POLITICAL LIBERALISM

John Rawls
1993

December, 1995

105 Yale L.J. 795

LENGTH: 14876 words

Book Review: The Levitation of Liberalism Political Liberalism. By John Rawls. * New York: Columbia University Press, 1993. Pp. xxxiv, 401. $ 29.95.

* James Bryant Conant University Professor, Emeritus, Harvard University.

Heidi M. Hurd **

** Professor of Law and Philosophy, University of Pennsylvania. This Review was written in the wake of several lengthy reading group discussions with my colleagues Matthew Adler, Jacques deLisle, Samuel Freeman, Leo Katz, Michael Moore, Stephen Morse, and Eric Posner, to whom I am very much indebted. Thanks also to Reid Fontaine and Catherine Krieps for their research assistance.

SUMMARY:
... And no one in this century has filled us with more philosophical wonder than has John Rawls. ... If Rawls's two principles of justice are necessarily premised on any one of the reasonable religious, philosophical, or moral doctrines embraced by free and equal citizens in a well-ordered democracy, or if they can be justified by only a limited set of these doctrines, then they will fail to secure an overlapping consensus, and hence, they will fail to comprise a stable conception of justice. ... Now, imagine the case of the motivational externalist who has read A Theory of Justice and has come to believe that justice as fairness is the correct conception of justice, but who is not motivated to act in accordance with its dictates. ... If Political Liberalism is designed to motivate people to act in accordance with their belief that justice as fairness is the correct conception of justice, Rawls's levitation of liberalism exceeds the grasp of both internalists and externalists. ...

TEXT:
[*795]

There is nothing as seductive as the promise to do the impossible. As children, we sought the wonder of such promises in the demonstrations of magicians who claimed to defy the laws of physics. As philosophers, we seek a similar wonder in the theories of those who are bold enough to attempt the reconciliation of concepts that are, on their face, irreconcilable. And no one in this century has filled us with more philosophical wonder than has John Rawls. In work that has spanned the past four decades, he has advanced and refined a political philosophy that has claimed to synthesize dialectically opposed concepts: to make liberty compatible with equality; to achieve concern for others through the exercise of self-interest; to ensure that what is best for the greatest number can be meaningfully obtained without the sacrifice of the few; to accomplish distributive justice of an egalitarian sort with free-market capitalism. Who has not been touched by a sense of awe at the Rawlsian legacy, which combines many of the most compelling, but seemingly inconsistent, tenets of contractarian, utilitarian, libertarian, Marxist, and Kantian moral and political theory?

In Political Liberalism, n1 Rawls attempts his most ambitious philosophical feat yet: to "apply the principle of toleration to philosophy itself," n2 and so, to construct a political theory without using the mortar and bricks of traditional [*796] political and moral thought. n3 The result, he claims, is a "freestanding view" of justice n4 - a substantive conception of justice (as opposed to a more modest procedural conception n5 ) that expressly eschews its own justification by appeal to substantive moral, political, or religious doctrines. This philosophical levitation takes liberalism to its limits: It justifies liberalism with liberalism, and so requires us to tolerate the morally wrong choices of others for reasons that we cannot claim to be morally right. n6

In Part I of this Review, I give a very cursory overview of the complicated argument with which Rawls levitates liberalism. Those who are already well versed in the claims of Political Liberalism might prefer to turn past this part. In Section II.A, I outline the sorts of queries and criticisms that have been raised by other commentators in response to the particular tenets of Political Liberalism. In Section II.B, I pursue a new line of inquiry - one directed at determining the philosophical point of Rawls's project as a whole. As I shall make clear, the nature of "the problem of stability," which Rawls seeks to solve, is not obvious. On one interpretation - what I call the motivational interpretation - Rawls seeks to give persons reasons to do what A Theory of Justice n7 gave them sufficient reasons to believe - namely, that they should abide by the principles of justice as fairness. As I shall demonstrate in Subsection II.B.1, if this is the right interpretation of Rawls's project, Rawls is implicitly committed to a particular philosophical conception about the relationship between reasons for belief and reasons for action (namely, externalism) - a contentious philosophical conception commitment to which jeopardizes Rawls's claim to apply toleration to philosophy itself. On an alternative interpretation - what I call the justificatory interpretation - Political Liberalism gives new reasons for people to believe the correctness of what A [*797] Theory of Justice called upon them to do - namely, to structure their basic institutions in accordance with Rawls's two principles of justice. As I shall argue in Subsection II.B.2, if this is the correct interpretation of Rawls's project, then, given the constraints he imposes on those to whom his project is directed, he is preaching to the converted. In tandem, the concerns I advance in response to the alternative interpretations of Rawls's project raise questions about the conceptual coherence and philosophical importance of Political Liberalism.

I. Rawls's New Project

Rawls maintains that the levitation of liberalism is necessary to overcome what he calls "the problem of stability." n8 As he wrote in A Theory of Justice, our "scheme of social cooperation must be stable: it must be more or less regularly complied with and its basic rules willingly acted upon; and when infractions occur, stabilizing forces should exist that prevent further violations and tend to restore the arrangement." n9 The stability of a conception of justice, Rawls argued, "depends upon a balance of motives: the sense of justice that it cultivates and the aims that it encourages must normally win out against propensities toward injustice." n10

Why would we fear for the stability of justice as fairness in the face of its defense in A Theory of Justice? Because, Rawls claims, we must take seriously the enduring "fact of reasonable pluralism." n11 In a well-ordered society, n12 free and equal citizens will inevitably be divided over religious, philosophical, and moral doctrines, many of which are reasonable. Indeed, part of what it is to be a free and equal person in a well-ordered society is to possess "the moral power" to "form, to revise, and rationally to pursue a conception of one's rational advantage or good." n13 In light of "the burdens of judgment" - "the many hazards involved in the correct (and conscientious) exercise of our powers of reason and judgment in the ordinary course of political [*798] life" n14 - persons will endorse diverse and often conflicting conceptions of the good, a plurality of which will be reasonable. n15 As a result, a well-ordered democracy will be characterized by three facts: (1) its citizens will hold a diversity of reasonable but irreconcilable religious, philosophical, and moral views that will cause them to pursue competing conceptions of the good; (2) the only means of motivating the populace to endorse a single religious, philosophical, or moral doctrine is by the oppressive use of state power; and (3) without the use of oppressive tactics to secure unanimity, the regime will endure only if a substantial majority of its citizens willingly and freely support it. n16 It follows, Rawls believes, that in light of their reasonable religious, philosophical, and moral disagreements, citizens will willingly and freely support a regime only if the political conception on which it is founded can be the object of "an overlapping consensus." n17

If Rawls's two principles of justice are necessarily premised on any one of the reasonable religious, philosophical, or moral doctrines embraced by free and equal citizens in a well-ordered democracy, or if they can be justified by only a limited set of these doctrines, then they will fail to secure an overlapping consensus, and hence, they will fail to comprise a stable conception of justice. In A Theory of Justice, justice as fairness was explicitly grounded on "a partially comprehensive" doctrine n18 - a conception of the good that makes justice both an intrinsic good (worth pursuing for its own sake) and the supreme good (taking priority over all other intrinsic goods). n19 Insofar as there are reasonable comprehensive conceptions of the good that deny that justice as fairness is the supreme good, or even an intrinsic good (because they hold, for example, that achieving happiness or union with God [*799] is the supreme good to which compliance with the two principles of justice is a mere means), justice as fairness cannot attract an overlapping consensus if it must rely on the conception of the good defended in A Theory of Justice.

Political Liberalism, then, "aims for a political conception of justice as a freestanding view." n20 Rawls's project is to extract from "the shared fund of implicitly recognized basic ideas and principles" provided by "the public culture itself" n21 a substantive political theory that rests on "no specific metaphysical or epistemological doctrine beyond what is implied by the political conception itself." n22 The philosophical magic required is obvious: to obtain a basis of agreement among persons who ex hypothesi cannot agree, and to persuade persons to cooperate with one another by endorsing a political doctrine that does not affirm the religious, philosophical, or moral conceptions that make them who they are and that give their lives meaning. In short, Rawls must levitate his liberalism to a purely political plane. And to do this is seemingly to do the impossible, for it is to obtain long-term stability by divorcing the right from any particular conception of the good when it is admittedly their conceptions of the good that motivate citizens to do the right. n23

Rawls embarks upon this seemingly impossible task by arguing that justice as fairness constitutes "a module, an essential constituent part, that fits into and can be supported by various reasonable comprehensive doctrines that endure in the society regulated by it." n24 As he maintains, "it can be presented without saying, or knowing, or hazarding a conjecture about, what such doctrines it may belong to, or be supported by." n25 As a purely political conception of [*800] justice, it is not thought of as true, n26 but as reasonable. And it is reasonable because it is both publicly and privately justifiable. n27 It is publicly justifiable because all reasonable persons n28 can accept and endorse it in their public capacity as democratic citizens (namely, by the process of political constructivism that employs reflective equilibrium and the original position as set forth in A Theory of Justice). n29 Justice as fairness is privately justifiable because it can be derived from each of the conflicting comprehensive conceptions of the good privately endorsed by reasonable persons. n30 As Rawls maintains, justice as fairness is not privately justifiable because it functions as a modus vivendi - a political compromise struck by individuals who lack the power to secure terms they would find more favorable. n31 Rather, it coheres with and/or follows from each of the many comprehensive doctrines that reasonable persons might embrace. It thus functions as either an instrumental or an intrinsic good within all reasonable conceptions of the good. Since "citizens individually decide for themselves in what way the public political conception all affirm is related to their own more comprehensive views," n32 justice as fairness achieves a duality of justification from persons who do not share a singular religious, philosophical, or moral method of justification. Hence, as Rawls maintains, his political liberalism represents a "dualism": It is justified both from "the point of view of the political conception" itself and from "the many points of view of comprehensive doctrines." n33

Rawls recognizes, however, that it is not enough to remove the justification of the political from the political fray. The sort of stability with which he is concerned will not be assured unless he also extricates a means of reasoning about the political that will allow citizens to interpret and apply the [*801] two principles of justice without reference to the comprehensive doctrines that divide them. As Samuel Freeman puts the problem:

Suppose citizens, or legislators... interpret liberty of conscience according to their religious views (as John Locke and perhaps Justice Rehnquist), so that while it allows freedom of all (reasonable) religions, it does not rule out special government support to encourage religious over nonreligious belief, or even special support for a particular religion. Or they interpret freedom of the person (another vaguely defined basic liberty) according to their religious views about what is appropriate sexual conduct (deciding then that homosexuality, or any sex outside of legal marriage, should be legally prohibited). Nothing on the face of these abstract basic liberties would prevent such interpretations. n34

In order to prevent citizens from giving content to the two principles of justice by resorting to their comprehensive conceptions, Rawls seeks the levitation of what he calls "public reason." Public reason comprises the "guidelines of inquiry that specify ways of reasoning and criteria for the kinds of information relevant for political questions" - guidelines that all reasonable persons, regardless of their conceptions of the good and private modes of reasoning, can apply. n35 When it comes to debate about matters of basic justice and constitutional essentials, n36 "we are to appeal only to presently accepted general beliefs and forms of reasoning found in common sense, and the methods and conclusions of science when these are not controversial." n37 This is because the exercise of political power is fully justifiable only when it is exercised on grounds "which all citizens as free and equal may reasonably be expected to endorse in the light of principles and ideals acceptable to their [*802] common human reason." n38 Only by limiting persons to the exercise of public reason is it possible to forestall their reliance on epistemic sources and criteria unique to their conflicting conceptions of the good (e.g., references to the authority of God, or to the content of astrological readings). Only by carving out a public discourse complete with public criteria of argumentation can we ensure that political debate does not disintegrate into a cacophony of private arguments that defeats the stability made possible by an overlapping consensus concerning justice as fairness. n39

Rawls's ambition in Political Liberalism is to demonstrate that reasonable persons can elevate themselves above the first-order moral, philosophical, and religious disagreements that divide them, by withdrawing to the second-order level of the political. n40 At this level, reasonable persons can avail themselves of a common language and apply the principles about which they share an overlapping consensus to the construction of basic social and political institutions that will enable them to live in peace. By divorcing its justification and application from all of the particular religious, philosophical, and moral doctrines embraced by reasonable persons within a well-ordered society, while still allowing individual citizens to justify their allegiance to that society on the basis of the particular doctrines that they embrace, Rawls contends that justice as fairness can command the agreement of people who otherwise lack any basis for agreement. If his argument is successful, Rawls has done the seemingly impossible once again; for he has articulated the grounds upon which persons who deeply disagree with one another can agree to disagree, not as a means of compromise, but because the doctrines that motivate their disagreement require such agreement. n41 [*803]

II. Evaluating Rawls's New Project

A. The First Wave of Criticism

In the short time since the publication of Political Liberalism, a great deal of sophisticated philosophical attention has been paid to the central tenets of Rawls's argument. n42 Commentators and critics have maintained, for example:

(1) that while he is right to point out that a constitutional democracy will inevitably breed a plurality of conceptions of the good, Rawls fails to defend adequately his claim that many such conflicting conceptions can be simultaneously reasonable; n43

(2) that in seeking an overlapping consensus from only reasonable conceptions of the good, essentially defined as liberal conceptions (and imposing the results of that consensus on those who are deemed to hold unreasonable conceptions, essentially defined as nonliberal conceptions), Rawls's political liberalism forsakes genuine political neutrality for a kind of liberal tyranny; n44

(3) that if Rawls is right in maintaining that there is a plurality of reasonable, but irreconcilable, conceptions of the good, Rawls is wrong in assuming that those who hold such conceptions will be able to agree on principles of political justice n45 or on the constitutional essentials to which they apply; n46

(4) that if reasonable persons who are deeply divided amongst themselves could agree on second-order principles of political justice, the principles they [*804] would agree upon would likely be different from Rawls's two principles of justice as fairness; n47

(5) that even if reasonable persons would agree on Rawls's two principles of justice as fairness, it would not (always) be reasonable for them to set aside their first-order religious, philosophical, and moral beliefs when debating the application of those principles to matters of basic justice or constitutional essentials; n48

(6) that Rawls's insistence on limiting constitutional discourse to the content of public reason impoverishes public debate by precluding citizens from publicly discussing (and thus potentially resolving first-order disputes about) the content of the particular conceptions of the good that generate constitutional arguments (e.g., the defensibility of Catholic doctrine as it applies to questions concerning abortion rights or the morality of homosexuality); n49

(7) that inasmuch as Rawls's theory relies on our present beliefs and aspires only to the construction of a theory that squares with those beliefs, and inasmuch as our present beliefs may be false, Rawls's theory can make no claim to be a true account of justice, and hence, it is philosophically irrelevant; n50

(8) that while Rawls's constructivist project would be philosophically relevant if it genuinely proceeded from sound empirical research into the present beliefs of community members, Rawls's failure to engage in real sociology belies the constructivist claims he makes on behalf of his project; n51

(9) that despite his claims to construct a political theory devoid of metaphysical or epistemological commitments, Rawls smuggles in presuppositions about the truth of unique moral and metaphysical conceptions; n52 [*805]

(10) that Rawls should be forthright in declaring himself a metaethical skeptic, because only skepticism can make sense of his insistence on the political toleration of pluralism; n53 and

(11) that to avoid claims of philosophical irrelevance or attributions of metaethical skepticism, Rawls should abandon his claim that political liberalism is merely reasonable and embrace, instead, the claim that it is true. n54

I do not propose to take up the merits of any of the above arguments. Instead, I want to inquire into the essential nature of Rawls's project as a whole. My questions are these: Why did Rawls write Political Liberalism, and for whom did he write it?

B. Why Did Rawls Write Political Liberalism?

Rawls maintains that his efforts in Political Liberalism are necessary to solve "the problem of stability." n55 But what exactly is the problem of stability? Rawls puts it this way: "How is it possible that there may exist over time a stable and just society of free and equal citizens profoundly divided by reasonable though incompatible religious, philosophical, and moral doctrines?" n56 Now this is a puzzling problem to puzzle about. It does not appear to be the problem of what constitutes a just society, or the problem of what count as the essential conditions of human freedom, or the problem of what are the necessary criteria of human equality. These are the classic questions of political philosophy to which Rawls gave detailed answers in A Theory of Justice. But, as Rawls declares, since his answers to these questions have remained essentially unchanged since the publication of A Theory of Justice, n57 these are not the questions to which Political Liberalism is devoted.

The question that Rawls seeks to answer in Political Liberalism appears to be this: How can a just society stay just? This is a peculiar philosophical question. One can certainly imagine it functioning as a genuine question for sociologists, psychologists, or political scientists who are interested in testing whether, for example, just institutions endure longer when bellies are fed or when force is threatened. But an empirical inquiry of the sort seemingly demanded by this question cannot be what Rawls is up to in his armchair. Rather, he must be seeking to give a philosophical account of why people should support and maintain political institutions that are ex hypothesi just. But what does it mean to ask whether there are reasons to do what there are, ex [*806] hypothesi, reasons to do? It would seem that Rawls's very question is tautological: How can reasonable persons (defined as liberals n58 ) be made to be reasonable (i.e., liberal)? How can reasonable persons be given reasons to do what A Theory of Justice already gave them reasons to do? How can a society in which everyone accepts, and knows that everyone else accepts, the very same principles of justice (i.e., a well-ordered society n59 ), achieve acceptance of the same principles of justice? How can persons who have a capacity to understand, apply, and act on fair terms of social cooperation and a willingness, if not a desire, to do so (i.e., free and equal persons n60 ) be made to act willingly on fair terms of social cooperation?

In what follows, I shall explore two different interpretations of the project that Rawls sets for himself in Political Liberalism. On the first interpretation, Rawls's project is motivational: The goal of Political Liberalism is to subjectively induce reasonable people to do what they in fact already have sufficient objective reasons to do, namely, to abide by justice as fairness. On the second interpretation, Rawls's project is justificatory: The goal of Political Liberalism is to advance new arguments that objectively justify reasonable people in believing that justice as fairness is the correct conception of justice. In examining each of these interpretations, I am interested in two questions: first, whether Rawls can escape the charges of conceptual confusion that follow from the apparently tautological nature of the problem of stability; and second, whether Rawls's theory confronts normative challenges that confound its defensibility even in the absence of conceptual difficulties.

1. The Motivational Project

Samuel Freeman argues that Rawls's project is solely motivational. Freeman's argument for this interpretation can be summarized as follows. n61 Rawls maintains in his introduction that Political Liberalism is written to revise the account of stability provided in part three of A Theory of Justice, an account that Rawls now believes is in conflict with the general account of justice provided in part one of A Theory of Justice. n62 An account of stability is "an account of how people can acquire the will to do justice and the desire to support just institutions." n63 Thus, the question of Political Liberalism is: "Assuming we have the correct conception of justice and have in place the institutions needed to achieve it, how are we to motivate individuals who are [*807] members of this social scheme, to affirm and support these institutions and the conception of justice that underlies them?" n64 As Freeman explains:

This is not simply a problem of engaging people['s] moral beliefs about justice. If Rawls is right, this has been achieved already in the argument for a conception of justice and a just constitution that best fit with our considered moral judgments. The problem Rawls addresses in Part III of A Theory of Justice, "Ends," is largely that of showing how this conception can engage the will of those who live under a just social scheme (a "well-ordered society" of justice as fairness). Assuming that citizens in a well-ordered society have public knowledge and agreement on justice and just institutions, how do they come to care about them?... Even assuming we can get all in a well-ordered democratic society to agree in their judgments on the principles of a just constitution and the institutions needed to support it, and even assuming that all citizens have a sense of justice and a desire to be just, there remains this significant problem of consistently engaging their will. n65

If the point of Political Liberalism is indeed the evangelical one that Freeman describes, then Rawls's project is susceptible to at least two major criticisms. First, those who are "internalists" about morality must find the project, as stated, literally meaningless. To resist their dismissal of his project altogether, Rawls must declare himself an "externalist" about morality, and so commit himself to a metaphysical doctrine that undermines his defense of political liberalism as freestanding. Second, even if Rawls admits the externalist premise of his project, his project fails to speak to externalists. Specifically, externalists who equate just actions with actions that are motivated by the recognition of their objective justness must find Rawls's attempt to motivate just actions for reasons other than their justice fundamentally confused. Nonmotivational externalists who do not harbor such conceptual concerns about Rawls's project are deemed unreasonable (according to Rawls's criteria) - and hence, outside of the scope of the audience to whom his theory is addressed - if they are in fact in need of motivation. As a result, Rawls's project can only motivate the already motivated. Let me take up each of these criticisms in turn before articulating the second, justificatory interpretation of Rawls's project that purports to spare him these difficulties.

a. The Challenge of Internalism

Broadly speaking, internalists maintain that, as a conceptual matter, the obligations of morality subjectively motivate actors to abide by them. One [*808] cannot be subject to a moral obligation and fail, in Freeman's words, to "care" about it. As Richard Price wrote: "When we are conscious that an action is fit to be done, or that it ought to be done, it is not conceivable that we can remain uninfluenced, or want a motive to action." n66 And in the words of W.D. Falk: "Somehow the very fact of a duty entails all the motive required for doing the act...." n67

As David Brink makes clear, n68 internalists about morality are committed to three distinct claims: (1) that moral considerations necessarily motivate; (2)that since the motivational force of morality is part of the concept of morality, it can be known a priori; and (3) that since it is the concept of morality that makes morality motivational, the motivational power of moral obligations is independent of their content. Externalists about morality deny one or more of these three claims. Externalists maintain: (1) that moral obligations only contingently motivate (if they motivate at all); and/or (2) that whether moral obligations motivate can be known only a posteriori; and/or (3) that the motivational power of a moral obligation depends on things other than the concept of morality, such as the content of the obligation or such facts about the actor as her interests or desires.

If Freeman has accurately characterized Rawls's project, then Rawls must be an externalist about morality. For if A Theory of Justice succeeds, in Freeman's words, in engaging people's moral beliefs about justice, then, according to an internalist, it must necessarily have succeeded in engaging people's will to do justice. What more is there to be done by Political Liberalism? If Political Liberalism indeed engages people's will to do justice in a way that A Theory of Justice does not, then, according to an internalist, it must be because it provides a correct conception of justice, while A Theory of Justice does not. To maintain that A Theory of Justice articulates the correct conception of justice while simultaneously admitting that it fails to motivate many (reasonable) persons to abide by that conception of justice is, on an internalist's theory, to engage in contradiction. If Rawls is to rescue his project from charges of conceptual confusion, it would appear that he must reject internalism about morality. But affirmatively to embrace externalism is to premise political liberalism on a first-order metaphysical thesis that many may [*809] seemingly reasonably reject. Political liberalism is no longer levitated but elevated on a foundation that may cost Rawls the overlapping consensus about it that he seeks.

To resist this result, Rawls might maintain that political liberalism can remain agnostic between the moral metaphysics of internalism and externalism. To make out this claim, he might usefully avail himself of a set of distinctions that Brink articulates. n69 First, as Brink makes clear, it is helpful to distinguish the different sorts of motivation that various internalists attribute to obligations. A "weak internalist" maintains that an obligation necessarily provides some motivation for action, while a "strong internalist" maintains that an obligation necessarily provides sufficient motivation for action. n70 Second, it is useful to be clear about the different sources of motivation that various internalists identify. "Objective internalists," as I shall call them, claim that a moral obligation, simpliciter, provides an agent with a motive to comply with it. In contrast, "subjective internalists" claim that a moral belief provides an agent with a motive to act on it - that is, that an actor who believes that she has an obligation is motivated to act so as to fulfill it. Finally, "hybrid internalists" maintain that the recognition of an obligation - that is, the true belief in the existence of an obligation - motivates an actor to comply with it. n71

Rawls might attempt to make use of these distinctions in a number of ways. First, he might maintain that weak internalists must find his project fully coherent, and hence, that political liberalism can at least remain agnostic between externalism and weak internalism. Weak internalists must believe that if A Theory of Justice correctly articulates the obligations of justice, then it necessarily provides some motivation to act justly. But they can join externalists in believing that it may take additional arguments beyond those sufficient to justify justice as fairness as the correct conception of our obligations of justice - e.g., those advanced in Political Liberalism - to give persons sufficient motivation to act justly. Freeman supports the attribution of this argument to Rawls when he puts Rawls's concern in Political Liberalism as follows: "Even assuming that each person has a sense of justice, why should they sufficiently care about justice, to the degree that they recognize and are willing to respect its demands even when these demands conflict with or impede individuals in the pursuit of their conceptions of their good?" n72

Rawls might further maintain that both subjective and hybrid internalists can find his project coherent, and hence, that political liberalism can remain agnostic between externalism and these two versions of internalism. Since both [*810] subjective and hybrid internalists link moral motivation to subjective beliefs about obligations - and not to obligations, simpliciter - they cannot find fault with a project that has as its goal the generation of subjective beliefs. Rawls can thus maintain that Political Liberalism speaks to both externalists and subjective and hybrid internalists. In the case of subjective and hybrid internalists, Rawls's goal is to cause subjective beliefs about the true obligations of justice on the part of those who may not have come to hold such beliefs as a result of the arguments sufficiently advanced for justice as fairness in A Theory of Justice. Political Liberalism may thus accomplish what A Theory of Justice does not, for it may cause subjective beliefs about the validity of the two principles of justice that, according to the internalist, will then necessarily motivate. In the case of externalists, the goal of Political Liberalism is to generate the will to do what may (or may not) already be subjectively believed on the basis of A Theory of Justice. That is, its goal is to forge what externalists would deem a contingent connection between the objective correctness of justice as fairness and the subjective motivation to act in accordance with its principles.

If these arguments succeed, only strong objective internalists must find the project of Political Liberalism incoherent. For them, the motivational impetus for justice as fairness is exhausted by A Theory of Justice, and there is nothing Political Liberalism can add to further motivate the adoption of the two principles of justice. For other internalists, by contrast, Political Liberalism can make important contributions.

Yet neither of the above arguments on behalf of Political Liberalism will ultimately co-opt the support of weak, subjective, and hybrid internalists. First, weak internalists typically invest obligations with some, but not sufficient, motivational force because they believe that obligations have merely prima facie moral weight. On this view, obligations can conflict, and obligations can be outweighed by more weighty obligations. Thus, while singular obligations motivate, they cannot sufficiently motivate until it is deemed that they outweigh all other conflicting obligations. The only way to establish that the obligations of justice outweigh all (or most) other obligations is by justifying them as the most weighty obligations within the class of obligations. But this is to do justificatory work. If, ex hypothesi, A Theory of Justice did this justificatory work, then persons have all the reasons they could have to believe that the obligations of justice outweigh all (or most) other obligations. Accordingly, even weak internalists must maintain that they have sufficient reasons, and hence, sufficient motivation, to act in accordance with justice as fairness.

Second, Rawls cannot maintain that the point of Political Liberalism is to cause beliefs that will then, according to subjective and hybrid internalists, necessarily motivate just action. For the motivational interpretation assumes, ex hypothesi, that those in need of motivation already have such beliefs. Recall [*811] Freeman's reconstruction of Rawls's inquiry: "Assuming that citizens in a well-ordered society have public knowledge and agreement on justice and just institutions, how do they come to care about them?" n73 If this is indeed Rawls's inquiry, then it must necessarily be meaningless to those who maintain that subjective beliefs in the justness of institutions necessarily cause persons to care about those institutions.

Despite his possible protestations, then, Rawls's project must be unintelligible to internalists of all stripes. If internalism is correct, and if A Theory of Justice already correctly articulated the obligations of justice, then there was simply nothing left for Rawls to do that would justify the writing of Political Liberalism. Since there exists no gap between what people should do and what people must want to do, there can be no reason to give people additional arguments why they should want to do what they have already been given sufficient reasons to do.

The internalist response strikes me as an enormously powerful challenge to Rawls's claim to levitate liberalism above metaphysics. This is not because strong internalism and objective internalism are without serious problems. On the contrary, there are good reasons to think that strong internalism and objective internalism are highly implausible theories about the metaphysics of moral obligations. But Rawls cannot articulate any of these reasons without committing himself to the truth of a particular metaphysical doctrine.

The most significant problem with all theories of internalism is that they deny the coherence of what Brink calls "amoralist skepticism." n74 The amoralist skeptic accepts that moral facts both exist and are known to us, but asks why we should care about these facts. As Brink says, the internalist "cannot regard as coherent the amoralist challenge "Why should I care about moral demands?'." n75 Yet such a challenge appears fully intelligible: "Reflection on the stringent character of many apparent moral demands can make us wonder whether we do have good reason to be moral. We may come to wonder whether we have good reason to become amoralists. All of this seems to assume that the amoralist is an intelligible figure." n76 If Freeman's interpretation of Political Liberalism is right, Rawls's purpose is to contend with amoralist skeptics, and hence, on pain of boxing with ghosts, Rawls must reject any internalist position that declares his foe conceptually impossible. But then Rawls must premise his project on externalism. That is, he must ground his project in a particular philosophical doctrine that some may reject. And so, he must forfeit the claim to have built the political wholly without the metaphysical. [*812]

Rawls has available a final argument in defense of his claim that political liberalism can remain ametaphysical. Put crudely, he can maintain that A Theory of Justice is written for internalists, while Political Liberalism is written for externalists. Together, these works reflect complete agnosticism concerning the truth of these metaphysical rivals. If one is an internalist, all one requires are sufficient reasons to believe that a political conception is correct. One will then necessarily be motivated to act in accordance with that conception. A Theory of Justice provides sufficient reasons to believe that justice as fairness is the correct conception of justice, and hence, it is all that internalists require to build and maintain a just society. If, on the other hand, one is an externalist, one may require both sufficient reasons to believe that a political conception is correct and an additional source of motivation to abide by such a conception. While A Theory of Justice gives externalists sufficient reasons to believe that justice as fairness is the correct conception of justice, it may fail to motivate them to act in accordance with its principles. Political Liberalism provides externalists with additional reasons to act on the principles sufficiently defended in A Theory of Justice. As Rawls can argue, it is precisely because he sought to be metaphysically agnostic that he was motivated to write both books. While those who are moved by one book and not by the other may consider only one book necessary, neither book presupposes the truth of either internalism or externalism. One can be moved to structure the basic institutions of one's society according to the dictates of justice as fairness regardless of whether one is an internalist or externalist, and hence, the content of political liberalism is not hostage to the truth of either doctrine, even if the source of one's motivation for adopting political liberalism is.

This rejoinder may indeed rescue the coherence of Rawls's project, if his project is construed as an argument in the alternative, with one alternative (that of A Theory of Justice) satisfying internalists and the other alternative (that of Political Liberalism) satisfying externalists. But the coherence of Political Liberalism achieved by this argument is largely a Pyrrhic victory. For such an argument admits that Political Liberalism, by itself, must be meaningless to internalists. And since Rawls gives us no reason to believe that our society is populated by enough externalist amoralist skeptics to undermine its stability, he gives us no reason to think that his attempt to persuade people to practice what they already preach is a necessary or important task. n77 Put differently, one might well think that the problem for justice as fairness is a dearth of believers, not a host of hypocrites. If Rawls's project in Political Liberalism is not to give new reasons to believe that justice as fairness is the correct conception of justice, but rather is merely to get those who do believe it to put [*813] their money where their mouths are, then Rawls may not be grappling with the principal problem confronting his theory.

b. The Challenge of Externalism

Internalists, however, are not the only sorts of moral theorists who must find the motivational interpretation of Political Liberalism misconceived. Those who might be called "motivational externalists" must also reject the project that Freeman assigns to Rawls. Motivational externalists embrace the externalist thesis that obligations do not necessarily motivate, but argue as a conceptual matter that moral action consists in action that is in fact motivated solely by the fact that it is obligatory. On this view, those who give to charity, and do so solely for its own sake, act morally. Those who give to charity not because it is obligatory to do so, but because they want to secure a tax credit, or impress a colleague, or curry political favor, do not act morally. n78

From the perspective of my armchair, it appears that there are a great many people who harbor strong motivational externalist intuitions and who thus follow Kant in believing that to act "in conformity with duty, but not from the motive of duty" is to fall short of acting morally. n79 Indeed, it is plausible to conclude that motivational externalism is a central presupposition of most of the world's great religions, for it is common creed that we should do the good for its own sake. And it is the stuff of common gossip to condemn those who help others solely for selfish reasons, or who keep promises only because it works to their advantage to do so, or who abide by the law solely because they fear the sanctions for disobedience, or who share the burdens of cooperation only because they are being watched.

If motivational externalism is extended to the duties of justice, then just acts are acts done because they are just. Those who accept this claim cannot consider it enough to be motivated to abide by the dictates of justice. Rather, one must be motivated to abide by those dictates for some reasons, and not others - i.e., for the reasons that make them just. Now, imagine the case of the [*814] motivational externalist who has read A Theory of Justice and has come to believe that justice as fairness is the correct conception of justice, but who is not motivated to act in accordance with its dictates. Inasmuch as she is an externalist, she can meaningfully seek to acquire the motivation to do what she believes is just. But ironically, she cannot seek such motivation in Political Liberalism. For insofar as Political Liberalism seeks to motivate actors by invoking arguments distinct from those advanced in A Theory of Justice, it seeks to motivate actors to act for reasons other than the fact that justice as fairness is the correct conception of justice. If the motivational externalist acts on the new reasons advanced in Political Liberalism, as opposed to the justificatory reasons advanced in A Theory of Justice, then her acts will lack moral worth. Put differently, Rawls's project in Political Liberalism can be meaningful to motivational externalists only if it can motivate them to do just acts solely for the sake of justice - that is, for the reasons that make such acts just. Since, ex hypothesi, the arguments that Rawls advances are not arguments that justify justice as fairness as the correct conception of justice, those arguments must motivate just acts on grounds other than that they are just. But then, it is morally self-defeating for motivational externalists to seek the motivation to do justice in Political Liberalism.

The upshot of this argument is that if Rawls's project in Political Liberalism is construed as a motivational one, then it must be thought to be meaningless to motivational externalists. Only the arguments already advanced in A Theory of Justice can motivate motivational externalists in ways that guarantee just actions, for only those arguments capture the reasons that justice as fairness is just. Insofar as motivational externalists may be unmoved by these justificatory arguments, A Theory of Justice may fail to assure stability. But in that event, there are no arguments that can assure stability, and hence, from the motivational externalist's point of view, no sense can be made of the project in Political Liberalism.

Rawls can, at this point, rescue his project from the charges of irrelevance levelled by motivational externalists by declaring that motivational externalism constitutes an unreasonable philosophical conception. n80 He can remind us that reasonable persons "are ready to propose principles and standards as fair terms of cooperation and to abide by them willingly, given the assurance that others will likewise do so." n81 Those who possess a "reasonable moral psychology" possess

a capacity to acquire conceptions of justice and fairness and a desire to act as these conceptions require.... When they believe that institutions or social practices are just,... they are ready and willing [*815] to do their part in those arrangements provided they have reasonable assurance that others will also do their part.... n82

Insofar as motivational externalists who lack the motivation to do what they believe is just do not have a (subjective) desire to act as justice as fairness dictates, and are not ready and willing to do their part to support just arrangements, Rawls can declare them unreasonable. Since Rawls is explicitly interested only in determining how those who are reasonable can achieve a just society that is stable, Rawls can thus declare the challenge of such externalists irrelevant to his project.

The problem with this rejoinder is that it proves too much. Put bluntly, it leaves Rawls with no one to talk to. We have already seen that if Rawls's project in Political Liberalism is construed as a purely motivational one - i.e., one designed to motivate people to do what they already believe on the basis of A Theory of Justice - then he cannot be talking to internalists, because internalists cannot be in need of motivation. Therefore, he must be talking to externalists who are in need of reasons to do what they already believe. To reject motivational externalism on the ground that it is unreasonable not to be motivated by correct beliefs about justice is to reject externalism in general as a reasonable philosophical doctrine. But then, for whom did Rawls write Political Liberalism? Not for the internalist, who is already motivated to be just, and not for the externalist, who is not already motivated to be just. That leaves the externalist who is (contingently) already motivated to be just; but if this is Rawls's audience, he is preaching to the converted. His project becomes the trivial one of motivating liberals to be liberal; of giving peaceful people reasons to be peaceful; of encouraging tolerance among the already tolerant.

Freeman might at this point insist that I have missed the point of Political Liberalism, as he construes it. He might remind us that Rawls's aim is not to motivate the unmotivated, but rather to motivate the insufficiently motivated: "Even assuming that each person has a sense of justice, why should they sufficiently care about justice, to the degree that they recognize and are willing to respect its demands even when these demands conflict with or impede individuals in the pursuit of their conceptions of their good?" n83 Insofar as externalists who are motivated to act in accordance with the demands of justice might be insufficiently motivated to do so in the face of competing values, there remains room for Rawls to do meaningful motivational work. While Political Liberalism cannot and/or does not speak to internalists, motivational externalists, and externalists who suffer from amoral skepticism, it can play a meaningful role in persuading externalists who are already [*816] motivated by justice to become sufficiently motivated by it - that is, to abide by the demands of justice even in the face of competing demands by other values within their comprehensive conceptions of the good.

This rejoinder will not do. If Rawls's object in Political Liberalism is in fact purely motivational, then ex hypothesi he has already given people sufficient justification to structure the basic institutions of their society according to justice as fairness and to abide by the two principles of justice in the face of competing values. His reader must thus be thought to already hold correct beliefs about the importance of justice relative to other values. If the value of justice is in fact so weighty that it ought to trump virtually all other values within any reasonable comprehensive conceptions, then ex hypothesi, people believe that it ought to displace other values in virtually all cases of conflict. Those who are partially motivated, but not sufficiently motivated, to set aside less important values in the name of justice put Rawls in the same dilemma as those who are not motivated to do justice at all. On pain of conceptual confusion, Rawls cannot conceive of them as internalists, for internalists take reasons to believe to be reasons to act. He cannot conceive of them as motivational externalists, for while such externalists may indeed lack sufficient motivation to do what they should, they cannot be given extrinsic reasons to do so. Nor can he conceive of them as "partial amoral skeptics," because those who do not possess a desire to act on the correct conception of justice lack a reasonable moral psychology. Since those who have less of a desire to act on the correct conception of justice than they should have lack the increment of desire necessary for justice when doing justice most matters (i.e., when it is threatened by countervailing values), those who are partial amoral skeptics must, on Rawls's theory, lack a reasonable moral psychology. Thus, those who are insufficiently motivated by justice cannot be motivated by Political Liberalism any more than can those who are completely unmotivated by justice.

Thus, if Rawls's project is given a purely motivational interpretation, it ceases to be a meaningful project. Its only congregation is composed of converts who already abide by its evangelical message. We should, accordingly, seek an alternative interpretation that does not invite charges of conceptual confusion and philosophical triviality. In the subsection that follows, I shall take up what I call "a justificatory interpretation" - an interpretation that construes Political Liberalism not as a source of reasons for action, but as a source of new reasons for belief in the correctness of justice as fairness.

2. The Justificatory Project

Many of the commentators on Political Liberalism implicitly take Rawls's project to be a justificatory one, not (at least, not primarily) a motivational one. [*817] On this interpretation, the facts that justice as fairness can serve as the basis of an overlapping consensus and can be publicly justified by the exercise of public reason constitute new reasons to believe it the correct conception of justice. n84 By this account, Political Liberalism's arguments supplement the arguments from the original position and reflective equilibrium advanced on behalf of justice as fairness in A Theory of Justice. If, after reading A Theory of Justice, one remains unconvinced that Rawls's two principles constitute the content of justice, one can read Political Liberalism for additional reasons to believe that they do.

We have good grounds to favor this interpretation if it rescues Rawls's project from the difficulties engendered by the motivational interpretation. But it should be clear from the start that this interpretation competes with Freeman's motivational one only because Rawls's text is ambiguous between the two. Consider, for example, Rawls's descriptions of the argument for justice as fairness:

Justice as fairness is best presented in two stages.... In the first stage it is worked out as a freestanding political (but of course moral) conception for the basic structure of society. Only with this done and its content - its principles of justice and ideals - provisionally on hand do we take up, in the second stage, the problem whether justice as fairness is sufficiently stable. Unless it is so, it is not a satisfactory political conception of justice and it must be in some way revised. n85

* * *

The first three lectures set out the first stage of the exposition of justice as fairness as a freestanding view.... This first stage gives the principles of justice that specify the fair terms of cooperation among citizens and specify when a society's basic institutions are just.

The second stage of the exposition... considers how the well-ordered democratic society of justice as fairness may establish and preserve unity and stability given the reasonable pluralism characteristic of it. n86

[*818] On one hand, these passages suggest that in the two-stage exposition of justice as fairness, the first stage does the justificatory work (i.e., it gives the reasons to believe that justice as fairness is the correct conception of justice), while the second stage does the motivational work (i.e., it gives the reasons to act in accordance with what is believed). Since the arguments in the first stage of the exposition remain those of A Theory of Justice, this interpretation supports Freeman's view that the real contribution of Political Liberalism is the second stage of the exposition, and hence, that its purpose is purely motivational. On the other hand, inasmuch as the above passages explicitly contemplate the revision of justice as fairness if it should turn out to be an unstable conception of justice, they support the view that in defending its stability by showing it to be a freestanding conception of justice, Rawls is advancing new reasons to believe that justice as fairness is a fully "satisfactory" conception of justice. On this interpretation, Rawls's project in Political Liberalism is justificatory; its goal is to supplement the arguments advanced in A Theory of Justice for why justice as fairness should be believed to be the correct conception of justice. n87

Notice that if Rawls's project in Political Liberalism is primarily justificatory, it escapes the charges of conceptual confusion levelled at it by internalists and motivational externalists. There is nothing conceptually puzzling about giving nonbelievers - be they internalists or externalists - additional reasons for belief. A conceptual puzzle arises only if the motivational interpretation is correct - that is, only if Rawls supposes that there is a gap between the existence of sufficient reasons for belief and sufficient reasons for action, such that A Theory of Justice is required to give the former sorts of reasons and Political Liberalism is required to give the latter sorts of reasons. If both books give the same sorts of reasons, and if the reasons both give are reasons for belief, then neither internalists nor externalists can challenge the coherence of either book, for both internalists and externalists presuppose that justice as fairness is justified only if it is premised on a sufficient set of reasons for belief.

Our question, then, is whether Political Liberalism invites a new set of problems if its purpose is thought to be justificatory rather than motivational. Certainly the commentators whose criticisms I summarized in Section A of this part take the justificatory interpretation to be problematic, for their arguments largely challenge the normative defensibility of political liberalism. As I said, I do not propose to work through the merits of these criticisms. Suffice it to say that in light of the arguments I laid out in the previous subsection, Rawls cannot rescue his project from the difficulties identified by other critics by declaring that such critics have missed its motivational point. [*819]

I propose to explore here a source of difficulty for the justificatory interpretation that is analogous to the one encountered by the motivational interpretation. As we saw, if its goal is motivational, Political Liberalism lacks an audience. The question I want to raise in these final pages is whether it gains an audience if its goal is taken to be justificatory. Can the new arguments advanced in Political Liberalism make believers of people who do not already believe that justice as fairness is the correct conception of justice? Can the facts that justice as fairness provides the basis of an overlapping consensus and is justifiable by the exercise of public reason give people new reasons to structure basic institutions according to the two principles of justice when they would not otherwise believe those principles justified?

While the answer to this question cannot be deduced a priori, there are good grounds to conclude that those most in need of conversion have been deliberately excluded from Rawls's chapel. If this is the case, then the justificatory interpretation of Political Liberalism is subject to charges of triviality similar to those made against the motivational interpretation. The challenge of triviality proceeds as follows. First, Rawls explicitly excludes those who hold "unreasonable" religious, philosophical, and moral doctrines from the category of those from whom to solicit an overlapping consensus about the principles by which to structure basic institutions. n88 Thus, Rawls cannot argue that those who are unreasonable should embrace justice as fairness because it in fact coheres with, or follows from, their comprehensive conceptions. Only those whose (reasonable) beliefs comprise the "database" from which to procure an overlapping consensus can be called upon to act in accordance with the principles that comprise the content of that consensus because those principles reflect what they, in fact, believe and can justify on the basis of their comprehensive conceptions.

Second, unreasonable religious, philosophical, and moral doctrines are defined as doctrines at odds with a liberal conception of justice. Rawls's derivation of this definition can be reconstructed as follows:

(1) Reasonable religious, philosophical, and moral doctrines are those doctrines affirmed by reasonable persons. n89

(2) Reasonable persons are those persons:

(a) who want to be and are fully cooperating members of society, and seek to be recognized as such; n90

(b) who have an effective sense of justice, a desire to do what justice requires and to be just persons; n91 [*820]

(c) who are thus willing to propose and act in accordance with public principles that others can accept; n92

(d) who recognize the burdens of judgment, and therefore recognize that the public principles that others can accept cannot be premised on any particular religious, philosophical, or moral doctrine; n93

(e) who thus appreciate that "fair social cooperation... on a footing of mutual respect" is possible only if the values that conflict with the political conception of justice all can accept are set aside when they conflict with that conception; n94

(f) who as a result refuse to use political power to repress reasonable comprehensive views different from their own; n95

(g) who thus manifest the virtues of political cooperation - "the virtues of tolerance and being ready to meet others halfway"; n96

(h) who accordingly advance a political conception that "protects the familiar basic rights and assigns them a special priority"; n97 and

(i) who recognize that the effective use of such basic rights requires the possession, and thus in many cases the provision, of sufficient material means to meet basic needs. n98

(3) Thus, "the most reasonable political conception of justice for a democratic regime will be, broadly speaking, liberal." n99

(4) Unreasonable religious, philosophical, and moral doctrines are thus doctrines that are at odds with a liberal political conception. n100

The upshot of this definition is that those who are not already liberals are excluded from the category of persons from whom an overlapping consensus about justice is sought. Rawls cannot, then, seek to justify his liberal conception of justice as fairness to nonliberals by means of the argument from overlapping consensus, for nonliberals cannot be shown to believe implicitly the essential tenets of political liberalism. Hence, Rawls cannot argue that justice as fairness is justified for them for the reason that they in fact embrace its fundamental tenets. [*821]

By ignoring the views of nonliberals in an argument that seeks to justify political liberalism by showing it to be consistent with (most) people's views, Rawls excludes from his audience those most in need of his message. Thus he does not provide the Branch Davidians of Waco, Texas, or the terrorist bombers of the World Trade Center and the Oklahoma City federal building, or the followers of the Doomsday Cult, or the members of the Ku Klux Klan, any reasons for liberal tolerance. Since the greatest real threat to the stability of a liberal regime appears to derive from the proliferation of nonliberal (i.e., unreasonable) conceptions of the good, it is puzzling to discover that Rawls's defense of liberalism is not intended to persuade persons to become liberals.

Of course, Rawls could plausibly argue that there is no sense reasoning with the unreasonable. And if only hate-mongering members of fringe cults constituted the unreasonable, we might all agree that he ought to save his breath. But Rawls's conception of what it means to be unreasonable extends to many who are not, in conventional terms, crazy, bigoted, racist, chauvinistic, or evil. Indeed, in Rawls's sense, many of my best friends are unreasonable. And many political, moral, and legal theorists who are in the business of reading and learning from writers like Rawls will no doubt be surprised to find that, like the Branch Davidians and the philosophical riff-raff with whom I associate, they too are deemed unworthy of Rawls's efforts. For example, libertarians and classical liberals who do not believe in employing state power to affect wealth transfers, and who thus reject 2(i) in the above deduction, n101 are deemed unreasonable, and hence, unworthy of persuasion. Act consequentialists, including act utilitarians, who construe rights as consequentialist rules of thumb, and who thus refuse (in principle, if not in practice) to elevate the protection of basic liberties above considerations of what will maximize good consequences, n102 are similarly consigned to the [*822] ranks of the unreasonable by their rejection of 2(h). In like manner, many egoists, altruists, Catholics, Protestants, hedonists, perfectionists, communists, socialists, feminists, communitarians, and religious fundamentalists, who for one reason or another part ways with the fundamental liberal tenets that define Rawls's reasonable person, will find themselves excluded from Rawls's audience. n103

Once one realizes the scope of the audience that Rawls is not addressing, n104 one has to wonder what remains of the justificatory interpretation of Rawls's project. Can one meaningfully take Rawls to be justifying liberalism when he has explicitly excluded everyone who is not a liberal from the congregation to whom he is preaching? The answer, it seems, is that while there may remain justificatory work for Political Liberalism to do, it is of a very modest order. Political Liberalism can be construed as arguing that liberals should embrace the specific conception of political liberalism captured by justice as fairness on the basis that this conception best reflects those tenets of their liberalism about which there is overlapping consensus and public justification. Thus, as Rawls argues, Kantians, "classical utilitarians" (i.e., rule utilitarians who attribute great utility to liberty), pluralists who place value on a freestanding public conception of justice, and free-faith religious adherents should all come to believe that justice as fairness is the correct conception of justice because it commands an overlapping consensus of their views and can be justified by publicly available reasons and evidence that all deem legitimate. n105 The problem, of course, is that insofar as these theorists are deemed reasonable, they already largely embrace the tenets of justice as fairness. n106 In giving them additional reasons to do so, Rawls does little more than enjoin the egalitarian to share and the democrat to value political freedom.

It is no wonder, then, that Freeman rejects the view that Rawls is seeking to convert, rather than to motivate. Inasmuch as Rawls expressly addresses only those who already essentially embrace his message, it is tempting to think [*823] that he must be delivering his message for reasons other than to persuade his audience to believe it. It is thus plausible to suppose that in preaching to the converted, he is hoping to prompt believers to practice what he preaches. However, since, as we saw, the motivational interpretation leaves his project with no larger audience than does the justificatory interpretation, there appears to be little reason to return to it.

III. Conclusion

I have argued that Rawls's Political Liberalism levitates liberalism above the heads of those who most require an appreciation of its principles. If Political Liberalism is designed to motivate people to act in accordance with their belief that justice as fairness is the correct conception of justice, Rawls's levitation of liberalism exceeds the grasp of both internalists and externalists. Internalists and motivational externalists must think it a meaningless enterprise. Nonmotivational externalists, who do not find it a meaningless enterprise and who are not already motivated by justice as fairness, are deemed by Rawls to be unreasonable, and are thus expressly outside the scope of his designated audience. If, on the other hand, Political Liberalism is designed to justify people in believing that justice as fairness is the correct conception of justice to begin with, Rawls's levitation of liberalism exceeds the grasp of people who do not already hold such a belief. As a result, Rawls's project, however construed, appears vulnerable to charges of conceptual confusion and normative insignificance, for, at best, it appears to give reasons why the peaceful should remain peaceful and the tolerant should be tolerant. n107

In light of these criticisms, Rawls's project in Political Liberalism may be best interpreted not as a normative project, but as a descriptive one. It describes how those who already believe and are motivated to act in accordance with the principles of justice as fairness enjoy a language of discourse and a set of common normative presuppositions that allow them to surmount private disagreements. It thus descriptively explores the depth and breadth of the potential for tolerance and peace enjoyed by those who are already admittedly tolerant and peaceful. While this interpretation construes Rawls's project in far more modest terms than do the motivational or the justificatory interpretations presupposed by critics and explored above, it has the virtue of making Rawls's project both coherent and nontrivial. Under this interpretation, Political Liberalism is a descriptive assessment of the power of liberalism by a liberal philosopher self-satisfied by the justificatory and motivational work he has done elsewhere. It is a celebration of the effects of [*824] the liberal triumph in twentieth-century America. And it is the basis for a prediction about the moral, political, and economic prosperity that this triumph of liberalism is likely to achieve in the twenty-first century.

FOOTNOTES:
n1. John Rawls, Political Liberalism (1993) [hereinafter Political Liberalism].

n2. Id. at 10.

n3. Most of the chapters that comprise Political Liberalism represent refinements of previously published lectures and articles. See John Rawls, The Domain of the Political and Overlapping Consensus, 64 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 233 (1989); John Rawls, The Priority of Right and Ideas of the Good, 17 Phil. & Pub. Aff. 251 (1988); John Rawls, The Idea of an Overlapping Consensus, 7 Oxford J. Legal Stud. 1 (1987); John Rawls, Justice as Fairness: Political Not Metaphysical, 14 Phil. & Pub. Aff. 223 (1985); John Rawls, The Basic Liberties and Their Priority, in 3 The Tanner Lectures on Human Values 3 (Sterling M. McMurrin ed., 1982); John Rawls, Kantian Constructivism in Moral Theory: The Dewey Lectures 1980, 77 J. Phil. 515 (1980); John Rawls, The Basic Structure as Subject, in Values And Morals 47 (Alvin I. Goldman & Jaegwon Kim eds., 1978).

n4. Political Liberalism, supra note 1, at 10.

n5. For useful discussions of the distinction between procedural and substantive theories of liberalism, and for a lively debate about the success with which Rawls achieves the construction of the latter sort of theory, see Joshua Cohen, Pluralism and Proceduralism, 69 Chi.-Kent L. Rev. 589 (1994); Stuart Hampshire, Liberalism: The New Twist, N.Y. Rev. Books, Aug. 12, 1993, at 43, 46.

n6. This is, of course, an oversimplification, likely to mislead as readily as it enlightens. For one thing, it may mislead by suggesting that the reason one cannot claim that one's reasons for toleration are right is that there are no objectively right reasons for action. But Rawls is not premising his liberalism on skepticism; on the contrary, he is seeking to premise his liberalism on agnosticism and is therefore as loathe to embrace skeptical claims as to embrace realist ones. It is his dedication to religious, philosophical, and moral agnosticism in public discourse that justifies the above broadly stated description of his project. But see infra text accompanying note 53.

n7. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (1971) [hereinafter Theory of Justice].

n8. Political Liberalism, supra note 1, at xvii.

n9. Theory of Justice, supra note 7, at 6.

n10. Id. at 454.

n11. Political Liberalism, supra note 1, at 36.

n12. Rawls defines a well-ordered society as one in which (1) everyone accepts, and knows that others accept, the same principles of justice; (2) political and social institutions are publicly known to satisfy these principles of justice; and (3) everyone possesses a "normally effective sense of justice" that leads them to generally comply with the demands of political and social institutions. Id. at 35.

n13. Id. at 19. A conception of the good consists of a scheme of final ends that a person seeks to realize for their own sake, as well as attachments to other persons and allegiances to particular groups and associations. See id. As Rawls stated in A Theory of Justice:

The main idea is that a person's good is determined by what is for him the most rational long-term plan of life given reasonably favorable circumstances. A man is happy when he is more or less successfully in the way of carrying out this plan. To put it briefly, the good is the satisfaction of rational desire.

Theory of Justice, supra note 7, at 92-93.

n14. Political Liberalism, supra note 1, at 55-56.

n15. As Rawls assumes: "Reasonable persons affirm only reasonable comprehensive doctrines." Id. at 59. A reasonable person is one who (1) is willing to propose and abide by fair terms of cooperation provided that others do likewise; and (2) is willing to recognize the burdens of judgment that make reasonable pluralism a fact of life in a well-ordered society. Id. at 49, 54. The result is that a reasonable person endorses "some form of liberty of conscience and freedom of thought." Id. at 61. Rawls is less clear in his definition of a reasonable comprehensive conception. It appears that what makes a comprehensive conception reasonable is that it is embraced by a reasonable person - i.e., it embodies, in some form, an endorsement of liberty of conscience and freedom of thought. Broadly speaking, then, it is liberal in content. See infra text accompanying notes 99-100.

For a detailed and very helpful discussion of Rawls's conception of the virtue of reasonableness, see Gary C. Leedes, Rawls's Excessively Secular Political Conception, 27 U. Rich. L. Rev. 1083, 1091-95 (1993).

n16. Political Liberalism, supra note 1, at 36-38.

n17. Id. at 36.

n18. Id. at xvi.

n19. Theory of Justice, supra note 7, at 570-75. For a helpful discussion of "the congruence argument" in A Theory of Justice and for a lucid explication of why Rawls abandoned it in favor of the argument for overlapping consensus concerning a freestanding political conception, see Samuel Freeman, Political Liberalism and the Possibility of a Just Democratic Constitution, 69 Chi.-Kent L. Rev. 619, 628-33 (1994).

n20. Political Liberalism, supra note 1, at 10.

n21. Id. at 8.

n22. Id. at 10.

n23. This is not to suggest that citizens are motivated solely by what Rawls calls "the rational" (which governs the choice of and means to the determinate ends unique to the individual), as opposed to "the reasonable" (which underlies the desire to engage in fair cooperation with others on terms they might reasonably be expected to endorse). See id. at 48-54. As Rawls says, "neither the reasonable nor the rational can stand without the other. Merely reasonable agents would have no ends of their own they wanted to advance by fair cooperation; merely rational agents lack a sense of justice and fail to recognize the independent validity of the claims of others." Id. at 52 (footnote omitted). But as Freeman makes clear: "A just constitution is possible only if its requirements harmonize with each person's good." Freeman, supra note 19, at 626. That is, a political conception can be stable

only so long as it is rational for the great majority of people to act on that conception's principles and incorporate it into their conceptions of the good. To show that a conception of justice is inherently stable then is to show that it is rational to be reasonable with respect to justice.

Id. at 627 (emphasis omitted).

n24. Political Liberalism, supra note 1, at 12. For a useful illustration of Rawls's concept of overlapping consensus, see Edward B. Foley, Political Liberalism and Establishment Clause Jurisprudence, 43 Case W. Res. L. Rev. 963, 966 n.13 (1993).

n25. Political Liberalism, supra note 1, at 12-13.

n26. To declare it true would jeopardize its status as the object of an overlapping consensus, for there are potentially comprehensive religious, philosophical, and moral doctrines that resist the metaphysical and epistemological implications of such a claim. See id. at xx; see also id. at 90-99 (comparing political constructivism (which "does without the concept of truth," id. at 94) and rational intuitionism (which invokes claims of truth)).

n27. For a nice overview of how Political Liberalism is systematically organized to advance these separate justifications, see Freeman, supra note 19, at 622-27.

n28. Recall the complex criteria specifying what it is to be a reasonable person, discussed supra note 15.

n29. Moreover, as Rawls argues, the public conception of justice derived by political constructivism itself both contains an account of distinct political goods and makes justice and the well-ordered political society of justice as fairness itself an intrinsic good. See Political Liberalism, supra note 1, at 207-11.

n30. For example, as Rawls argues, it follows deductively from a Kantian moral philosophy. Justice as fairness also might plausibly approximate what the principle of utility would require. Further, it might well surface as the dominant value among a plurality of values simultaneously endorsed, but not cohered, by an individual. And it might be thought a constituent part of divine or natural law. See id. at 168-71.

n31. Id. at 147.

n32. Id. at 38. The comprehensive doctrines held by reasonable persons are sufficiently flexible to allow reasonable "citizens [to] converge on roughly the same principles of justice from quite different and incompatible moral and philosophical perspectives." Jeremy Waldron, Justice Revisited: Rawls Turns Towards Political Philosophy, Times Literary Supplement, June 18, 1993, at 5, 5.

n33. Political Liberalism, supra note 1, at xxi.

n34. Freeman, supra note 19, at 649. As Freeman goes on to make clear, in order to apply the political conception about which there is an overlapping consensus, "we must be able to reason from the same standards of interpretation... , endorsing and applying its principles to the constitution and laws for the same reasons." Id. at 650.

n35. Political Liberalism, supra note 1, at 223.

n36. There are two kinds of constitutional essentials: fundamental principles that specify the general structure of government and the political process, and equal basic rights and liberties of citizenship that legislative majorities are to respect. As Rawls makes clear, while some principle of opportunity is surely a constitutional essential, the notion of fair equality of opportunity developed in A Theory of Justice as part of the second principle of justice is not such an essential. Similarly, while a minimum fulfillment of persons' basic needs is a constitutional essential, the difference principle inherent in Rawls's second principle of justice is not. Still, as Rawls makes clear, political discussions about both equality of opportunity and the difference principle raise questions of basic justice, and so are appropriately decided by the exercise of public reason. See id. at 228-30 & n.10.

Rawls limits the requirement of public reason to political questions that involve constitutional essentials and basic justice. "This means that political values alone are to settle such fundamental questions as: who has the right to vote, or what religions are to be tolerated, or who is to be assured fair equality of opportunity, or to hold property." Id. at 214. He claims that "it is usually highly desirable" to settle other political questions by the exercise of public reason alone, but for reasons he leaves unclear, Rawls concludes that "this may not always be so." Id. at 215.

n37. Id. at 224.

n38. Id. at 137. As Rawls explains, one can derive this "principle of legitimacy" from the point of view of the original position:

We suppose the parties to know the facts of reasonable pluralism and of oppression along with other relevant general information. We then try to show that the principles of justice they would adopt would in effect incorporate this principle of legitimacy and would justify only institutions it would count legitimate.

Id. at 137 n.5.

n39. As Rawls maintains, the political importance of public reason, resting as it does on the principle of legitimacy, see supra note 38, gives rise to a moral "duty of civility," which requires that citizens "be able to explain to one another on those fundamental questions how the principles and policies they advocate and vote for can be supported by the political values of public reason." Id. at 217.

n40. My distinction here between first-order and second-order principles is not to be confused with the standard distinction between ethics and metaethics. Rather, it captures the ambition - an ambition central to a liberal agenda - to make political morality distinct from ordinary morality. Both sorts of morality would properly be categorized as ethics on the standard ethics/metaethics distinction.

n41. I have not described here a great deal of the philosophical machinery that powers Rawls's sophisticated argument for political liberalism. For more detailed explications of Rawls's political liberalism, see Joshua Cohen, Democratic Equality, 99 Ethics 727 (1989); Freeman, supra note 19; Lawrence B. Solum, Situating Political Liberalism, 69 Chi.-Kent L. Rev. 549 (1994).

n42. Political Liberalism has already been the topic of dozens of individual articles and review essays. For collections of many of these, see Consensus and Democracy: An Anglo-French Conference on John Rawls, 7 Ratio Juris 267 (1994); Symposium, John Rawls's Political Liberalism, 75 Pac. Phil. Q. 165 (1994); Symposium on John Rawls, 105 Ethics 4 (1994); Symposium on John Rawls's Political Liberalism, 69 Chi.-Kent L. Rev. 549 (1994); Symposium on Political Liberalism, 94 Colum. L. Rev. 1813 (1994). Since most of the lectures that make up the chapters of Political Liberalism were published in advance of the book, see supra note 3, a number of criticisms concerning the central claims of the book appeared in print before its publication. I have included reference to some of those criticisms here so as to capture the scope of the controversies that Rawls's political liberalism has spawned.

n43. See Brian Barry, In Defense of Political Liberalism, 7 Ratio Juris 325, 329 (1994).

n44. See Paul F. Campos, Secular Fundamentalism, 94 Colum. L. Rev. 1814, 1817-25 (1994); Leedes, supra note 15, at 1095-1100; Lawrence E. Mitchell, Trust and the Overlapping Consensus, 94 Colum. L. Rev. 1918, 1933-35 (1994); Chantal Mouffe, Political Liberalism. Neutrality and the Political, 7 Ratio Juris 314, 321-22 (1994). But see Lawrence B. Solum, Constructing an Ideal of Public Reason, 30 San Diego L. Rev. 729 (1993) (constructing nonexclusionary conception of public reason); Lawrence B. Solum, Inclusive Public Reason, 75 Pac. Phil. Q. 217 (1994) (arguing that Rawls has inclusive conception of public reason that is unfairly characterized as tyrannical); Robert Bork, Justice Lite, First Things, Nov. 1993, at 31, 32 (book review) ("Political Liberalism is not merely unworldly and egalitarian beyond reason but contains strong authoritarian elements inappropriate to a constitutional democracy.").

n45. See Mitchell, supra note 44, at 1925-35; Solum, supra note 41, at 580; Michael J. Sandel, Political Liberalism, 107 Harv. L. Rev. 1765, 1782-89 (1994) (book review).

n46. See Kent Greenawalt, On Public Reason, 69 Chi.-Kent L. Rev. 669, 682-85 (1994).

n47. See George Klosko, Rawls's Argument from Political Stability, 94 Colum. L. Rev. 1882, 1892 (1994); see also James Nickel, Rethinking Rawls's Theory of Liberty and Rights, 69 Chi.-Kent L. Rev. 763, 784 (1994).

n48. See Samuel Scheffler, The Appeal of Political Liberalism, 105 Ethics 4, 16-19 (1994); Elizabeth H. Wolgast, The Demands of Public Reason, 94 Colum. L. Rev. 1936, 1942-43 (1994); Sandel, supra note 45, at 1777-82.

n49. See Thomas W. Pogge, Realizing Rawls 214 (1989); Mouffe, supra note 44, at 322-24; Wolgast, supra note 48, at 1941-42; Sandel, supra note 45, at 1789-94.

n50. See Kurt Baier, Justice and the Aims of Political Philosophy, 99 Ethics 771, 781-84 (1989); Jean Hampton, Should Political Philosophy Be Done Without Metaphysics?, 99 Ethics 791, 807-14 (1989); Rex Martin, Rawls's New Theory of Justice, 69 Chi.-Kent L. Rev. 737, 737-39 (1994); Joseph Raz, Facing Diversity: The Case for Epistemic Abstinence, 19 Phil. & Pub. Aff. 3, 6-10 (1990).

n51. See Bernard Williams, A Fair State, London Rev. of Books, May 13, 1993, at 7, 7. For a general critique of Rawls's constructivism, see J<um u>rgen Habermas, Justification and Application 25-30 (Ciaran Cronin trans., 1993).

n52. See Miriam Galston, Rawlsian Dualism and the Autonomy of Political Thought, 94 Colum. L. Rev. 1842, 1849-58 (1994); Mitchell, supra note 44, at 1933-34 & n.66; Michael P. Zuckert, The New Rawls and Constitutional Theory: Does it Really Taste That Much Better?, 11 Const. Commentary 227, 239 (1994).

n53. See Barry, supra note 43, at 329-30.

n54. See S.A. Lloyd, Relativizing Rawls, 69 Chi.-Kent L. Rev. 709, 709-11 (1994).

n55. Political Liberalism, supra note 1, at xvii.

n56. Id. at xviii.

n57. "These lectures take the structure and content of Theory to remain substantially the same." Id. at xvi.

n58. Id. at 58-66; see infra text accompanying notes 89-100.

n59. See id. at 35.

n60. See id. at 19.

n61. For the details of his interpretation, see Freeman, supra note 19, at 622-33.

n62. Political Liberalism, supra note 1, at xv-xvi.

n63. Freeman, supra note 19, at 624.

n64. Id. at 625.

n65. Id. at 625-26 (footnotes omitted).

n66. Richard Price, A Review of the Principal Questions in Morals (1787), reprinted in 2 The British Moralists 131, 194 (D.D. Raphael ed., 1969).

n67. W.D. Falk, "Ought" and Motivation, in Readings in Ethical Theory 492, 499 (Wilfred Sellars & John Hospers eds., 1952); see also Simon Blackburn, Spreading the Word: Groundings in the Philosophy of Language 188 (1984) (discussing view that "it seems to be a conceptual truth that to regard something as good is to feel a pull towards promoting or choosing it, or towards wanting other people to feel the pull towards promoting or choosing it"); Gilbert Harman, The Nature of Morality 33 (1977) ("To think that you ought to do something is to be motivated to do it. To think that it would be wrong to do something is to be motivated not to do it."); J.L. Mackie, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong 23 (1977) ("It is held also that just knowing [objective values] or "seeing' them will not merely tell men what to do but will ensure that they do it, overruling any contrary inclinations.").

n68. See David O. Brink, Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics 42 (1989).

n69. See id. at 37-80.

n70. Id. at 41-42.

n71. I am following here Brink's distinctions between "agent internalism," "appraiser internalism," and "hybrid internalism," substituting terms that I think are better heuristics to the concepts they label. See id. at 40-41.

n72. Freeman, supra note 19, at 625.

n73. Id.

n74. Brink, supra note 68, at 46.

n75. Id. at 59.

n76. Id. at 47.

n77. As Rawls frequently insists, the primary purpose of political philosophy in a democratic society is practical - not metaphysical or epistemological. See, e.g., Political Liberalism, supra note 1, at 9-10.

n78. Kant was a motivational externalist about ethical duties. Kant distinguished ethical duties from juridical ones. Juridical duties are duties to perform or refrain from performing certain actions. They are blind to the motives with which we obey them. Ethical duties, in contrast, demand that we act from certain motivations and not others. As Samuel Freeman explains:

Ethical duties differ from juridical duties in that they require that we act from certain motives. They involve not (or not just) specified constraints on action, but the adoption of certain obligatory ends (such as the happiness of others or our own self-perfection - Kant's two primary cases). It is because ethical duties require that we adopt ends and act from certain motives that they are not apt for legal enforcement.

Samuel Freeman, Criminal Liability and the Duty to Aid the Distressed, 142 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1455, 1471 (1994) (footnotes omitted).

For an extensive discussion of what I have elsewhere called Kant's "motivational deontology," see Heidi M. Hurd, What in the World Is Wrong?, 5 J. Contemp. Legal Issues 157, 165-70 (1994).

n79. Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals 65 (H.J. Paton trans., Harper Torchbooks 1964) (1785) (emphasis omitted).

n80. See supra note 15.

n81. Political Liberalism, supra note 1, at 49 (emphasis added); see also id. at 54 (describing a reasonable society).

n82. Id. at 86 (emphasis added).

n83. Freeman, supra note 19, at 625; see also id. at 641 ("What is to insure that justice will not give way when it conflicts with other values which people affirm within their comprehensive views?").

n84. There is one further thing that might be said consistently with the spirit of Rawls's book, namely, that if an overlapping consensus on liberal principles can indeed be achieved in modern democracies, then accepting any one of the doctrines included in such a consensus may give one reason to support a liberal scheme. In other words, the distinctive contribution of political liberalism may be to suggest that there are many ways to arrive at liberal principles and that that very fact is a source of liberalism's strength.

Scheffler, supra note 48, at 22.

n85. Political Liberalism, supra note 1, at 140-41 (footnote omitted); see also id. at 65-66 (discussing "second stage").

n86. Id. at 133-34.

n87. As Rawls insists, the political constructivism that results in the conception of justice as fairness specifies an objective order of reasons: Agents "are to act from these reasons, whether moved by them or not; and so these assigned reasons may override the reasons agent have, or think they have, from their own point of view." Id. at 111.

n88. "Unreasonable conceptions of the good are not to be accommodated by justice; they are to be contained by it." Freeman, supra note 19, at 643.

n89. Political Liberalism, supra note 1, at 59; see also supra note 15.

n90. Id. at 81, 84.

n91. Id. at 86.

n92. Id. at 19.

n93. Id. at 54-58.

n94. Id. at 157.

n95. Id. at 60.

n96. Id. at 157. The willingness to recognize the burdens of judgment "limits the scope of what reasonable persons think can be justified to others, and... leads to a form of toleration and supports the idea of public reason." Id. at 59.

n97. Id. at 156-57.

n98. Id. at 157, 228-29.

n99. Id. at 156.

n100. See id. at 170 (excluding as unreasonable "certain kinds of fundamentalism" and all "religious doctrines" lacking "an account of free faith"); id. at 187 (excluding those conceptions of the good that "involve the violation of basic rights and liberties").

n101. See, e.g., Richard A. Epstein, Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain (1985) (arguing that U.S. Constitution prohibits most public transfer and welfare programs); Friedrich A. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty (1960) (attacking welfare state as inimical to liberty); Friedrich A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom (1944) (same); John Hospers, Libertarianism 291 (1971) ("The effect of the government welfare system is that increasing millions of people are dependent on government, reduced to lifelong unproductivity."); Tibor R. Machan, Human Rights and Human Liberties: A Radical Reconsideration of the American Political Tradition 128 (1975) ("At the end of the road [of the welfare state] looms a total state."); Tibor R. Machan, Individuals and Their Rights (1989) (attacking welfare state); Albert J. Nock, Our Enemy, the State 4 (1935) ("Every assumption of State power, whether by gift or seizure, leaves society with so much less power...."); Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974) (defending "minimal state"); Murray N. Rothbard, For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto 184 (1973) (arguing that best that government can do to help the poor is "get out of the way"); 2 Murray N. Rothbard, Man, Economy, and State: A Treatise on Economic Principles 880 (1962) (opposing "coerced exchange" as "exploitation of man by man"); Jerome Tuccille, Radical Libertarianism 82 (1970) ("Any law which violates an individual's natural right to the ownership of his own life and his own property is essentially unjust and immoral, and... the individual has a moral right to resist such laws.").

n102. See, e.g., Richard A. Fumerton, Reason and Morality: A Defense of the Egocentric Perspective (1990); David Gauthier, Morals by Agreement (1986); R.M. Hare, Freedom and Reason (1963); R.M. Hare, The Language of Morals (1952); R.M. Hare, Moral Thinking (1981); John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism 61-62 (George Sher ed., 1979) (1863).

Consider, also, all of those in the law-and-economics movement whose normative commitment to wealth maximization is fundamentally consequentialist. See, e.g., Guido Calabresi, The Costs of Accidents (1970); Morton J. Horwitz, The Transformation of American Law, 1780-1860 (1977); Anthony T. Kronman & Richard A. Posner, The Economics of Contract Law (1979); William M. Landes & Richard A. Posner, The Economic Structure of Tort Law (1987); Richard A. Posner, Economic Analysis of Law (4th ed. 1992); Richard A. Posner, The Economics of Justice (1983); Ronald H. Coase, The Problem of Social Cost, 3 J.L. & Econ. 1 (1960).

n103. As Rawls illustrates, those who would deny all abortion rights because they take the life of a fetus to be more valuable than the equality of women are "to that extent unreasonable." Political Liberalism, supra note 1, at 243 n.32. For an articulate critique of Rawls's discussion of abortion, see Thomas McCarthy, Kantian Constructivism and Reconstructivism: Rawls and Habermas in Dialogue, 105 Ethics 44, 53 n.16 (1994).

n104. "Rawls approaches his topic not through an examination of American society, its institutions, and its stresses, but through a highly abstract and complex contractarian theory that advances a political agenda whose main appeal will be to persons already of the left-liberal persuasion." Bork, supra note 44, at 31.

n105. Political Liberalism, supra note 1, at 168-71.

n106. Notice that 2(h) and 2(i) bear a marked resemblance to the two principles of justice. See supra text accompanying notes 97-98.

n107. For a useful discussion of how the matters resolved by Rawls in Political Liberalism "pale in comparison to an inquiry of truly momentous urgency and importance" such as the justice of a global scheme of international cooperation, see Pogge, supra note 49, at 215, 227-39.

Prepared: January 24, 2003 - 5:02:29 PM
Edited and Updated, January 25, 2003

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