Political Liberalism
Cover of the first edition | |
| Author | John Rawls |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Carin Goldberg |
| Language | English |
| Subject | Political philosophy |
| Publisher | Columbia University Press |
Publication date |
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| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (hardcover · paperback) |
| Pages |
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| ISBN | 978-0-231-13089-9 |
| 320.51 22 | |
| LC Class | JC578 .R37 2005 |
Political Liberalism is a 1993 book by the American philosopher John Rawls, in which he elaborates on how the material in his earlier work, A Theory of Justice (1971), should be applied in a pluralist political context.: xxxvi In it, he attempts to show that his theory of justice is not a "comprehensive conception of the good" but is instead compatible with a liberal conception of the role of justice, namely, that government should be neutral between competing conceptions of the good. Rawls tries to show that his two principles of justice, properly understood, form a "theory of the right" (as opposed to a theory of the good) which would be supported by all reasonable individuals, even under conditions of reasonable pluralism. The mechanism by which he demonstrates this is called "overlapping consensus". Here he also develops his idea of public reason.
An expanded edition of the book was published in 2005. It includes an added introduction, the essay "The Idea of Public Reason Revisited" (1997) – some 60 pages – and an index to the new material.