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MacLean, Jayson R. "Liberalism and the virtues." Thesis, University of Ottawa (Canada), 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/10393/29360.
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This thesis argues for a new understanding of liberal morality and its relationship to liberal justice. Traditionally, theorists of liberal democracy have relegated the liberal virtues---traits such as tolerance, reasonableness, and fairness---to a secondary role within the theory and practice of liberal justice. Their reasoning for this is clear: the virtues prescribe a vision of the good life, while the aim of the liberal approach to statecraft is to limit government authority over citizens' conceptions of the good. Thus, to give the liberal virtues primacy of place within the theory of justice---and, specifically, within the justification for this theory---would stand in contravention of this basic liberal tenet. The argument of this thesis is that liberal theorists have misrepresented the virtues and that this has caused the neglect of the foundational role which the ideal of civic virtue plays within both the theory and practice of liberal democracy.
This argument is advanced through an explication of the theories put forward by contemporary liberal theorists who focus on the import of liberal virtue. Their approaches to virtue are shown to consistently rest on a justification of liberal virtue as an instrumental good for the liberal polity. The claim of this thesis, however, is that the virtues are rightly justified as intrinsic liberal goods. This claim is supported through appeal to insights produced in another branch of philosophy, virtue theory. Similar to their predicament within the political theory of the modern era, the virtues have been downplayed in the field of ethics as well, and only within the past few decades have philosophers begun to reinvestigate the virtues for their distinctive strengths and weaknesses. This thesis argues that the fruits of these investigations prove relevant to liberal theory in that they not only help make a case for the appropriateness of the declaration that the liberal virtues are, in fact, intrinsic goods but also they point to a new approach to liberal morality and, hence, to a new dialogue on the issues of liberal citizenship and liberal civic education.
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Nussbaum, Martha C. "The Future of Feminist Liberalism." Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú - Departamento de Humanidades, 2013. http://repositorio.pucp.edu.pe/index/handle/123456789/113101.
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Feminists have sometimes argued that philosophical theories of justice deriving from the liberal tradition cannot deal adequately with the concerns of women. I argue that in many ways this contention is mistaken: the best liberal theories of justice provide a very strong basis for thinking about what respect for human dignity requires. There are, however, two areas pertinent to sex equality in which even the strongest liberal theories have grave difficulty. First is the area of need and dependency. All theories of justice and morality deriving from the European social contract tradition fail to build into the basic social structure concern for care in times of asymmetrical dependency. The second problem I investigate is the problem of just distribution within the family. Focusing on the theory of John Rawls, I argue that his liberal commitment to seeing the family as a sphere of protected personal choice is in tension with his admission that the family is part of the basic structure of society. Moreover, the family does not exist by nature: it is always a construct of state action. The state should therefore make sure that this constructing is done well, compatibly with justice for women and children.Los feministas han sostenido algunas veces que las teorías filosóficas de la justicia que provienen de la tradición liberal no pueden tratar adecuadamente las preocupaciones de las mujeres. Yo sostengo que de muchas maneras este argumento está errado: las mejores teorías liberales de la justicia proporcionan una base muy fuerte para pensar acerca de lo que requiere el respeto por la dignidad humana. Sin embargo, hay dos áreas pertinentes a la igualdad sexual en las cuales incluso las teorías liberales más fuertes hallan graves dificultades. La primera es el área de la necesidad y la dependencia. Ninguna de las teorías de la justicia y la moralidad que provienen de la tradición europea del contrato social logra introducir en la estructura social básica la preocupación por el cuidado en tiempos de dependencia asimétrica. El segundo problema que investigo es aquél de la distribución justa al interior de la familia. Centrándome en la teoría de John Rawls, sostengo que suc ompromiso liberal de ver a la familia como una esfera de elección personal protegida se halla en tensión con su afirmación de que la familia es parte de la estructura básica de la sociedad. Asimismo, la familia no existe por naturaleza, es siempre algo construido por la acción estatal. El Estado debería, por ende, asegurar que esta construcción se haga bien, de modo compatible con la justicia para mujeres y niños.
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Hsu, Hahn. "Liberalism, political pluralism, and international justice /." The Ohio State University, 1998. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1487949150070925.
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Wilkinson, T. M. "Liberalism, socialism and occupational choice." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1992. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.334836.
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Colby, Mark. "Liberalism and the politics of reason." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1998. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.244155.
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Scalet, Steven Paul. "Justice, liberalism, and responsibility." Diss., The University of Arizona, 1999. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/288997.
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This dissertation addresses the importance of conceptions of responsibility for contemporary theories of justice. I criticize recent defenses of liberalism which try to proceed without conceptions of responsibility. I argue that a conception of neutrality does not provide adequate support for defending a liberal theory of justice. I defend this claim by examining Brian Barry's recent defense of neutrality liberalism. His idea of neutrality reduces to an indefensible skeptical argument about conceptions of the good. I next examine John Rawls's account of political liberalism. I argue that his approach fails to appropriately address the persons and traditions that would be sacrificed within a Rawlsian liberal order. Rawls's notion of reasonableness and his argument from the burdens of judgment are insufficient bases to develop a liberal theory of justice. I then examine the idea of equality and its relationship with responsibility. Egalitarians describe the ideal of equality as the most fundamental notion for a theory of justice. They also interpret other traditions--such as the contractarian approaches of Barry and Rawls--in terms of this commitment to moral equality. Through a discussion of Ronald Dworkin's liberal egalitarianism, I argue that any plausible interpretation of moral equality must rely on an account of personal responsibility. Claims about responsibility, I argue, must be at the core of any theory of theory of justice. In the last chapter, I consider what a theory of justice should be about. I argue that the common assumption that justice is about devising principles to regulate institutions distorts how we should organize concerns of justice. Justice is about people treating each other with the respect and dignity that they are due. Problems about institutional design must be responsive to an account of individual responsibilities of justice, rather than the contemporary liberal approach of devising institutional principles prior to and with regulative primacy.
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Wellman, Christopher Heath. "Liberalism, self-determination, and secession." Diss., The University of Arizona, 1994. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/186640.
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This dissertation provides a systematic analysis of when an individual or group has a right to secede that is grounded in self-determination. Since the primary question in a secessionist conflict concerns the territory being contested, any analysis of the right to secede must provide an account of what grounds the existing state's claim to political jurisdiction over its territory. With this in mind, I examine consent and teleological justifications for the state and find both inadequate. The consent account posits that a political state is justified just in case it has the consent of its citizens. I reject the consent approach for its unacceptable implication that unlimited secession is permissible from all existing states. I then suggest that our disinclination to allow unlimited secession is instructive since it indicates not only that we believe a consentual justification is morally unnecessary, but also that a state is justified in virtue of the peace it secures and the rights it protects. This teleological justification ultimately proves inadequate as well, however, because it both restricts secessionist movements that seem permissible and allows coercive annexations that appear clearly unjustified. As an alternative to these extremes, I propose a hybrid model of political legitimacy. According to my theory, while individuals and small groups may not secede, a larger group may, provided it is of sufficient size to satisfactorily perform the functions that are necessary for a state to ground its claim to territory. Thus I conclude a political state should limit political liberty in a manner analogous to the way it legitimately limits the liberty to drive a car. Specifically, since many people would be harmed if there were no legal restrictions on who could drive, states institute age and health requirements limiting who may drive. Citizens not eliminated by these standards must also demonstrate a minimum threshold of competence by passing tests. In similar fashion, a state may initially restrict the right to secede to groups of a specific size, and then further require that interested parties demonstrate their ability and willingness to govern in a stable, efficient, and liberal manner.
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Coval, Simon. "Liberalism v. perfectionism : the personal ethics debate." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1992. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.334088.
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Manyeli, Louis. "Distribution of wealth: A critique of Rawlsian liberalism." Thesis, University of Ottawa (Canada), 2001. http://hdl.handle.net/10393/9345.
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Can we distribute resources such that nearly all people can carry out their life plans? By sheer luck, some people happen to be naturally endowed, and their talents make them well off. Others, by brute bad luck, find themselves being naturally disadvantaged or less talented, and these conditions make them worst off. How can the frustrating and devastating situation of the latter group be remedied? John Rawls, a prominent contemporary liberal egalitarian, thinks that a fair distribution of wealth can be achieved if people choose his two principles of justice. With the two principles in operation, Rawls maintains, people can retain their basic liberties while committing themselves to social duties, duties that require them to assist the least fortunate members of a well-ordered society. Rawls thinks that liberty and equality are reconcilable in his theory. I trace the background to Rawls in Rousseau and Kant, and show how liberty and equality must be understood and significantly interconnected. The present work is primarily a critique of Rawls' theory of justice in regard to its position on the distribution of wealth, that is, Rawls' principle of distributive justice. My purpose is to show that Rawls' principle does not go far enough in the needed direction of redistribution, to provide what disadvantaged people genuinely require as a matter of fairness and actual opportunity; and further that this limitation in Rawls' position on economic distribution works to undermine Rawls' principle of equal liberty, as it applies in the real world. I also show that Rawls' critics, such as Nielsen, Sandel, Nozick, van Parijs, Dworkin and Kymlicka fail to provide a preferable solution to the problem of the distribution of wealth. I make a case for a commitment to the extensive redistributive tax measures needed to insure truly universal education as the condition of equal opportunity. I argue that this proposal is, in fact, consistent with egalitarians' aim to achieve equality, and consistent with Rawls' equal opportunity principle. Although Hegel has hardly figured as a model for egalitarians in the history of political philosophy, I argue that he is a model for egalitarians, and that he offers a preferable solution to the antinomies of contemporary thought. This means that he is a potential interlocutor in these contemporary debates. The central claim which I try to establish is that the Hegelian concern to reconcile individual freedom with new forms of community is germane to his vindication of economic rights. To put my point another way, I argue that contrary to the liberals' formalistic preoccupation with rights, interests, and rational preferences, Hegel correctly urges us to return to the sort of full-bodied philosophical anthropology that can specify the fundamental moral, economic, and political needs of human beings.
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Tufan, Ege. "A theory of dystopian liberalism." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2017. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:b732e4f1-1f0d-4d3c-8335-8529bc6b6d68.
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This dissertation aspires to revive the dystopian liberalism which identifies the avoidance of the worst as the fundamental aim of politics. The theory I present consists of three elements overall: The first element is what I call the Priority Claim, stating that the most important aim of social institutions should, morally speaking, be to avoid cruelty qua worst evil (Part I). The second element is the identification of the informal structure, the set of social norms within a population, as an important site to realize this ideal (Part II). The third element is the application of the principle that cruelty be avoided to the in-formal structure (Part III). This leads to an account of desirable social norms and in turn to a concrete answer to the question how individuals can in their everyday lives do their part to create a world that is overall less cruel and more humane.
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Otsuka, Michael. "Equality, neutrality and prejudice : a critique of Dworkin's liberalism." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1989. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.315952.
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Tomasi, John. "Liberalism beyond justice : a conceptual model for liberal community." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1992. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.357479.
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Lamey, Andy. "Value pluralism as a support to liberalism, rebuilding Berlin's bridge." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1999. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk1/tape9/PQDD_0003/MQ45232.pdf.
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Mang, Fan Lun Franz. "Beyond public reason liberalism : moderate perfectionism." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2016. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:154eaccf-40fe-439c-b0b7-158e2e79d675.
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Should the state undertake the task of promoting the good life? Perfectionism is the idea that the state should promote the good life. Many philosophers have answered in the negative to the above question, so they reject perfectionism. This thesis aims to develop a moderate version of perfectionism, and seeks to defend it against several influential anti-perfectionist arguments, in particular the argument from public reason liberalism. I begin by examining public reason liberalism. John Rawls, Gerald Gaus, Martha Nussbaum, and many other political philosophers endorse public reason liberalism. They believe that state coercion should be publicly justified, and that perfectionism cannot meet the requirements of public reason. I argue that public reason is the object of reasonable rejection, so it cannot be realised in actual politics through state intervention in a publicly justified way. In addition, I argue that respect for persons is not a reliable basis for public reason. Thus we have good reason to reject public reason liberalism. Then I develop a moderate version of perfectionism. I contend that the state should promote the good life through supporting a wide variety of perfectionist goods, and that it should do so by using moderate measures and by appealing to perfectionist judgements of a moderate kind. Some anti-perfectionists consider that perfectionism would be unnecessary when a fair distribution of resources is realised. Yet a fair distribution of resources is not foreseeable. I propose several kinds of moderate perfectionist policies that are of great importance for any neo-liberal society where the distribution of resources is far from fair, and these policies are ultimately important for the good life, not only for remedying unfairness. Contrary to the positions of many liberal philosophers including Ronald Dworkin and Jeremy Waldron, I argue that moderate perfectionism should not be rejected on grounds of paternalism and unfairness to different conceptions of the good.
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Kurtz, Roxanne Marie. "Liberalism and ethical life : on equality, neutrality, and culture." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/45896.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy, February 2008.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 139-148).
Liberalism faces an apparent paradox. Its commitments to values such as neutrality and tolerance seem to recommend a hands-off attitude toward a society's ethical life. It seems the state should not regulate the value systems that underlie a society's ethos, group interests, or individual lives. Yet plausible sociological claims suggest that to respect liberal values, the state should interfere with ethical life. So, liberal justice appears to recommend sharply conflicting attitudes to ethical life. In three chapters, I argue that liberalism should adopt a limited hands-on attitude toward ethical life that avoids the apparent paradox.In the first chapter, "Meanness, generosity, and Rawlsian distributive justice," I contend that the liberal state should shape ethical life to respect the value of equality. A hands-off attitude blinds the state to its effects on the market ethos. These effects can interfere with distributive justice-e.g., if the ethos is marked by extreme greediness. A state that attends to its effects on ethical life may promote less greed and thereby a more just distribution.In the second chapter, "Examining the hoopla over opera: liberal neutrality as justified interference," I argue for liberal neutrality as neutrality of justified interference. This view permits constrained interference with ethical life, but permits no interference that is itself inadequately justified.
(cont.) I reject two other approaches: neutrality of justifications, which does not hold the state accountable for its interference with ethical life, and neutrality of interference, a consequentialist view that requires the state maintain a status quo with respect to ethical life. In the third chapter, "Confessions of an army brat-an outsider's insight into liberal egalitarianism multiculturalism," I suggest liberalism should better respect the value of culture. The problem is practical-it is difficult to appreciate and weigh both the value of cultural belonging and the threat that the state's interference with ethical life poses to cultures. A hands-off attitude toward ethical life allows too much interference with cultures, while too little interference conflicts with justice. Thus I propose a liberal multiculturalist principle that places the priority of culture (presumptively) above many secondary goods but below liberty and equality.
by Roxanne Marie Kurtz.
Ph.D.
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Cory-Watson, Damon. "The problem of the self-constituted individual in modern liberalism." Diss., Connect to the thesis, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/10066/694.
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Brown, Rachel (Rachel M. ). 1970. "The extension of liberalism beyond domestic boundaries : three problem cases." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1999. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/17481.
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Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy, 1999.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 160-161).
Liberalism, in any of its forms, places a strong emphasis on the individual-it prioritizes equal rights and liberties, and measures are taken to assure for all citizens the opportunity to make full use of their freedoms and entitlements. Many conceptions of human rights are objected to on the grounds that they are based on liberal premises, and insufficiently sensitive to the fact of reasonable cultural pluralism. Using as a foil recent work in this area by John Rawls, I argue in chapter one for a justificatory basis of human rights that advances values-in particular values of minimal democracy including the right to political participation-that may have emerged historically alongside liberalism but that we ought not consider specifically liberal. My account diverges form Rawls' at this point: he does not believe that such values can be defended from premises that are not specifically liberal. Since a group is, after all, a collection of individuals, liberalism appears to be committed, unsatisfactorily, to a permissive right to secede in the sense that, other things being equal, groups ought always to be permitted to secede voluntarily. I show in my second chapter that liberalism is not committed to this permissive view. Though liberalism implies that no one has a duty to refrain from secession, it does not support the stronger thesis that states must permit groups to secede if they wish. My treatment of secession argues for a more general framework in which those liberties whose protection is of basic importance to liberalism are distinguished from those whose protection is not so guaranteed. Derek Parfit has put forth a general difficulty regarding our obligations to future generations, to which I respond in chapter three. Parfit claims, plausibly, that we may suppose a major public policy decision to have sufficiently broad ramifications that in about two hundred years there would be nobody alive who would have been alive had some different policy been selected. But then the choice of such a policy would not make those people worse off, since they would not otherwise have been born. This would remain so even in the case of policies that cause the lives of future generations to be of a very low quality. Parfit's "Non-Identity Problem" challenges us to provide plausible moral reasons against pursuit of such public policies. I argue that the only adequate response to this problem comes from a liberal focus on the rights of future generations, and the moral status that this confers on them. Taking such seriously, many public polices can be shown to be objectionable despite the fact that they may not harm the interests of those affected by them.
by Rachel Brown.
Ph.D.
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Kukathas, Chandran. "Hayek and modern liberalism : a study of his theory of justice." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1986. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.385565.
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Brewer, Bradley R. "High and Classical Liberalism: Economic Liberties "Thin" and "Thick"." Ohio University / OhioLINK, 2014. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1408635090.
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Halleck, Jeannemarie. "E Pluribus Unum? Liberalism and the Search for Civility in America." UNF Digital Commons, 2014. https://digitalcommons.unf.edu/etd/491.
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This paper explores issues of civility in liberal democracy, and in particular, how civility and civic engagement must be regenerated in order to forward the democratic ideals of equal rights, citizen equality and collective self-government in a meaningful way. Liberal democracy presupposes a level of civility in order to uphold standards of individual liberty and freedom, however as a theory it fails to compel citizens to support levels of mutual respect.
An etymological exploration of the term civility introduces the work of puritan theologian Roger Williams, whose early writings on individual liberty as well as the role of civility and civic engagement can inform popular conversations about civility in modern democracy. This leads to an analysis of Rawlsian liberalism, where Rawls seeks to construct a robust civil society by tying individual duty of civility to an idealization of citizenship.
Final analysis explores the possibility of a modern civil liberalism, as influenced by Roger Williams. A liberal civil realm must recognize the mutual reliance between individual freedom and a collective common good; this will compel citizens to choose to preserve the freedom of all citizens through civil engagement and dialogue. This ideal shares important intersections with Jürgen Habermas’ theory of deliberative democracy, but Williams’ replaces Habermas’ notion of higher-level intersubjectivity with an appeal to individual freedom of conscience. By doing so, the preservation of individual freedom of conscience requires citizen-commitment to an active and engaged civil sphere, making the ideal of civility richer than that of Habermas’ theory. Replacing the duty of civility with a commitment to the preservation and protection of individual liberty through civil dialogue is the best way to rescue modern liberal democracy from its current state of incivility, which threatens the liberty and freedom of citizens and undermines the collective common good.
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Peddle, David. "The horizon of political liberalism, citizenship, culture and the limits of rawlsian public reason." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1998. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk1/tape11/PQDD_0004/NQ38792.pdf.
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Fletcher, Callum Dowie. "Individual autonomy in the multicultural debate." Thesis, University of Canterbury. Philosophy and Religious Studies, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/10092/1014.
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In this thesis, I claim that the Liberal Multiculturalist arguments for group rights, which would enable group autonomy, are problematic. Such claims are instrumentally justified by the value that groups have for their individual members. I claim that group autonomy and individual autonomy are incompatible. Concern for the freedom of individuals requires that there is a common Liberal legal framework covering all of the cultural groups that may exist within a state. I will argue for such a system, claiming that it must be substantive in scope, while also outlining how decisions on the common rules should be fairly deliberated before being resolved. Furthermore, I will defend my position from both Liberal Multiculturalist and Strong Multiculturalist objections.
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Martin, Craig Edward. "Policing public/private borders religion, liberalism, and the 'private judgment of the magistrate' /." Related electronic resource:, 2007. https://login.libezproxy2.syr.edu/login?qurl=http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1441187521&sid=1&Fmt=2&clientId=3739&RQT=309&VName=PQD.
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Kley, Roland. "Political philosophy and social theory : a critique of F.A. Hayek's justification of liberalism." Thesis, St. Gallen : [s.n.], 1990. http://aleph.unisg.ch/hsgscan/hm00190430.pdf.
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Manning, Colin Ph D. "Issue Individuation in Public Reason Liberalism." Bowling Green State University / OhioLINK, 2021. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu161675417735823.
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Scott, David Charles. "THE FREE EXERCISE CLAUSE, MINORITY FAITHS, AND THE POSSIBILITY OF RELIGIOUS INDEPENDENCE AFTER RAWLSIAN LIBERALISM." UKnowledge, 2018. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/philosophy_etds/21.
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The conversation to which my dissertation belongs is that which preoccupied John Rawls in Political Liberalism, namely: (1) how it is possible that a religiously and morally pluralistic culture like ours lives cooperatively from one generation to the next, and (2) The extent to which religious or moral convictions are appropriate bases for political action. My three-essay dissertation is about aspects of this investigation that affect minority or non-mainstream religious and cultural groups, since legal institutions, and theoretical models of them (such as Rawls’s and Ronald Dworkin’s) are in many ways ill-suited to accommodate their ways of life. In the first essay, I consider Rawlsian obstacles to developing a religiously impartial conception of “substantial burdens” on religious free exercise within First Amendment jurisprudence. I apply this question to federal cases in which Native American tribes sought to prevent government uses of land that would be, they claimed, catastrophic to their cultural survival and all citizens’ safety. I propose a jurisprudential model that places a heavier burden on judges to listen and perhaps translate such views, counting non-mainstream forms of reasoning as legally cognizable and sufficient to create a prima facie constitutional case, where current models would not. In the second essay, because few conceptions of justice require that law be cognizable and justifiable to everyone, I review liberal conceptions of what makes a cultural group or person “irrational” or “unreasonable.” With a focus on public education, and cases like Wisconsin v. Yoder and Mozert v. Hawkins in mind, I argue that approaches to “unreasonableness” from the likes of Rawls, Charles Larmore, Jonathan Quong, and Stephen Macedo are well-intentioned but unduly restrictive, insofar as they tend to, by definitional fiat, exclude citizens who embody widely recognized civic virtues, or who at least pose no threat to a stable democracy. In doing so, I argue that they instantiate the sort of social circumstance that Herbert Marcuse calls one-dimensionality. In the third essay, I consider whether a meaningful and practical model for “group rights,” which would include the right of peoples to preserve their cultures, can be developed within American jurisprudence. This argument is largely inspired by a paper from political scientist Vernon van Dyke, and considers overcoming challenges to this notion wrought by contemporary forms of liberalism and vehement public disagreement over recent, pertinent Supreme Court decisions involving associational rights, like Burwell v. Hobby Lobby and Citizens United v. FEC.
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Bui, Ngoc Quang H. "Dworkinian Liberalism & Gay Rights: A Defense of Same-Sex Relations." Digital Archive @ GSU, 2010. http://digitalarchive.gsu.edu/philosophy_theses/71.
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Recent changes in the politics of gay rights have led to a gay rights demand for liberal governments: i) decriminalization of sodomy and ii) full governmental recognition of civil, same-sex marriages. Challengers to liberalism argue that a neutral liberalism cannot satisfy the gay rights demand. I argue that the liberal political framework put forth by Ronald Dworkin can adequately fulfill the gay rights demand. Dworkinian liberalism, which is neutral with respect to the ethical life, need not be neutral with respect to moral and non-ethical values. I argue for the more modest claim that Dworkinian liberalism has the conceptual tools and principles for satisfying the gay rights demand. In arguing for my claim, I discuss the internal criticisms of Carlos Ball and Michael Sandel and the external criticism of John Finnis. I argue that these concerns are surmountable. Dworkinian liberalism is capable of offering a robust defense of same-sex relations.
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Pontin, Fabricio. "CONSTITUTING THE POLITICAL: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE ON POLITICAL LIBERALISM." OpenSIUC, 2013. https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/dissertations/777.
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In this thesis I will attempt to develop a phenomenological account for Political Liberalism. My hypothesis is that a re-articulation of the main issues in transcendental phenomenology as it relates to social philosophy, first in a genetic sense (as developed by Alfred Schutz), but also in a generative context (as developed by Bernhard Waldenfels), provides us with a methodological ground that can instigate a more complex account for the questions of social choice and the way in which we establish preferences. My thesis is that such a complex account of social choice can motivate us to focus on the disordered nature of our constitution of preferences, and point at the importance of a deep comprehension of historicity, along with a defense of freedom of speech as a tool for resignification of social values.
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Wellings, Martin. "Aspects of late nineteenth century Anglican Evangelicalism : the response to ritualism, Darwinism and theological liberalism." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1989. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.303574.
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Petsoulas, Christina. "The idea of spontaneous order in the thought of F.A. Hayek and the Scottish Enlightenment." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1996. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.321855.
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Kymlicka, W. "Liberal equality and cultural community." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1987. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.234294.
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Hurdis, Jeremy. "Modernity and the Idea: Liberalism, Fascism, Materialism in Showa Japan." Thèse, Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/10393/23216.
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After the Meiji Restoration of 1862, Western philosophy was imported and infused into Japanese culture and its intellectual climate. By the early 20th Century, Kyoto School philosophers and romantic authors sought to reaffirm Japanese culture, believed jeopardised by the hastened development of Western capitalist modernity. This movement became politically charged, and is not without fascist allegations. After the Second World War modernism again became a primary intellectual concern, as modernists and Asianists alike attempted to struggle with the idea of fascism in Japan. Works of Nishida Kitaro (1870-1945) and Watsuji Tetsuro (1889-1960), and the prewar contexts within which they were written, will be compared to the postwar thinkers Maruyama Masao (1914-1996) and Takeuchi Yoshimi (1910-1977). The purpose of this thesis is to examine how Japanese thinkers before and after the Second World War understood and responded to the global process of modernity, and how it relates to such political movements as liberalism and fascism.
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Waghid, Yusef. "Community and democracy in South Africa : liberal versus communitarian perspectives." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/52736.
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Thesis (PhD)--University of Stellenbosch, 2002.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The tradition of liberalism in South Africa has played a significant role in shaping the country's multi-party democracy. Yet, there are several gaps within the tradition of liberalism which can be associated with an aversion towards majority rule, equalising opportunities through affirmative action measures, and a focus on securing political rights as opposed to substantive rights for all citizens. It is my contention that weaknesses within the liberal tradition could be minimised if a more credible conception of liberalism is constructed within the parameters of a deliberative framework of democracy. In this dissertation I make an argument for a defensible form of liberalism which can be achieved through a rational, reflexive discourse-oriented procedure of deliberative democracy. Deliberative democracy in turn can engender a form of citizenship which recognises the need for citizens to care, reason and engage justly in political conversation with others. KEYWORDS: Liberalism, communitarianism, deliberative democracy and South Africa.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die tradisie van liberalisme in Suid-Afrika het 'n noemenswaardige bydrae gelewer tot die totstandkoming van die land se veelparty demokratiese bestel. Afgesien hiervan, verskyn daar vele gapings binne die liberale tradisie wat hoogstens vereenselwig kan word met 'n teenkanting teen meerderheidsregering, skepping van gelyke geleenthede deur regstellende aksies en 'n fokus eerder om politieke regte liewer as ook substantiewe regte vir alle burgers te bekom. Ek redeneer dat tekortkominge binne die liberale tradisie geminimaliseer kan word indien 'n meer vededigbare begrip van liberalisme gekonstrueer word binne die perke van 'n beredeneerde demokratiese raamwerk. Ek voer aan dat 'n verdedigbare vorm van liberalisme bewerkstellig kan word deur 'n rasionele, refleksiewe diskoersgeoriënteerde prosedure van beredeneerde demokrasie. Op die beurt kan beredeneerde demokrasie 'n vorm van burgerskap teweegbring wat die belangrikheid van omgee en redenering erken, en ook terselfdertyd burgers betrek op 'n geregverdige wyse in gesprekvoeing met ander persone. SLEUTELWOORDE: Liberalisme, gemeenskapsgerigte liberalisme, beredeneerde demokrasie en Suid-Afrika.
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Rossi, Enzo. "Liberal legitimacy : a study of the normative foundations of liberalism." Thesis, St Andrews, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/563.
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Wright, David E. "MacIntyre, Virtue, and Liberalism: a Response to Schneewind." Ohio : Ohio University, 2008. http://www.ohiolink.edu/etd/view.cgi?ohiou1226547335.
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Lynch, Brian. "Faith in words : liberalism, Islam and the philosophy of ethics in The Satanic Verses affair." Thesis, McGill University, 1994. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=22604.
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This thesis argues that the shortcomings of modernist liberal defences of Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses have helped to draw debate over the book into a stalemate. It also attempts to demonstrate how aspects of this stalemate might be broken. Chapter One contains a brief philosophical survey of the debate, juxtaposing the framework relativism propounded by Rushdie and many of his advocates with the absolutism of Rushdie's Muslim detractors. The chapter closes with an analysis of the contradictions present in Rushdie's relativistic defence of his novel.Chapter Two opens with a short argument against existing blasphemy laws. The philosophical sketches in Chapter One are applied to the contents of the novel itself, producing an outline of the contending views of "literary contest" and "authorial intention" held by the two sides in the debate, and illuminating Rushdie's apparent confusion about the purposes of his novel.
Chapter Three proposes a solution--based on philosopher Alasdair McIntyre's thought--to defects in modernist liberal defences of The Satanic Verses.
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Williams, Douglas E. "Conserving liberalism : an interpretation of truth, hope and power in the philosophy of Karl Popper." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 1985. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/25996.
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This study is an interpretation of the social and political thought and methodology of Karl Popper, one of the most heralded yet controversial philosophers of our time. The goal has been to provide a more coherent, accurate, and systematic account of Popper's thought and of its relevance to students of politics and society than currently exists by, first, emphasizing certain historical and contextual factors in connection with the structure and development of his ideas which rule out certain contemporary misunderstandings of his thought, and secondly, by allowing Popper's own formulations
to take precedence over those of his commentators, regardless of their sympathies and estimate of Popper's massive intellectual legacy.
It is my principal argument that the unity of Popper's philosophy lies in its moral dimension, his life long determination
to conserve the intellectual foundations of hope and progress that human autonomy requires--the distinctively Kantian belief that mind can and should be decisive in practical affairs no less than in the struggle with nature, the twin pillars of the Enlightenment and modern liberalism alike. Given the nature of our times--a century of "total" wars, endless crises, and one intellectual revolution after another--such an endeavour is no small achievement.
I have tried to capture the propositional cutting-edge of my interpretation of Popper's thought in the keywords of the subtitle of this study: that, without the belief in the possibility of objective truth--knowledge that is independent of whether we wish to acknowledge its existence or not, there is little hope in the future prospects of the "open societies" of the Western world, and that one of the gravest errors of the liberalism of the past was its underestimation
of the need to institutionalise its best interests against the threat of many forms of illiberal power known in our time, particularly of the "unintended" variety. I accordingly argue that Popper's vision is best characterised as a combat-toughened conception of reality, and of the corresponding rationality necessary to survive, let alone to live well, as the Western tradition of political theory has held to be desirable.Arts, Faculty of
Political Science, Department of
Graduate
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Louis, Adrien. "Le phénomène politique dans l’oeuvre de Leo Strauss." Thesis, Paris Est, 2013. http://www.theses.fr/2013PEST0083.
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Leo Strauss nous dispose de bien des manières à attendre de son œuvre une philosophie politique forte et originale. Il nous y dispose en premier lieu par sa critique vigoureuse de la sociologie et de l’historicisme, et par sa défense non moins vigoureuse de la philosophie et de la possibilité de la philosophie politique. Il nous y dispose par-dessus tout par la manière dont il rend compte, dans ses introductions notamment, de l’impulsion de sa recherche : constatant une crise sans précédent dans les sociétés libérales et dans le rationalisme moderne constitutif de ces sociétés, Strauss nous invite à retrouver chez les Anciens une compréhension adéquate des phénomènes politiques, et un rationalisme qui soit pour ainsi dire fidèle à la condition politique de l’homme. D’un autre côté pourtant, son œuvre nous semble toujours nous dérober cette élucidation des choses politiques. Strauss ne dit en particulier rien des régimes, des partis, des guerres, des nations qui animèrent si violemment la politique moderne. Il ne semble considérer cette dernière qu’aux lumières de sa pointe nihiliste ou relativiste d’un côté, et de son origine dans les projets des premiers philosophes modernes – Machiavel, Hobbes, Spinoza. Et lorsqu’il revient aux Anciens, il nous livre des commentaires si pointus et si attentifs de leurs œuvres, qu’il décourage toute tentative d’en extraire des considérations plus générales. Il est vrai qu’il nous livre également des exposés généraux sur la philosophie politique classique, qu’il caractérise notamment par ces deux traits : sa fidélité à la perspective citoyenne sur les choses politiques, et l’attention centrale qu’elle porte à la question du régime. Mais comment se fait-il que le philosophe qui ne nous dise quasiment rien des régimes dans la politique moderne nous intéresse par ailleurs par-dessus tout à la question des régimes ? N’est-ce pas que son portrait paradoxal de la modernité, loin d’être dû à un oubli du politique, est en fait la contrepartie d’une réflexion sur la politique ? N’a-t-il pas pensé que la modernité se caractérisait précisément par un éloignement toujours plus décidé de la condition politique de l’homme ? Dans ce cas, en dépit de notre perplexité, il doit bel et bien y avoir une compréhension straussienne des choses politiques, que l’on doit pouvoir extraire de son œuvre. Quelle est cette compréhension et comment devons-nous en juger ? Telles sont les questions de cette thèse, qui se déploie en deux grandes parties : I. L’analyse straussienne de la politique moderne II. Le phénomène politique dans la philosophie politique classique. Nous avons ainsi soumis l’œuvre de Leo Strauss à un questionnement sur la nature des choses politiques, en trouvant chez d’autres auteurs tels Claude Lefort, Eric Voegelin, Aurel Kolnai et Pierre Manent, de quoi nourrir ce questionnement et mettre en perspective l’approche de StraussSummary not transmitted
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Hoffner, Frederick James. "The moral state in 1919, a study of John Watson's idealism and communitarian liberalism as expressed in The state in peace and war." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1998. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp04/mq28205.pdf.
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Critch, Raymond Glenn. "Autonomy, fraternity and legitimacy : foundations of a new communitarianism." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/5842.
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In this thesis I explore the possibility for a renewed communitarianism. Rather than present this as a rival to liberalism, however, I present it as a supplement. I start from the viewpoint that there are two basic facts with normative consequences the reconciliation of which is the central task of moral and political philosophy. One fact is the fact of individuality, which I believe produces a normative requirement that all and only obligations that respect a certain kind of individual autonomy are legitimate. This fact is well explained by liberalism, and so I am to that extent a liberal. Where I differ from contemporary liberalism, and where I think there is room for a renewed communitarianism, is in explaining the limits of autonomy. There are, I contend, a wide array of basic and legitimate obligations that cannot be adequately explained (i.e. the legitimacy of which cannot be explained) by autonomy alone. The role for communitarianism, then, is to explain the nature of a second legitimating principle and how these two principles – respect for autonomy and respect for (what I call) fraternity – can work together to explain when various maxims and policies are legitimate or illegitimate. In the first part I explain the importance of communitarianism. In the second, I try and determine the nature of the principle that should be seen as representing the normative requirements of the fact of sociality: the second inescapable fact of moral and political philosophy, that while we are individuals we are never alone. I will ultimately argue for a version of solidarity based on the role ethical obligations play in incorporating the interests of others in one‟s own set of interests. In the final part I explain how the ethical obligation at the heart of solidarity should work and then how to reconcile the normative requirements of the fact of sociality with autonomy.
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Brinkmann, Matthias. "A rationalist theory of legitimacy." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2016. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:6efb1b18-d901-40d3-9131-b83a4a10a642.
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In this thesis, I argue for rationalism, the claim that political legitimacy should be distributed such that justice is promoted best. In chapter 1, I define legitimacy as the permission to rule. I deny that political institutions generally enjoy authority, which is the moral power to directly impose duties on others. I then describe how legitimate political institutions without authority are possible in principle. In the second chapter, I outline a major problem for rationalism. If individuals have strong, moral rights, then it seems that political institutions cannot legitimately operate without their subjects' consent. I describe the key assumptions in this argument, and discuss a series of unconvincing proposals in the literature to escape it. In chapter 3, I argue that we can solve the problem if we look at theories of the moral justification of rights. There are two major such theories, the interest theory and the status theory. I outline the interest theory, and argue that it allows for non-consensual but legitimate political institutions. In chapter 4, I describe a Kantian claim about the nature of rights, according to which our rights are fully realised only if there are political institutions. If we accept this thought, then non-consensual political institutions can be legitimate on the status theory as well. In chapter 5, I outline what it means to promote-rather than respect-justice, and argue that the promotion of justice enjoys primacy over other values. At first sight, rationalism appears to have very radical implications, given that it asks us to base legitimacy on justice. In chapter 6, I argue that this impression is mistaken. We should often pursue justice indirectly, for example, through methods which focus on legal validity or democratic procedure rather than justice.
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Reznick, Scott M. ""TheVision of Principles": Liberal Democracy and the Roots of Moral Experience in Antebellum American Literature." Thesis, Boston College, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/2345/bc-ir:107958.
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Thesis advisor: James WallaceThesis advisor: Christopher P. Wilson
This dissertation analyzes the way in which antebellum writers participated in and helped shape the tradition of political liberalism. Emphasizing the dynamics of moral deliberation that are central to democratic life, "The Vision of Principles" puts US literature into conversation with moral and political philosophers not routinely encountered in Americanist literary scholarship to reveal how antebellum US writers routinely responded to moments of profound political conflict by interrogating the nature of moral belief itself. By ranging not only between literature, history, and philosophy, but also across literary forms, from gothic, picaresque, and sentimental novels to slave narratives, essays, and political oratory, this dissertation argues that amidst such textual diversity, we nevertheless find a consistent preoccupation with the individual endeavor for perspective-for vision-into the realm of moral value and moral ideas. It traces that concern as writers responded to three important moments of political conflict in the antebellum era: the debates over the ratification of the Constitution, the "nullification" controversy of the 1830s, and the fallout over the "compromise" of 1850. In doing so, it reconsiders the emergence of American Romanticism and argues that the "inward" turn of U.S. literature towards the self during this era was not an evasion of political life, but an imaginative examination of how individuals come to understand the moral ideas and principles at the heart of political existence
Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2018
Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
Discipline: English
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Cegielski, Susan. "Schleiermacher and the Christian church." Theological Research Exchange Network (TREN), 1989. http://www.tren.com.
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Höglund, Alexander. "Kunskap, ordning och krav : Liberalism och konservatism i Folkpartiets skolpolitik." Thesis, Södertörn University College, Lärarutbildningen, 2006. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-822.
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This paper examines the ideological content of the compulsory school policy of the Swedish Liberal Party. The aim of the study is to investigate whether the Liberal Party does really represent a liberal policy for the compulsory school, or if it is more accurately described as conservative. The analysis is carried through by two separate critical examinations of the Liberal Party motion on school politics to the parliament and the Conservative Party motion on school politics to the parliament respectively. A comparison is then made between the ideological contents of the two documents. The specific party policies are linked to universal definitions of liberalism and conservatism with the help of an analytical tool consistent of a series of educational philosophies. Difference is made between ideologically motivated purposes and concrete policy recommendations in the motion texts.
The results of the ideological content analyses and the comparison show that the compulsory school policy of the Liberal Party can be categorized as conservative, not only vis-à-vis a universal definition of liberalism and conservatism, but also in comparison with the compulsory school policy of the Conservative Party.
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MacDonald, Lindsey Te Ata o. Tu. "The political philosophy of property rights." Thesis, University of Canterbury. Social and Political Sciences, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10092/2270.
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This thesis argues that within political philosophy, property rights deserve closer attention than has been paid to them recently because the legitimacy of a state rests upon their definition and enforcement. In this way property rights differ from the right to liberty or equality. A state may or may not have liberty or equality, but it has no meaning at all if it does not enforce the rights of property. This is not to suggest that normative arguments for property rights are ‘nonsense upon stilts’. Morality may provide many reasons for an individual to exclude other members of a political community from a property. However, the function of property rights is to enforce that exclusion and this suggests that the normative legitimacy of a state is closely bound both to its ability to enforce whatever property rights it already has granted, and its justification of decisions taken when property rights are granted within its borders. My argument is that a proper political philosophy of property rights should acknowledge that a state depends upon its treatment of property rights for justification, not as a matter of justice, but as a matter of its existence.
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Pook, Robert. "Why Rawlsian Liberalism has Failed and How Proudhonian Anarchism is the Solution." University of Toledo / OhioLINK, 2011. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=toledo1304018146.
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Duff, Koshka. "The criminal is political : real existing liberalism and the construction of the criminal." Thesis, University of Sussex, 2018. http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/76011/.
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The familiar irony of ‘real existing socialism' is that it never was. Socialist ideals were used to legitimise regimes that fell far short of realising those ideals – indeed, that violently repressed anyone who tried to realise them. This thesis investigates how the derogatory and depoliticizing concept of the criminal has historically allowed, and continues to allow, liberal ideals to operate in a worryingly similar manner. Across the political spectrum, ‘criminal' is used as a slur. That which is criminal is assumed to be bad, and what is more, to be bad in a way that is not politically interesting. I show how this serves to prevent deep dissent from the status quo, and particularly from the existing, unjust order of property, from registering as dissent at all. Feminists have long argued that the exclusion of what is deemed ‘personal' from the sphere of the political is itself a (conservative) political move. I propose that the construction of ‘the criminal' as a category opposed to the political constitutes a similar barrier to emancipatory social transformation. I suggest, further, that under conditions of ‘real existing liberalism', some kinds of conflict with the law have the potential not only to manifest but also to forge ‘resistant subjectivities'. I conclude that political philosophy, insofar as its purpose is emancipatory, should be more interested in the perspectives of criminals than it hitherto has been.
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Taylor, Anthony David. "Expressing our fallibility : a conception of public reason." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2017. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:7c4b5662-7fa8-4908-a659-5f783c1ff9ad.
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This thesis is about the reasonable agreement principle, a principle which holds that the exercise of political power must be acceptable to all reasonable citizens in order to be morally legitimate. Though this principle has become popular in contemporary political philosophy, it has been formulated and defended in a variety of often conflicting ways. I argue first that a successful defence of the principle will have to meet three conditions. First, it must explain who reasonable citizens are. Second, it must offer a compelling a rationale for tying the legitimacy of the exercise of political power to what these citizens accept. Third, it must show that the rules or principles that would be acceptable to reasonable citizens are not implausible. In the first part of the thesis, I examine some of the most significant ways in which the principle has been formulated and defended, and argue that none meets these three conditions. In the second part of the thesis, I develop an account of the reasonable agreement principle which can meet these three conditions. I argue that reasonable citizens should be understood as agents in circumstances where their powers of moral judgment operate free of distortions, offer an account of what these circumstances consist in, and suggest that a compelling rationale for the principle can be given when they are understood in this way. I then go on to consider what citizens in such circumstances would accept, arguing that they would accept principles of political morality that express a commitment to the fact that they are fallible choosers of their final ends.
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Chin, Clayton. "Pragmatism, liberalism and the conditions of critique : the connection between philosophy and politics in the work of Richard Rorty." Thesis, Queen Mary, University of London, 2012. http://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/xmlui/handle/123456789/8378.
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In the context of a global crisis, it is necessary to ask what are the philosophical limitations of political critique? This thesis addresses this broad question through a critical reading of the work of Richard Rorty and his theorization of the connection between philosophy and politics. Rorty’s philosophy dissociates philosophical questioning and political thinking. Through a critique of foundationalism, Rorty establishes new limits to philosophy which prescribe its involvement in politics. However, the critical literature fails to connect these two aspects. They accept Rorty’s position that his philosophical pragmatism is unconnected to his political liberalism. In contrast, this thesis is a critical account of Rorty’s theorization of the connection between philosophy and politics that explicitly links his pragmatism to his liberalism. It refutes Rorty’s wider philosophical claim from within a reading of his own work. By situating Rorty within his critique of epistemology and his relation to the philosophy of John Dewey, and confronting him with an alternative, ontological line of thinking that runs from the work of Martin Heidegger to that of Herbert Marcuse, this thesis exposes the mechanisms by which Rorty reduces philosophical and political thinking. It reveals that rather than opening thinking and providing a basis for political criticism, Rorty’s political pragmatism restricts thought to the present range of options. What Rorty offers is not a method for cultural change, as he claims, but a self-reinforcing mode of thought for contemporary liberalism. The implications of this analysis exceed Rorty scholarship. Rorty attempts to theorize the implicit assumptions of the liberal West. While he could never exhaust that culture, he does reveal a real set of pragmatic assumptions and justifications for liberal democracy. As such, he offers a opportunity to critically engage a particular form of liberalism that informs much of the dominant discourse about democracy today.
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Reis, Flávio Azevedo. "Da teoria moral à filosofia política: uma investigação do pensamento de John Rawls." Universidade de São Paulo, 2012. http://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/8/8133/tde-11042013-122316/.
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A dissertação investiga a passagem entre dois períodos do pensamento de John Rawls. No livro Uma teoria da justiça e nos artigos publicados durante a década de 1970, Rawls definiu o seu projeto filosófico como uma teoria moral, que visava formular uma teoria inspirada na estrutura deontológica da moral kantiana. Na dissertação, argumenta-se que Rawls identificou um problema interno a esse projeto e, durante as décadas de 80 e 90, desvinculou sua filosofia da teoria moral e passou a orientá-la pelos papéis da filosofia política. Essa reorientação significou uma modificação no modo como ele compreendeu a relação entre sua filosofia e o pensamento de Kant. A dissertação investiga, portanto, as principais características das duas orientações da filosofia de Rawls (teoria moral e papéis da filosofia política), as razões que o levaram a abandonar o projeto da teoria moral e a relação entre a sua filosofia e o pensamento de Kant. Ao fazer isso, pretende-se esclarecer as razões que levaram Rawls a utilizar o construatualismo como inspiração para sua filosofia, o significado que atribuiu ao conceito de deontologia e, também, o papel da cultura política pública na justificação da filosofia de Rawls durante o segundo período de seu pensamento.The dissertation investigates the changes between two periods of John Rawlss philosophy. In A theory of justice and until the late 1970s, he defined his philosophical project as part of a moral theory, that would establish a moral conception inspired by Kantian deontology. One argues that Rawls identified an internal problem in this project and, during the 1980s and 90s, he detached his conception of justice from moral theory and reoriented his efforts by an idea of the roles of political philosophy. This reorientation also meant that Rawls changed the relationship between his philosophy and Kants ethics. Therefore, the dissertation investigates the main characteristics of the two orientations of Rawlss philosophy (moral theory and roles of political philosophy), the reasons that lead him to abandon the project of a moral theory and the relationship between Rawlsian and Kantian philosophies. By doing this, one intends to understand why Rawls used the contractualist tradition as inspiration for his own philosophy, the meaning attributed to the concept of deontology, and the role of public political culture in justifying Rawlss conception of justice during the second phase of his philosophy.