Review article
RAWLS VS. KANT
Zvonko Posavec
; Faculty of Political Science, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The author describes the spiritual climate at the time of the publication of Rawls’ A Theory of Justice (1971) and describes its huge impact on the political philosophy of the 20th century. Then he analyses Rawls’ acknowledgement of Kant. First he depicts Rawls’ formulation of his original position along the lines of Kant’s idea of the autonomy of the individual and the categorical imperative. There might be some problems with the possible convergence of Rawls’ economism and Kant’s moral position. According to Rawls, the original position parties may express their nature, but at the same time they belong to the intelligible world. Raws has tried to overcome this divergence from Kant’s concept in his paper Kantian Constructivism in Moral Theory by means of distinguishing between the rational and the full autonomy, from which the author concludes that Rawls was inclined to adopt a certain version of utilitarianism. According to the author, Rawls’ attempt to bridge Kant’s rigorous distinction between the law and the morality by means of his sense of justice is entirely alien to Kant. Hence there is an unbridgable chasm between Kant and Rawls, which does not mean that Rawls’ attempt at using Kant’s categories in the design of democratic societies is insufficiently legitimate.
Keywords
Kant; morality; law; Rawls; justice; autonomy
Hrčak ID:
22651
URI
Publication date:
23.5.2005.
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