Rawls on a Mountain? Cover Image

Rawls na planini
Rawls on a Mountain?

Author(s): Zoran Kurelić
Subject(s): Constitutional Law, Political Theory, Politics and law
Published by: Fakultet političkih znanosti u Zagrebu
Keywords: Rawls; Rawls’ theory of justice; Michael Walzer; Spheres of Justice; communitarian critique;

Summary/Abstract: The author describes the communitarian critique of Rawls, mostly that by Michael Walzer in the book Spheres of Justice. The main communitarian objection to Rawls’ theory of justice is that it is objectivistic and thus a modern variant of Platonism. Contrary to this attitude, Walzer insists on the theory of justice which takes as its starting point particular values of a society or culture, and tries to formulate a critique of the American society as a community subject to “market imperialism ”. The response by Rawls and other liberals to the communitarian critique has proved that his theory is neither Platonic, transcendentally Kantian nor abstractly objectivistic. Rawls and liberals are aware that their principles of justice have come into being within a specific European tradition of democratic constitutionalism, but that those principles aspire towards achieving universality, at least in those communities that are willing to accept a democratic constitutional system.

  • Issue Year: XXXI/1994
  • Issue No: 02
  • Page Range: 183-192
  • Page Count: 10
  • Language: Croatian