I just came from a public lecture given by Ronald Dworkin, based on his new book. I thought it was an interesting argument that we need to engage in argument with each other, seeing those with different opinions as people to defeat rather than rivals to be overcome. I'm not sure how new what he was saying differs from deliberative democrats or political liberals (though he claimed to differ from Rawls' public reason because he thinks people can argue from within comprehensive conceptions, this was limited by a belief we share underlying principles that each person is of equal intrinsic worth and has their own life to lead)
UPDATE: A longer account is given by Colin Farrelly.
"this was limited by a belief we share underlying principles that each person is of equal intrinsic worth and has their own life to lead..."
ReplyDeleteThat sounds like the free and equal moral agents stuff that Rawls packs into public reason to me. Bah.