Anti Perfectionism in Polit Theory, Embraced by Rols

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He thinks that we would choose two basic principles, and then all our civil liberties and ideas about how government should be organized will be based on these principles. One is that we should all have the maximum liberty consistent with a like liberty for all. The other is that inequalities in society are tolerable only to the extent that his efforts to eradicate those inequalities or ameliorate them would actually hurt the worst off people in society. But he's certainly right that whatever principles would be chosen in the artificial conditions of the original position would be fair in ta sense that they wouldn't be unfair.

Robert P. George is an American legal scholar and political philosopher. The McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University, George is considered one of the foremost conservative intellectuals in America, and advocates a theory of natural law consistent with Catholic belief. With Cornel West, he authored a statement on “Truth Seeking, Democracy, and Freedom of Thought and Expression.”

In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Robert P. George discuss the political philosophy of John Rawls, why democratic republics can’t function without free speech, and what relevance the first principles of conservatism do or don't retain today.

This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.

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