John Rawls ja kommunitaristit:

Kiista oikeudenmukaisuuden perusteista

Kirjoittajat

• Sirkku Hellsten

Abstrakti

John Rawls’s influental Theory of Justice (1971) revived political philosophy and put the issue of distributive justice and individual rights back on the agenda. In the beginning of the 1980’s Rawls’s neo-Kantian, deontological liberalism was cleverly challenged by communitarian critics. The debate between liberalism and communitarianism became one of the most important issues of modern political philosophy. The main argument in this fascinating debate involves the foundations of justice and other moral principles. Communitarians dismiss the absolutism, universalism and individualism in liberal political theory. On the other hand they themselves seem to look for a universal Aristotelian telos, or meaning, from which the principles of justice could be derived. Communitarians reject, as false premises of liberalism, the priority of right over the good and the image of an autonomous, rational individual who can choose his own values. Communitarians also claim that liberal premises of state neutrality give rise to morally unsatisfactory consequences, such as egoism and fragmented societies. For its part, however, communitarian emphasis on communal values and the common good can easily lead to political conservatism, totalitarianism or moral relativism. And thus communitarian criticism can lead to its own demise. The debate between liberalism and communitarianism is partly misconceived due to their methodologically incompatible premises. Communitarianism does not criticize just liberalism but it also criticizes contemporary political theory and the idealization of rationality in general. Therefore liberalism and communitarianism are not opposite or even rival political approaches; rather they seem to be doomed to circle within each other’s frames without directly integrating into one political theory