Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 November 2009
We have seen in earlier chapters of this book some ways in which contemporary pluralism raises problems for policymakers and practitioners. It is often experienced not so much as healthy diversity, but as fragmentation of a sort which seems to obscure the necessary guidelines and norms. We found people of integrity and insight complaining about ‘moral vacuums’, about the problems which arise when nobody knows what justice is, about sudden and inadequately justified reversals of ideology. At the theoretical level we found a diversity of incompatible world-views and theories of justice on offer, and we noted that attempts to base theory and policy on a consensus are fragile because consensus seems today to be rather thin and temporary. But even if we agree that something richer and more robust than a Rawlsian consensus is needed at the heart of things if we are to have a healthy social life, it is difficult to see how the religious beliefs of a minority, however strongly held, can be constructively deployed for the good of society as a whole.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.