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Show Rationality and the Structure of the Self, Volume I: The Humean Conception 451 to have; and second, that the well-ordered society, structured by the two principles, depicts the kind of society we envision as a felt social ideal. That is, both the original position and the well-ordered society now represent deductively connected but value-laden hypotheses that must be evaluated for their rational persuasiveness from a third perspective, namely that of the engaged but as yet uncommitted reader for whom the question in what a just society consists is a pressing one. Thus the effect of Rawls's recent revisions in his conception of the original position is to shift the fulcrum of his justificatory strategy from the choice of the parties in the original position to the receptiveness of the reader to the values the original position and wellordered society embody. Let us call this the rational reader conception of justification. Rawls has developed the rational reader conception of justification in recent writings, by explicitly addressing as his audience those who affirm the liberal-democratic tradition his theory of justice also affirms. Clearly, he means to be addressing us as readers about issues of central importance to us, and articulating the basic conditions under which public agreement among us can be achieved: [T]his conception [of justice] provides a publicly recognized point of view from which all citizens can examine before one another whether or not their political and social institutions are just. It enables them to do this by citing what are recognized among them as valid and sufficient reasons singled out by that conception itself.... [J]ustification is not regarded simply as valid argument from listed premises, even should these premises be true. Rather, justification is addressed to others who disagree with us, and therefore it must always proceed from some consensus, that is, from premises that we and others publicly recognize as true; or better, publicly recognize as acceptable to us for the purposes of establishing a working agreement on the fundamental questions of political justice (italics added).25... [Kantian "Justice as Fairness: Political not Metaphysical," 229. I do not agree with Rawls that public recognition of such premises "as acceptable to us for the purposes of establishing a working agreement on the fundamental questions of political justice" is better than premises "that we and others publicly recognize as true." Everyone recognizes some premises as true. The question is whether these premises - the ones to which we are most deeply committed psychologically as well as epistemically, and which Rawls describes as "comprehensive doctrines" in Political Liberalism (op. cit. Note 3) - are to be examined, criticized and revised in light of public discussion of them, or excluded - perhaps shielded would be a better word - from such discussion altogether. By leaving unmentioned, unscrutinized, unanalyzed, unevaluated, and unrevised what one in fact actually does recognize as true, the former, merely pragmatic public recognition precludes authentic Socratic dialogue and the genuine meeting of minds that can result from it. These values are discussed in Chapter I, Section 2, above. In Political Liberalism Rawls initially advocates a "don't ask, don't tell" approach to our deepest moral and epistemic convictions (PL 15-16, 152, 153); but later distinguishes between exclusive 25 © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
