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A More Democratic Overlapping Consensus: On Rawls and Reasonable Pluralism

The fact of pluralism generates what appears to be a dichotomous choice for those seeking to develop and justify a conception of justice for a democratic society: A moral rigorist approach would ignore the pluralism of ethical, religious, and philosophical views and insist on standards of justice untainted by the demands of pluralism. But pluralism is a permanent, and perhaps attractive, feature of democratic societies that should not be ignored. Moreover, the rigorist approach fails to solve the problem of doctrinal compatibility – namely, that there is often a gap between what justice demands and what human beings regard themselves as having reason to do. By contrast, a more pragmatic approach would adjust principles of justice to accommodate pluralism thereby ensuring that they play a role in practical political life. But while accommodating pluralism might solve the problem of doctrinal compatibility, a pragmatist approach risks making concessions to unattractive and objectionable features of determinate worldviews. The challenge is to find some alternative to the moral rigorist and pragmatist options. How can we accommodate pluralism without giving up on the normative and critical value of a shared conception of justice? Rawls offers an approach to pluralism which relies on the idea of an overlapping consensus of reasonable comprehensive doctrines. In a well-ordered society a ‘publicly recognized conception of justice establishes a shared point of view from which citizens’ claims on society can be adjudicated’ (Rawls, 1996: 35). His hope is that those who endorse different comprehensive doctrines can reach an overlapping consensus on a shared conception of justice and thereby accommodate reasonable pluralism. An overlapping consensus obtains when citizens with different, albeit reasonable, comprehensive doctrines endorse the conception for reasons which they find within their own comprehensive doctrines. If achieved, an overlapping consensus would solve the problem of doctrinal compatibility and it would ensure that a democratic society has a shared conception of justice to which all can appeal in political discourse.