Renewed Consideration of Rawlsian Theory

While researching for my Spanish paper on Religion and Terrorism, I realized that Rawls is wiser than Younkins gave him credit for. His goal was never to come up with the best comprehensive moral doctrine, it was just to come up with a way to justly reconcile the fact that Americans do not and will never share the same doctrine.

So check it - After searching "John Rawls" into Mises.org, I came upon an article written by David Gordon that grants him much more respect than Younkins ever did, even calling him "ingenious" at one point. Of course, the libertarian author found away to say that Rawls is wrong and that his theory fails, but only by focusing back on his "difference principle" which all libertarians would agree is unjust.

Here are the most reasonable, respectful blurbs:

"Is it not the case that, in a constitutional democracy like the United States, large numbers of people find themselves at odds on key issues? Some people, for example, support laissez-faire capitalism; others foolishly support socialist nostrums. (Of course, Rawls would not put it quite like that.) Should society allow abortion? What role, if any, should government play in education?

These political disputes, and others like them, do not arise from nothing. As Rawls rightly notes, people hold various "comprehensive moral doctrines" from which their opinion on particular issues follow: "The elements of such a conception [of the good] are normally set within, and interpreted by, certain comprehensive religious, philosophical, or moral doctrines in the light of which the various ends and aims are ordered and understood" (p. 19).

Rawls’s starting point cannot be gainsaid; people in societies like the United States do indeed differ fundamentally on basic issues. Unless everyone by some miracle converts to the same doctrine—of course the true doctrine that we now hold—must we not learn to live with inevitable conflict? Rawls does not think so.

Rawls’s answer takes us to the heart of his new approach. Each person will ask, from within his own comprehensive doctrine, what he is to do when others in society radically disagree. Those who do so will find resources in their own fundamental beliefs to support public reason. Each system, that is to say, will perform an act of self-abnegation: it will deduce from its own tenets that its distinctive doctrines must be placed to one side, when diverse positions show themselves present. In brief, an "overlapping consensus" of various comprehensive doctrines supports public reason.

One point more, and we will grasp the essence of what Rawls has in mind. Public reason, as he conceives it, does not consist of innocuous generalities, so bland that all comprehensive views can accept them. In his opinion, resort to public reason generates universal agreement on the proper basic structure of society."

So basically, if you think your comprehensive doctrine is the best or even the absolute truth, then most likely you would concede that it never condones war. Therefore, you should be able to use it to reach compromises with others who do not share your doctrine. In other words, if your comprehensive doctrine is "all that", then it shouldn't lead you to commit actions that could reasonably be considered radically unjust.

Bottom line: Reasonable compromise must be an inherent value in any comprehensive doctrine that claims to promote justice for all!