公共辩护的摇摆性——罗尔斯政治自由主义转向的内在困境

On the Vacillations of Public Justification

不少学者试图从公共辩护的视角捍卫罗尔斯从《正义论》到《政治自由主义》的转向。这种辩护有双重任务,一是在多元主义事实的前提下获得稳定性,二是不想放弃普遍性。为完成此双重任务,公共辩护使用的理性观是有争议的康德式实践理性观,由此出现了三个方面的摇摆性。第一,其达成标准摇摆于实然同意与应然同意之间;第二,它对公民道德能力的设定摇摆于高(为了优于一般辩护)与低(为了稳定性)之间;第三,其对多元主义合情理性的认定也是摇摆不定的:根据形成观念的过程,根据观念的持有者和根据观念的内容。困境的根源可能在于反思平衡方法,它要求纳入人们根深蒂固的直觉,而各种直觉之间经常是有冲突的。

Many scholars try to defend the Rawlsian turn from A Theory of Justice to Political Liberalism from the perspective of public justification.This justification has dual tasks.On the one hand,it is to obtain stability with the facts of pluralism.On the other hand,it doesn’t want to give up its universality.Moreover,this justification is based on the controversial Kantian concept of practical reason and consequently results in vacillations in three basic aspects.First,it is not certain whether the actual agreement or reasonable agreement of ordinary citizens gives the justification;Second,it adopts inconsistent presuppositions about the moral capabilities of citizens;Third,it is not clear for us how to determine whether pluralism is reasonable.And these problems are probably resulted from the method of reflective equilibrium adopted by Rawls.According to it,we have to accommodate all kinds of deep-rooted intuitions of ordinary people which are often incoherent.