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 Fred Speaking

Current speaker But even if you can offer some considerations that support your ideal, you will never convince everyone to accept it. Probably no one can do that. Rawls said in his book Political Liberalism that under conditions of freedom there will always be fundamental disagreements over metaphysical and moral principles. In other words, there would always be a clash of what he called "comprehensive doctrines."

If you can't convince everyone to accept your ideal, how can you justify using government to enforce it and the institutions based on it? One of those institutions would be a system of property rights. I understand that. But why should anyone see that system of property rights as anything more than theft in the form of government transfer payments if they reject your social ideal? Why not see it the way libertarians do; namely, as robbing Peter to give to Paul?

The beauty of contractarianism for secular people is that it posits a hypothetical agreement. That's one way to justify moral obligation. But how do YOU show that those who reject your ideal are obliged to accept its consequences?



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