Rule of Law Program

The Political Theory of John Rawls
May 17-20, 2007
Castle Neuwaldegg, Vienna

The Neuwaldegg Institute is pleased to announce our upcoming conference “The Political Theory  of John Rawls”, scheduled for May 17-20, 2007 in Vienna. The conference will feature Dr. Russell Hittinger, Professor of Religion and Law at the University of Tulsa, and Dr. Michael Pakaluk, Professor of Philosophy at Clark University in Massachusetts.

The conference will explore the political philosophy of John Rawls, the prominent political scientist and author of the influential book A Theory of Justice. Rawls’ notion of “public reason” served as the basic principle for his theory of a just political order and continues to be a paradigm for many political philosophers today. Essentially, Rawls is concerned with two ideas: political society, as a distinct form of human association; and civic friendship, as a distinct form of resolving disputes.

Rawls firmly belongs to the tradition of modern political philosophy, in particular contractarianism, familiar from Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau. For Rawls, the crucial question is: What are the fair terms of cooperation for the political association of free and equal citizens? Rawls developed a theory called “political liberalism” which defined the state in a political (that is, pragmatist), rather than metaphysical way. According to Rawls, in a pluralist society we can arrive at common principles of justice, but the arguments to justify these principles are diverse. The conference will investigate whether Rawls’ theory is consistent and tenable.