues where there is at least some chance that a fresh approach may yield some new understanding of the text: Rawls's distinction between “reasonable” and “unreasonable” comprehensive doctrines; the psychological underpinnings of political liberalism; and the possibility that political liberalism might be extended beyond the small group of modern Western societies that Rawls's historical remarks suggest as its primary focus. I also include a discussion of the much-debated issue of civility and public reason, which could hardly be avoided given its prominence in the book's reception. This paper should therefore be read not as a comprehensive account of the work but as one person's attempt to grapple, very incompletely and imperfectly, with a book that is as great as any philosophy has seen on this topic of great human urgency

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,221

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Rawls’s notion of the political conception as educator.Steinar Bøyum - 2013 - European Journal of Political Theory 12 (2):136-152.
Rawls on pluralism and stability.Robert B. Talisse - 2003 - Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society 15 (1-2):173-194.
John Rawls.Sebastiano Maffettone - 2001 - Croatian Journal of Philosophy 1 (3):189-216.

Analytics

Added to PP
2011-02-23

Downloads
256 (#71,555)

6 months
6 (#201,364)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Martha Nussbaum
University of Chicago

References found in this work

Political Liberalism.John Rawls - 1993 - Columbia University Press.
The law of peoples.John Rawls - 1999 - Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Edited by John Rawls.
Political Liberalism.J. Rawls - 1995 - Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie 57 (3):596-598.
The Law of Peoples.John Rawls - 1993 - Critical Inquiry 20 (1):36-68.

View all 18 references / Add more references