Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Abbreviations for Rawls’s texts
- Introduction
- A
- B
- C
- D
- E
- F
- G
- H
- I
- J
- K
- L
- 109 Law of Peoples
- 110 Law, system of
- 111 Least-advantaged position
- 112 Legitimacy
- 113 Legitimate expectations
- 114 Leibniz, G. W.
- 115 Leisure
- 116 Lexical priority: liberty, opportunity, wealth
- 117 Liberal conception of justice
- 118 Liberal people
- 119 Liberalism as comprehensive doctrine
- 120 Liberalism, comprehensive vs. political
- 121 Libertarianism
- 122 Liberty, equal worth of
- 123 Liberty of conscience
- 124 Locke, John
- 125 Love
- 126 Luck egalitarianism
- M
- N
- O
- P
- R
- S
- T
- U
- W
- Bibliography
- Index
120 - Liberalism, comprehensive vs. political
from L
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2015
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Abbreviations for Rawls’s texts
- Introduction
- A
- B
- C
- D
- E
- F
- G
- H
- I
- J
- K
- L
- 109 Law of Peoples
- 110 Law, system of
- 111 Least-advantaged position
- 112 Legitimacy
- 113 Legitimate expectations
- 114 Leibniz, G. W.
- 115 Leisure
- 116 Lexical priority: liberty, opportunity, wealth
- 117 Liberal conception of justice
- 118 Liberal people
- 119 Liberalism as comprehensive doctrine
- 120 Liberalism, comprehensive vs. political
- 121 Libertarianism
- 122 Liberty, equal worth of
- 123 Liberty of conscience
- 124 Locke, John
- 125 Love
- 126 Luck egalitarianism
- M
- N
- O
- P
- R
- S
- T
- U
- W
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Comprehensive liberalism, for Rawls, refers to comprehensive doctrines with distinctly liberal content. Taking these two elements in turn, comprehensive doctrines are more or less complete worldviews, whether religious, philosophical, moral, or metaphysical. Comprehensive views include “conceptions of what is of value in human life, and ideals of human character, as well as ideals of friendship and of familial and associational relationships, and much else that informs our conduct” – including “nonpolitical conduct” – “and in the limit … our life as a whole” (PL 13). And by liberal, Rawls is referring to a historical tradition of moral, political, and philosophical thought, whose constituent views share in some distinctive features of their understandings of morality, its psychology and epistemology, and associated ideals of government and politics. Historically, Rawls understands the liberal tradition to originate in the aftermath of the Reformation where the resulting religious pluralism and religious wars led to discussions of and struggles for tolerance and liberties of thought and conscience. This tradition extends up to the present day, through the revolutionary, constitutional, and democratic taming of monarchical authority by rising middle classes, and the extension of majority rule and suffrage eventually to working classes, women, and people of all ethnicities (LHPP 11; PL, xxii–xxx, xxxviii–xxxix,159; JF 1, 192–193; LHMM 5–7).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Rawls Lexicon , pp. 447 - 451Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2014