Abstract
This essay considers two critiques of Rawls’ overlapping consensus that move beyond the Kantian paradigm, investigating instead solutions to problems of value pluralism in terms of a modus vivendi. Specifically, it examines the models of Charles Taylor and John Gray, presented respectively as dialogical and agonistic variants of modus vivendi. It is argued that Taylor, though accepting a form of overlapping consensus, is nonetheless critical of Rawls’ claim that it is justified through a freestanding and independent notion of political liberalism. For Taylor, there is no neutral conception of justification beyond the overlapping consensus itself. Gray also rejects Rawls’ notion of a freestanding justification for overlapping consensus, seeing in it the privileging of a single comprehensive view. However, he also rejects Taylor’s dialogical account which results in a consensus on something like liberal values. While Gray cannot accept Taylor’s optimistic notion that humans want to understand each other, it is argued that Gray’s “neo-Hobbesian” account of modus vivendi is likely inadequate to explain the notions of civic virtue which are an essential part of democracies today.
