Published 2001-11-01
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Abstract
From the point of view of politicalliberalism, one of the main features of "reasonable" people consists in accepting that the firm adhesion to a comprehensive conception of good, the certainty of dealing with a true conception (or, at least, the "best" or most plausible one compared to the available altematives), does not offer a sufficient justification to the intention of promoting it by means of the power of the State. Now, how is this liberal position founded? My aim in this paper is to offer an argument for it. Todo so, I will start analysing sorne aspects of Rawls' conception of "reasonable person" and the difficulties derived from this conception, particularly enlightened by the objections formulated to it by Leif Wenar and Eduardo Rivera López. I will propose an altemative argument to the presented ones, departing from two premises: 1) a political principie of equality and free consensus and 2) a practical interpretation (neither epistemological as conceived by Wenar, Rivera López and Barry, nor sociological as in Mulhall and Swift) of the burdens of judgement.