Political Liberalism and Public Reason: An Approach to John Rawls from the Theory of the Natural Law

The paper explores John Rawls's idea of public reason, as reflected in Political Liberalism and The Idea of Public Reason Revisited. In Rawls's later works, public reason acquires fundamental significance as a criterion by which the principles to be assumed from the outset in a theory of political justice may be determined. The starting-point for Rawls's theory - the idea of citizens as free and equal reveals-that this abstraction falls short of an authentic conception of human beings as social by nature. A brief study of key issues concerning marriage and the family shows the difficulties that underlie this question. The paper also offers a concise overview of some of the principles of Natural Law Theory. In this context, a theory of political liberalism and justice might be upheld by drawing natural law and public reason into close correlation, thus safeguarding the substantive human goods necessary in society.