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  John Speaking
SpeakerLet me go a step further and throw out an idea that I have been thinking about lately. I'm not sure that I believe this, but it's an interesting thought.

If Rawls is right, there will always be basic disagreements among the citizens of a free society. There will always be a number of what he called "comprehensive doctrines." Now Rawls thought that all of the "reasonable" comprehensive doctrines could agree on a core of principles that he called political liberalism. I'm not so sure that's true.

The idea I want to put forward is this: All of the adherents to comprehensive doctrines that fall within a very broadly defined political humanism have a right to substantial concessions to their point of view. To put it differently, there is a duty to compromise on the part of all those who adhere to what we might call humanistic comprehensive doctrines.

And I want to be clear that I am not going to define "humanistic" in such a way as to limit it to people who agree with my comprehensive doctrine. There is a left-wing humanism, a right-wing humanism, Christian humanism, Jewish humanism, Islamic humanism, and so on. The important thing is that all these forms of humanism agree on some core values which I would very tentatively list as follows:

          • All citizens have the same basic moral and legal rights.
          • All citizens deserve the equal concern of their government.
          • All citizens have the same inherent worth or value.
          • The welfare of each citizen has the same importance for public policy.


Within this broadly defined political humanism, there will be different views on government and policy. There will be those who want minimal government. There will be those who want a sizable welfare state. My claim is that each of these views has a right to compromise and concession from the others in political matters.

This means that the proper approach to differences is NOT to cobble together a majority of 51% and then hammer through one's political program. Whenever possible, there is a duty to compromise.

That's my answer to the question "How should we live with each other?"
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