Kai Haucke,
Berlin/Potsdam: Liberalismus – metaphysisch und politisch. Anmerkungen zum Konzept eines
freistehenden politischen Liberalismus bei John Rawls
Rawls strictly distinguishes
between political or neutral conceptions of Liberalism and liberal justice on
one hand side and moral or metaphysical on the other. His claim is, that a
political understanding of Liberalism and justice has to be and could be free
standing, independent of special conceptions of a good life. First of all this
work shortly presents the main topics of Rawls’ Political Liberalism.
Next, it formulates an antithesis: the political integration of plural modern
societies does not depend on an „overlaping consensus“ but on a
strong liberal ethos, i.e. a political and metaphysical conception of a liberal
way of good life. Furthermore I consider external objections and discuss
internal problems of Rawls’ political philosophy. Finally it will be
shown, that the description of an original position, given by Rawls, especially
the metaphorical „veil of ignorance“, presupposes a certain
„metaphysical“ concept of person, that includes what it means to
lead a good life from a liberal point of view.