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Rawlsian Objectivity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 January 2019

C. M. MELENOVSKY
C. M. MELENOVSKY*
Affiliation:
SUFFOLK [email protected]
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Abstract

In a 1981 letter to H .L. A. Hart, John Rawls sketches a view of moral objectivity that substantially differs from that of contemporary constructivists. The view he describes does not rely on constitutive features of agency as Korsgaard's does, and it does not bottom out in a form of realism as Scanlon's moral theory does. Instead, Rawls's view grounds objectivity on the fundamental conceptions that could be shared in wide reflective equilibrium. Constructivism grounds objectivity in a kind of intersubjectivity, and Rawls finds the relevant kind of intersubjectivity in the alignment between fundamental convictions. This article develops this Rawlsian view of objectivity and highlights its strengths.

Keywords

John Rawlsmoral objectivityconstructivismrelativismconstitutivism
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the American Philosophical Association , Volume 4 , Issue 4 , Winter 2018 , pp. 545 - 564
Copyright
Copyright © American Philosophical Association 2018 

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