Liberalism, Justice and Cultural Pluralism
Liberalism, Justice and Cultural Pluralism

Summary/Abstract: Classical liberalism as opposed to traditional concepts has established a notion of justice which envisages the equality of individual (negative) freedoms and (tutelary) rights. Under the influence of socialist criticism modern-day liberals have been trying to include within the concept of justice the problem of the distribution of positive freedoms and rights. The already classic attempt of solving this problem is the theory of justice by John Rawls. Rawls defines justice as fairness, whose basic principles are: the equality of basic freedoms of individuals compatible with the freedom of other individuals; the distribution of goods which will most benefit the least privileged; the primacy of freedom over social equality and justice over economic efficiency. In a pluralist society these principles should facilitate the establishment of the “overlapping consensus” among divergent social groups on the issues of the basic social structure. In his attempt to solve the problems of social equality which Rawls’ theory leaves open-ended, Michael Walzer postulates the principle of complex equality which requires different ways of distribution for different types of goods. These types cannot be specified in advance; however, their distribution is the most remarkable skill of liberal politics. Finally, the author claims that the problem of a just political organization of multicultural societies can be solved by applying Rawls’ principle of fairness on the negotiating processes and on achieving consensus among divergent cultural groups on certain issues.

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