LIBERTARIAN AND COMMUNITARIAN CRITIQUE OF JOHN RAWLS’S VIEWS AND THEIR EVOLUTION IN THE WORK “POLITICAL LIBERALISM”

Abstract

The article reviews critical remarks on the J. Rawls’s theory of justice proposed by the thinkers of the libertarian (Nozick) and communitarian (Sandel, Taylor, McIntire) directions, and makes an attempt to refute these criticisms. In particular, with help of neokantian and contemporary liberal philosophy of law it defends the Kantian approach to the problem of justice (a priori), the admissibility of the very formulation of the issue of distributive justice (the limited state intervention in the economy and private life is argued), and grounds the Kantian concept of personality applied by J. Rawls and its compatibility with providing of morality, ideals of brotherhood and love. Among other things, the “argument of Wilt Chamberlain” used by libertarians is rejected, and the possibility of meaningful judgments about justice in the Rawls’ situation of “initial position” is proved. The author argues that the universal liberal theory of justice can be compatible with its complementary moral ideals, but for this the latter must also withstand the test of universality. The author analyzes the main ideas proposed by J. Rawls in his work “Political Liberalism” (overlapping consensus, public reason) as a response to the objections of communitarists, and argues the author’s position on these ideas. In particular, it is demonstrated on the example of the worldview contradictions of believers, agnostics and atheists, that political liberalism is not philosophically neutral, and the idea of overlapping consensus has a limited scope. The conclusion is that the concept of justice cannot be philosophically neutral, and the Kantian approach to the problem of justice, also used by Rawls himself in the Theory of Justice, can be a philosophical basis, reflecting in the best way the generally accepted principles of freedom and equality.