117 - Liberal conception of justice

Summary

Liberal conceptions of justice form a particular class of political conceptions of justice and should not be confused with liberal comprehensive views, which do not limit their positions to the domain of the political(PL xlvi). Political conceptions are those articulated as freestanding from the controversial claims of comprehensive doctrines, limited in focus to the political domain, and expounded using the shared, intuitive ideas from a democracy’s political culture (PL 11–15, 376, 452–453). According to Rawls, it is from among a family of reasonable, liberal political conceptions of justice that the most reasonable conception of political justice for a democratic regime will be found –one that can meet with an overlapping consensus of citizens’ reasonable comprehensive doctrines (PL 156–157, 167–168).

Liberal political conceptions of justice have three major defining features(PL xlvi–xlvii, 6, 156–157, 223, 375, 450–451; LHPP 12). First, they articulate a list of fundamental rights, specifying freedoms and opportunities familiar to citizens of modern democratic societies: freedoms of speech, thought, conscience, press, movement, and assembly; rights of personal integrity (e.g. freedom from serfdom and slavery); political liberties (e.g. the right to vote and opportunities to run for office); and rights associated with the rule of law (e.g. rights to due process and a fair trial) (PL 291, 334–335; JF 44; LHPP 12). Second, liberal conceptions of justice must accord special priority to this framework of rights vis-à-vis other, sometimes competing, values, in part by holding these rights up as democratic constitutional essentials (PL 227–230, 363–368; JF 46–50). These liberties are granted an absolute precedence: they cannot be outweighed by other goods such as the value of promoting the greatest public welfare or perfectionist ideals of society or citizenry (PL 294–295). Third, liberal conceptions articulate measures to assure all citizens, regardless of socioeconomic status, suitable, general-purpose resources (primary goods or something suitably like them (PL 176–190)) to effectively and thoughtfully exercise the freedoms and opportunities accorded by their basic rights.