Mind The Economy

John Ralws and reasonableness as a guarantee of tolerance

The need for John Rawls' 'political turn' stems from dissatisfaction with certain aspects of his theory of justice

5 May 2024

7' min read

The need for John Rawls' 'political turn' stems from dissatisfaction with certain aspects of his theory of justice. With his second important book, Political Liberalism, he, in fact, sets out to bring the themes already dealt with in his previous work, A Theory of Justice, into an operational reality. And to do so, however, in a way that takes into account the pluralism of values and worldviews that characterise our societies.

Pluralism denied

Pluralism that in his first work is not recognised and, indeed, somewhat denied. The fundamental question that now needs to be addressed is that of 'stability': how can a pluralist society agree on the nature of its basic institutions despite the fact that the worldviews adopted by its citizens concerning the meaning, value and purpose of human life are mutually incompatible? Rawls' solution lies in what he calls 'consensus by intersection'. It means that we must go in search of what unites us and not what divides us. In search of that deep core of values that, in one way or another, even incompatible worldviews can share.

Consent by intersection

In this sense, 'consensus by intersection' becomes that common space where we agree on fundamental values and where we give our reasons so that they can be understood and accepted even by those whose worldviews, beliefs or ideologies are radically different from ours. The possibility of meaningfully inhabiting such a space is linked to a prerequisite, the 'duty of civilisation'; the duty, that is, to express one's reasons publicly in terms that are respectful of the different moral opinions or religious beliefs of others, and not only in terms of one's own personal convictions.

Rawls writes 'The ideal of citizenship imposes a moral, not a legal duty - the duty of civility - to be able to explain to each other on fundamental questions how the principles and policies we uphold and vote for can be supported by the political values of public reason (...) The union of the duty of civility with the great values of politics produces the ideal of citizens governing themselves in ways that each thinks others can reasonably accept'.

A road to political stability

The path Rawls takes in search of political stability starts, therefore, from a profound and necessary declaration of tolerance. A tolerance that is not based, however, on the intrinsic value of diversity but on considerations of fairness. And such considerations operate to limit the potential grounds on which governments can act. Indeed, Rawls argues that governments should not be concerned with the truth or falsity of the doctrine of justice that guides them but with the reasons that can be used to justify their actions so that these reasons can be understood and shared even by those with a different view of justice. One can thus act justly even having different views of what is good and true.

This attitude, which Rawls calls 'epistemic abstinence', means that in the political sphere truth gives way to 'reasonableness'.

Conflict and Democracy

Focusing excessively on what we hold to be 'true' may, in fact, on the one hand generate irreconcilable conflicts and intolerance and, on the other hand, reduce the space for democratic participation and encourage a technocratic drift. On the contrary, 'reasonableness' is the political characteristic of men and women who, while adhering to different worldviews that they consider to be true, as citizens, in the public sphere, make themselves available to look at their own worldview as one looks at that of others, that is, as Roberta Sala writes on the subject, 'to assume that external point of view that makes it possible to separate reasonableness from truth'. She continues 'If it is, in fact, obvious that, from an internal point of view, what is considered reasonable is also true, it is from an external point of view that such a distinction can be made. We can say that reasonableness is this public capacity to make the difference between the whole truth, the truth that is for us and that is the only truth for us, and the truth as others see it, that is, as our truth different from theirs, which they in turn will regard, for themselves and absolutely, as the whole truth' (La verità sospesa. Reasonableness and unreasonableness in the political philosophy of John Rawls. Liguori, 2012).

Conditional Co-operation

To be 'reasonable' means for Rawls to be willing to accept the good reasons of others, provided that others do the same. An idea very similar to the idea of conditional cooperation studied by behavioural economists. Implicit in the idea of reasonableness, then, is a dimension of reciprocity. Here an important distinction arises between what is reasonable and what is rational. Indeed, it may happen, when we talk about rationality in situations similar to what economists call the 'prisoner's dilemma', where individual and collective interests diverge, that being rational implies opportunistic choices. An opportunism that if widespread will harm everyone. So rationality sometimes risks being its own enemy. To be rational is to pursue one's own individual interest, while to be reasonable is to understand that from a collective action everyone must be able to benefit. It is this reasonableness that Rawls places at the centre of the process of determining 'consensus by intersection'.

The philosopher writes about a society based on consensus: '́The basic structure of such a society is effectively regulated by a political conception of justice that is the focal point of a consensus by intersection, at the very least, of the reasonable understanding doctrines asserted by citizens. This allows the shared political conception to serve as the basis for public reason in debates on political issues that bring into play essential constitutional elements or fundamental problems of justice'. Doctrines are as reasonable as people. And the latter are so, as Roberta Sala again points out, not because "they are interested in the pursuit of the common good; what distinguishes them is the desire for a social world in which they can cooperate as free and equal individuals with individuals who are considered free and equal, on terms acceptable to all, according to an ideal of reciprocity". To be reasonable means to have a certain worldview that one naturally believes to be right, but also to accept, at the same time, the possibility that others have a worldview that is different and incompatible with ours and which they also consider to be true. It means being willing to take each other seriously. To be equipped, as Sebastiano Maffettone states "with a solid respect for others" (Introduction to Rawls, Laterza, 2010). Conversely, from the acceptance of this state of affairs comes the fact that we should consider unreasonable any claim to impose one particular worldview over all others, in virtue of some supposed truth.

Criticism of the Rawlsian position

This Rawlsian position has come in for quite a bit of criticism, especially from those thinkers convinced of the impossibility of separating private visions of the good from public and political issues. If I think that abortion is murder or that homosexuality is an immoral practice, one cannot pretend that such beliefs are not substantive when debated in the public arena, say many critics. Quite a few, including the philosopher Micheal Sandel, believe that Rawls' call for tolerance based on the primacy of reason generates strong discrimination against those citizens who profess and would like to live according to a religious belief. But on this point, as Maffettone points out, Ralws' position is difficult to misunderstand. "́Public reason," Maffettone writes, "does not create any asymmetry between the religious and the secular. Rather, Rawls' public reason wants to stand against all forms of sectarian interpretations of liberal-democratic political life. And sectarian interpretations are based on inclusive doctrines, which can in turn be either secular or religious. The religious citizen,' he continues, 'has the same obligations as non-religious citizens, including that of translating his reasons into reasons comprehensible to others. Having and wanting to follow, even in the political sphere, an inclusive worldview, whether religious or secular, does not exempt anyone from having to account, in the political sphere, for the reasons why some rules that are binding for all, should be legitimate while others are not. The root of liberal democracy, in this sense, lies in the possibility of justifying common rules that can be shared on the basis of reasons that are understandable and valid for all, and not on individual beliefs about what is good or bad. In the democratic sphere, according to Rawls, the invocation of absolute truths as the basis for binding political actions would represent nothing more than the antechamber of secular totalitarianism or religious fundamentalism.

Political liberalism

As Roberta Sala rightly points out, Rawls' political liberalism "does not reject beliefs per se but beliefs when they become the breeding ground for an arbitrary use of coercion; it rejects neither the truth nor the belief of believers that they possess the whole truth; rather, by prescribing epistemic constraints, it constructs safeguards for public discourse, defending it from what would follow if the belief of possessing the whole truth implied its being automatically justified as politically authoritative". The requirement of reasonableness cannot therefore be thought of as a form of discrimination against religiously inspired forms of life, as some critics have argued (Greenawalt K., Private Consciences and Public Reasons, Oxford University Press, 1995; Weithman P., Why Political Liberalism? On John Rawls's Political, Oxford University Press, 2010), but rather as an antidote to any form of authoritarian imposition of partial, unreasonable and unfounded views, albeit legitimate on a personal and private level. Yet, the doubt that the requirements of Rawlsian 'epistemic abstinence' are too restrictive and unrealistic to serve as a premise for a concrete public debate arises and is legitimate. A way out of the difficulties of the 'consensus by intersection' based on the distinction between good and right and between true and reasonable, could, according to some, be found in some form of 'justificatory liberalism' for which a debate between irreconcilable positions, based on personal and differentiated worldviews, can be imagined, but which we should consider equally entitled to argue for reasons even in the absence of any public justification. "The idea, in short," Roberta Sala again suggests, "is that there is room for compromise, which by definition does not take place on the sharing of common values, but is implemented starting from the positions of concrete individuals, each adopting not the impersonal gaze of public reason but the personal gaze of the 'first person', from which one defends one's own values (...)

The aim is not to obliterate either the spirit of reason or the instance of public reason, but only to assess whether there are alternative ways of dealing with positions that do not meet the requirements of both, that is, that are refractory to the conditions of inclusion in the political sphere'. The modus vivendi of compromise and balancing of interests is perhaps not as bad as Rawls had defined it. The question, in other words, comes down to the possibility of including even those who seem 'unreasonable' in the public debate. That debate that until now had been the preserve of the 'reasonable' alone.