Abstract
We concluded Chapter 2 on a sceptical note regarding the possibility of finding a moral consensus in a liberal society. In this, we relied (among other things) on the well known study by Prothro and Grigg about the level of agreement and disagreement on fundamental political principles in the United States. Prothro and Grigg hypothesize that persistence of the belief, among political scientists, in the existence of consensus is a result of a common fallacy — inferring empirical propositions from logical ones: it is assumed “that what people should (logically) believe is what they must believe …, and that what they must believe is what they do believe”.1 The shrewdness of this suspicion can be confirmed by this recent statement about one of the tasks of political philosophy:
The real task is to discover and formulate the deeper bases of agreement which one hopes are embedded in common sense, or even to originate and fashion starting points for common understanding by expressing in a new form the convictions found in the historical tradition by connecting them with a wide range of people’s considered convictions: those which stand up to critical reflection.2
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Notes
J. W. Prothro & C. M. Grigg, “Fundamental Principles of Democracy: Bases of Agreement and Disagreement”, Journal of Politics 22 (1960) 276.
J. W. Prothro & C. M. Grigg, “Fundamental Principles of Democracy: Bases of Agreement and Disagreement”, Journal of Politics 22 (1960) 281.
J. Rawls, “Kantian Constructivism in Moral Theory: The Dewey Lectures”, Journal of Philosophy 77 (1980) 515,
J. Rawls, “Kantian Constructivism in Moral Theory: The Dewey Lectures”, Journal of Philosophy 77 (1980) 518, emphasis added.
Id. at 518.
J. Rawls, “Justice as Fairness: Political not Metaphysical”, Philosophy & Public Affairs 14 (1985) 223.
J. Rawls, “Justice as Fairness: Political not Metaphysical”, Philosophy & Public Affairs 14 (1985) 229.
J. Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972), pp. 19–21.
Id. at 19–21, 48–51.
Id. at 50.
Id. at 20, emphasis added.
Id. at 20.
Rawls, supra note 2, at 518.
Rawls, supra note 4, at 228.
Id. at 228.
R. Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously (London: Duckworth, 1977), pp. 248–253.
For a less cursory treatment of these two issues (expository v. justificatory use of reflective equilibrium; reasonableness v. obligatoriness of a conception of justice) see W. Sadurski, “Contractarianism and Intuition”, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 61 (1983) 231.
Rawls, supra note 2, at 518.
In the context of discussion of the duty to comply with an unjust law, Rawls wrote that injustice may occur when “arrangements ... conform to a society’s conception of justice ... but this conception itself may be unreasonable, and in many cases clearly unjust”, supra note 5, at 352.
In his Essays on Philosophical Method (London: Macmillan, 1971), p. 122.
M. Walzer, “Philosophy and Democracy”, Political Theory 9 (1981) 379.
M. Walzer, Spheres of Justice (New York: Basic Books, 1983).
Walzer, supra note 18, at 387.
Id. at 380.
Id. at 380.
Id. at 396.
Id. at 393.
Id. at 381.
Walzer himself draws this parallel, and discusses the dissimilarities, Id. at 387–397.
Walzer, supra note 19, at xiv.
Id. at xiv.
Id. at 29.
Id. at 313.
Id. at 26, emphasis added.
Id. at 320, emphasis added.
Id. at 56–61.
Id. at 86–91.
Id. at 46–48.
See B. Barry, Book Review, Columbia Law Review 84 (1984) 806
See B. Barry, Book Review, Columbia Law Review 84 (1984) 812–814
J. S. Fishkin, Book Review, Michigan Law Review (1984) 755, 757–760
R. Dworkin, “What Justice Isn’t”, A Matter of Principle (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985), pp. 214–220.
Walzer, supra note 19, at 5.
See W. Sadurski, Giving Desert Its Due (Dordrecht: D. Reidel 1985), pp. 144–153.
Walzer, supra note 19, in particular at 6–10.
See Barry, supra note 36, at 809–810.
Walzer, supra note 19, at 8.
Id. at 8–9.
Id. at 9.
Id. at 9.
Id. at 9.
Id. at 8.
Id. at 8.
W. James, The Principles of Psychology, vol. 1 (London: Macmillan, 1910), p. 291, emphasis in original.
Id., at 291, emphasis in original.
C.R. Snyder & H.L. Fromkin, Uniqueness: The Human Pursuit of Difference (New York: Plenum Press, 1980), p. 108.
See R. Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974).
Id., at 5.
See, in particular, “Relativistic Ethics: Morality as Politics”, Midwest Studies in Philosophy 3 (1978): 109–21; “What Is Moral Relativism?” in A. I. Goldman & J. Kim (eds), Values and Morals (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1978); “Moral Relativism Defended“ in J. W. Meiland & M. Krausz, eds., Relativism: Cognitive and Moral (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1982), reprinted from Philosophical Review 84 (1975): 3–22.
“Moral Relativism Defended”, supra note 53, at 200.
D. Lyons, “Ethical Relativism and the Problem of Incoherence” in Meiland & Krausz, supra note 53, at 211–12.
“Moral Relativism Defended”, supra note 53 at 193.
Id. at 190.
Id. at 190.
Id. at 193.
Id. at 190.
Id. at 192.
Id. at 191.
S. L. Darwall, “Harman and Moral Relativism”, Personalist 58 (1977): 201–2.
“Relativistic Ethics: Morality as Politics” supra note 53, at 111, see also “Moral Relativism Defended” supra note 53, at 193–5; “What Is Moral Relativism?” supra note 53, at 152–6.
“Moral Relativism Defended” supra note 53, at 194.
“Relativistic Ethics: Morality as Politics” supra note 53 at 111.
“What Is Moral Relativism?” supra note 53, at 153.
“Moral Relativism Defended” supra note 53, at 194.
“What Is Moral Relativism?” supra note 53, at 153.
“Moral Relativism Defended” supra note 53, at 194.
“Relativistic Ethics: Morality as Politics” supra note 53, at 112.
“What Is Moral Relativism?” supra note 53, at 152.
“Relativistic Ethics: Morality as Politics” supra note 53, at 110.
Id. at 113.
See B. C. Postow, “Moral Relativism Avoided”, Personalist 60 (1979) 97.
R. Attfield, “How Not To Be a Moral Relativist”, Monist 62 (1979) 519.
“Moral Relativism Defended” supra note 53, at 196.
See R. Coburn, “Relativism and the Basis of Morality”, Philosophical Review 85 (1976): 87–92.
R. L. Trammel, “Saving Life and Taking Life”, Journal of Philosophy 72 (1975): 131–37.
“Relativistic Ethics: Morality as Politics” supra note 53, at 115.
Id. at 114.
Id. at 115.
Id. at 115, emphasis added.
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Sadurski, W. (1990). Philosophical Responses to Moral Pluralism. In: Moral Pluralism and Legal Neutrality. Law and Philosophy Library, vol 9. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-1928-0_3
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