O aplicaţie a conceptului de posibilitate în disputa dintre liberalism şi comunitarianism
One Application of the Concept of Possibility to the Liberal/Communitarian Debate (1st part)

Summary/Abstract: The main aim of this paper is to show that, unless the modal character of Rawls's assertions concerning natural endowments is considered, communitarian criticisms against the alleged coherence of the way in which the difference principle is justified cannot be rejected. This claim contains two suggestions. Firstly, that both Pogge 's distinction between a general concept of desert and a moral desert, and Rawls's distinction between “political" and „metaphysical" are not effective in answering Sandel's objections. Secondly, that the strengthened version of Sandel’s critique against the Rawlsian concept of person — implicitly presupposed by the difference principle — can be rejected only if one interprets his arguments in modal terms. This paper argues for these suggestions and offers the means by which one could validly sustain the coherent character of Rawls 's justification of difference principle.

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