John Rawls is considered by most Academicians to be the greatest Political theorists of the 20th century. Naturally, I find that to be bollix. It is likely that Rawlsian theory somewhere along the line influenced R2K thinking because John Rawls political theory sounds like R2K minus the ham handed R2K interpreters of Rawlsian thought. You see, Rawls , in his “Political Liberalism,” proposed a solution to this dilemma of religion in the public square that has sparked a vigorous debate among political theorists. Rawls’s proposal is a conception of public reason that allows citizens to base their political views in their religious doctrines, but insists that religious reasons are not sufficient justification for those views under some circumstances. Thus, religion can be the basis of individual political conviction, but it is excluded from the public political forum.
Here is a bit of interaction with Rawlsian political theory
“Public reason, then, requires citizens (under certain conditions to be specified later on) to seek and offer properly public justifications for their political positions — a responsibility that emerges from their commitment to the liberal principle of legitimacy. For Rawls, this minimally entails a good-faith effort to employ only principles that we believe our fellow citizens can, at least in principle, accept. We should not appeal to our own religious, moral, or philosophical worldviews (“comprehensive doctrines” in Rawls’s terminology) since in a pluralistic democracy many of our reasonable fellow citizens will not share these views. Justification in terms of any particular comprehensive doctrine therefore shows deficient respect for fellow citizens and constitutes a violation of the duty of civility. In other words, public reason only allows justification based on what we all share as reasonable citizens.”
1.) According to Rawls what standard is used to determine what is a properly public justification for a political position?
2.) How could we ever know what principles our fellow citizens find acceptable and why should the principles of our fellow citizens be the guiding principle that controls our principles?
3.) Rawls invokes his own comprehensive doctrine to make sure that no one else invokes their own comprehensive doctrine.
4.) Why would any Christian think that our responsibility unto the Rawlsian duty of civility is higher than our responsibility unto God?
5.) By what standard is “reasonable” measured in the idea of “reasonable citizen?”
