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Rawls, Political Liberalism, and Moral Virtues
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For example, the authors argues that moral virtues, especially the political virtues, are derived independently of comprehensive doctrines and are, rather, essential requirements of human practical reason and reasonableness.Abstract:
The argument of this dissertation is that John Rawls, although primarily concerned with social and political justice, and not with virtue ethics, gives a major place and role to the moral virtues in his theory of political liberalism, as in all of his system of justice as fairness. Some philosophers, mostly of the Aristotelian-Aquinian traditions, have generally lamented what they regard as the abandonment of the moral virtues by modern and contemporary, liberal, moral philosophers. The liberals, the critics claim, turn instead to the principles of justice and right, and to the language of moral obligations and of human rights. This perception of contemporary, liberal, moral philosophy as a rejection or marginalization of the virtues of character affects their readings of Rawls's works.
Contrary to these critics, I argue that Rawls sees the moral virtues as crucially important in a liberal, democratic, political society. He clearly includes the virtues among the conceptions or the forms of the good in his major works, especially A Theory of Justice and Political liberalism. But his approach, the structure of his practical reasoning, I argue, is in some ways different from those of his Aristotelian opponents because he stands in the Kantian tradition of ethical thought.
Rawls argues that moral virtues, especially the political virtues, are derived independently of comprehensive doctrines. They are, rather, essential requirements of human practical reason and reasonableness. And while presupposing the self-oriented virtues, Rawls pays more attention to the social-political virtues. Defining the virtues, generally, as good and stable qualities of character necessary for adherence to the principles of justice and right in a well-ordered society of justice as fairness, he sums them all up in what he calls "the sense of justice." In Rawls's works, both "the principles" and "the sense" of justice are two sides of the same coin: they are two interwoven dimensions of our moral nature, and are together required for mora-political consensus, social cooperation, unity, and stability.read more
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In a Different Voice. Psychological Theory and Women’s Development. Cambridge, MA (Harvard University Press) 1982.
Abstract: Introduction 1. Woman's Place in Man's Life Cycle 2. Images of Relationship 3. Concepts of Self and Morality 4. Crisis and Transition 5. Women's Rights and Women's Judgment 6. Visions of Maturity References Index of Study Participants General Index
Journal Article
Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy
Journal ArticleDOI
The morality of freedom
TL;DR: The idea of speculative reason has been used to resist the moral concept of freedom of choice for a long time as discussed by the authors, and to attack the moral concepts of freedom and, if possible, render it suspect.
References
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Justice and the Politics of Difference
TL;DR: Young as mentioned in this paper argues that normative theory and public policy should undermine group-based oppression by affirming rather than suppressing social group difference, and argues for a principle of group representation in democratic publics and for group-differentiated policies.
In a Different Voice. Psychological Theory and Women’s Development. Cambridge, MA (Harvard University Press) 1982.
Abstract: Introduction 1. Woman's Place in Man's Life Cycle 2. Images of Relationship 3. Concepts of Self and Morality 4. Crisis and Transition 5. Women's Rights and Women's Judgment 6. Visions of Maturity References Index of Study Participants General Index
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Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss the conflicts of modernity and modernity's relationship with the self in moral space and the providential order of nature, and present a list of the main sources of conflict.
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Between Facts and Norms
TL;DR: In Between Facts and Norms as discussed by the authors, Jurgen Habermas works out the legal and political implications of his Theory of Communicative Action (1981), bringing to fruition the project announced with his publication of The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere in 1962.
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Women and Human Development: The Capabilities Approach
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss the role of religion in women's empowerment in international development and defend universal values of love, care, and dignity in the context of women empowerment.