Political Liberalism

This book continues and revises the ideas of justice as fairness that John Rawls presented in A Theory of Justice but changes its philosophical interpretation in a fundamental way. That previous work argued that a "well-ordered society" is possible, one that is stable and relatively homogenous in its basic moral beliefs. Yet in modern democratic society, a multitude of incompatible and irreconcilable doctrines - religious, philosophical, and moral - coexist within the framework of democratic institutions.
Recognizing this as a permanent condition of democracy, Rawls asks how a stable and just society of free and equal citizens can live in concord when divided by reasonable but incompatible doctrines. His answer is based on a reconceiving of a "well-ordered society." It is no longer regarded as a society united in its basic moral beliefs but instead in its political conception of justice. Justice as fairness is now presented as an example of such a political conception ; that it can be the focus of an overlapping consensus means that it can be endorsed by the main religious, philosophical, and moral doctrines that endure over time in a well-ordered society.
Such a consensus, Rawls believes, represents the most likely social unity available in a constitutional democratic regime. This edition includes the essay "The Idea of Public Reason Revisited," which outlines Rawls's plan to revise Political Liberalism, cut short by his death.