Recent years have seen a certain impatience with John Rawls's approach to political philosophy and calls for the discipline to move beyond it. One source of dissatisfaction is Rawls's idea of a well-ordered society. In a recent article, Alex Schaefer has tried to give further impetus to this movement away from Rawlsian theorizing by pursuing a question about well-ordered societies that he thinks other critics have not thought to ask. He poses that question in the title of his article: “Is (...) Justice a Fixed Point?.” Though Schaefer is critical of Rawlsian political theorizing, I shall contend that his arguments also suggest two paths forward for those who would follow the Rawlsian approach. First, the intellectual devices Schaefer deploys help those who would continue the Rawlsian project to see, and precisely to chart, the next step that that project needs to take—a step necessitated by a concession Rawls himself made late in the development of political liberalism. Second, the clarity and economy with which Schaefer lays out his alternative to the Rawlsian approach make it possible to state some fundamental Rawlsian challenges to a form of theorizing that has considerable appeal to many critics of that approach. (shrink)

In an influential article, Brian Kogelmann argues that a polycentric political order offers an appealing way of reconciling deep diversity with Rawls’ ideal of the well-ordered society. Although I agree with this conclusion, I suggest an amendment to Kogelmann's argument. In particular, his argument abandons the deep diversity that originally motivates the project by stipulating that all citizens will accept liberal political conceptions of justice. I offer an alternative defence of polycentrism, one that shows its ability to achieve the goals (...) of the well-ordered society without assuming that all citizens endorse a liberal political conception. (shrink)

A strength of liberal political institutions is their ability to accommodate pluralism, both allowing divergent comprehensive doctrines as well as constructing the common ground necessary for diverse people to live together. A pressing question is how far such pluralism extends. Which comprehensive doctrines are simply beyond the pale and need not be accommodated by a political consensus? Rawls attempted to keep the boundaries of reasonable disagreement quite broad by infamously denying that political liberalism need make reference to the concept of (...) truth, a claim that has been criticized by Joseph Raz, Joshua Cohen, and David Estlund. In this paper, we argue that these criticisms fail due to the fact that political liberalism can remain non-committal on the nature of truth, leaving the concept of truth in the domain of comprehensive doctrines while still avoiding the issues raised by Raz, Cohen, and Estlund. Further substantiating this point is the fact that Rawls would, and should, include parties in the overlapping consensus whose views on truth may be incoherent. Once it is seen that political liberalism allows such incoherence to reasonable parties, it is clear that the inclusion of truth and the requirement of coherence urged by Raz, Cohen, and Estlund requires more of reasonable people than is necessary for a political consensus. (shrink)

In large, impersonal moral orders many of us wish to maintain good will toward our fellow citizens only if we are reasonably sure they will maintain good will toward us. The mutual maintaining of good will, then, requires that we somehow communicate our intentions to one another. But how do we actually do this? The current paper argues that when we engage in moral responsibility practices—that is, when we express our reactive attitudes by blaming, praising, and resenting—we communicate a desire (...) to maintain good will to those in the community we are imbedded in. Participating in such practices alone will not get the job done, though, for expressions of our reactive attitudes are often what economists call cheap talk. But when we praise and blame in cases of moral diversity, expressions of our reactive attitudes act as costly signals capable of solving our social dilemma. (shrink)