Overlapping consensus

Overlapping consensus is a term coined by John Rawls in A Theory of Justice and developed in Political Liberalism. The term overlapping consensus refers to how supporters of different comprehensive normative doctrines—that entail apparently inconsistent conceptions of justice—can agree on particular principles of justice that underwrite a political community's basic social institutions. Comprehensive doctrines can include systems of religion, political ideology, or morality.

Rawls explains that an overlapping consensus on principles of justice can occur despite "considerable differences in citizens' conceptions of justice provided that these conceptions lead to similar political judgements." The groups are able to achieve this consensus in part by refraining from political/public disputes over fundamental (e.g. metaphysical) arguments regarding religion and philosophy. Rawls elaborates that the existence of an overlapping consensus on conceptions of justice among major social groups holding differing—yet reasonable—comprehensive doctrines is a necessary and distinctive characteristic of political liberalism. Rawls also explains that the overlapping consensus on principles of justice is itself a moral conception and is supported by moral reasoning—although the fundamental grounds of this support may differ for each of the various groups holding disparate comprehensive doctrines, and these lines of reasoning may also differ from the public reasons provided for supporting the principles. These latter features distinguish his idea of an overlapping consensus from a mere modus vivendi, which is a strategic agreement entered into for pragmatic purposes, and therefore potentially unprincipled and unstable. The overlapping consensus could in sum be said to "depend, in effect, on there being a morally significant core of commitments common to the 'reasonable' fragment of each of the main comprehensive doctrines in the community".

It has been argued that reasonable forms of religious and moral public education may be agreed by considering which common values and principles may be determined through overlapping consensus between those of otherwise incommensurable comprehensive doctrines (e.g. those of a given religion and secularists).

See also

• Pluralism (political philosophy)
• Public choice
• Public reason

References

Bibliography

• D'Agostino, Fred (2003). "Original Position". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (summer 2003 ed.). Stanford, California: Stanford University. ISSN 1095-5054. Retrieved 10 November 2020.
• Moulin, Dan (2009). "A Too Liberal Religious Education? A Thought Experiment for Teachers and Theorists". British Journal of Religious Education. 31 (2): 153–165. doi:10.1080/01416200802661126. ISSN 0141-6200.
• Moulin, Daniel; Robson, James (2012). "Doing God in a Liberal Democracy". Oxford Review of Education. 38 (5): 539–550. doi:10.1080/03054985.2012.722863. ISSN 0305-4985.
• Rawls, John (1993). Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press.
•  ———  (1999). A Theory of Justice (rev. ed.). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
• Spohn, Ulrike (2019). "From Consensus to Modus Vivendi? Pluralistic Approaches to the Challenge of Moral Diversity and Conflict". In Knoll, Manuel; Snyder, Stephen; Şimsek, Nurdane (eds.). New Perspectives on Distributive Justice: Deep Disagreements, Pluralism, and the Problem of Consensus. Berlin: De Gruyter. pp. 243–258. doi:10.1515/9783110537369-016. ISBN 978-3-11-053736-9.

Further reading

• Martin, Rex (2014). "Overlapping Consensus". In Mandle, Jon; Reidy, David A. (eds.). A Companion to Rawls. Malden, Massachusetts: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 281–296. doi:10.1002/9781118328460.ch16. ISBN 978-1-4443-3710-5.
• Rawls, John (1985). "Justice as Fairness: Political Not Metaphysical". Philosophy & Public Affairs. 14 (3): 223–251. ISSN 1088-4963. JSTOR 2265349.
•  ———  (1987). "The Idea of an Overlapping Consensus". Oxford Journal of Legal Studies. 7 (1): 1–25. ISSN 1464-3820. JSTOR 764257.