Justice as fairness, progress and perfection
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.22370/rhv2020iss15pp21-40Keywords:
liberalism, perfectionism, progress, politicsAbstract
In this article I analyze the justification of rawlsian anti-perfectionism, present in both A Theory of Justice and Political Liberalism. My aim is to show how justice as fairness, Rawls's conception of justice, lacks stability because of it. As an alternative to his anti-perfectionism, I propose, in the second part, the idea of progress as practical perfectionism by John Dewey. I argue that a perfectionist liberalism of this kind does not undermine reasonable pluralism as Rawls argued. Also I argue that it is indispensable to establish a liberal society that is stable. In the end, I briefly show how the private sphere could be affected once the idea of progress is part of a conception of liberal justice.
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