Prozedurale Theorien der Gerechtigkeit - servat.unibe.ch

keit geführt werden, soweit die Diskussion konstitutionelle Kernpunkte und Fragen
grundlegender Gerechtigkeit betrifft 395 .
Jede politische Konzeption der Gerechtigkeit, die geeignet sein soll, alle drei Bedingungen
des politischen Liberalismus zu erfüllen, muß nach Rawls drei charakteristische
Eigenschaften aufweisen 396 . Erstens ist sie eine moralische Konzeption (moral
conception) für die Grundstruktur einer Gesellschaft, d.h. eine solche, die die Gerechtigkeit
von politischen, sozialen und ökonomischen Institutionen zum Gegenstand
hat 397 . Zweitens ist sie eine freistehende Konzeption (freestanding view), d.h. sie ist unabhängig
von umfassenden Doktrinen (z.B. Religionen, Weltanschauungen, Lebenspläne)
398 und in ihrem Anwendungsbereich auf die Grundstruktur (basic structure)
beschränkt 399 . Drittens schliesslich werden ihre Inhalte in den Ausdrucksformen der
Hintergrundkultur (public political culture) einer demokratischen Gesellschaft beschrieben
400 .
b) Die Schlüsselstellung des übergreifenden Konsenses
In der Vielzahl neuer und alter Theoriebausteine nimmt der übergreifende Konsens
(overlapping consensus), verbunden mit der Idee der freistehenden Konzeption (freestanding
view), eine methodische Schlüsselstellung ein, die sich wie eine kopernikani-
395 J. Rawls, Political Liberalism (1993), S. 44: »[T]hird, public discussion, when constitutional essentials
and questions of basic justice are at stake, is conducted in terms of the political conception of
justice.«
396 J. Rawls, Political Liberalism (1993), S. 11: »[A] political conception of justice has three characteristic
features, each of which is exemplified by justice as fairness«.
397 J. Rawls, Political Liberalism (1993), S. 11: »The first concerns the subject of a political conception.
While such a conception is, of course, a moral conception, it is a moral conception worked out for
a specific kind of subject, namely, for political, social, and economic institutions.«
398 Vgl. die Definition der umfassenden Doktrin bei J. Rawls, Political Liberalism (1993), S. 13: »A moral
conception ... is comprehensive when it includes conceptions of what is of value in human life,
and ideals of personal character, as well as ideals of friendship and of familial and associational
relationships, and much else that is to inform our conduct, and in the limit to our life as a whole.
... a conception is partly comprehensive when it comprises a number of, but by no means all, nonpolitical
values and virtues«.
399 J. Rawls, Political Liberalism (1993), S. 10: »Political liberalism, then, aims for a political conception
of justice as a freestanding view. It offers no specific metaphysical or epistemological doctrine
beyond what is implied by the political conception itself. As an account of political values, a freestanding
political conception does not deny there being other values that apply, say, to the personal,
the familial, and the associational; nor does it say that political values are separate from, or
discontinuous with, other values.«; S. 13: »the distinction between a political conception of justice
and other moral conceptions is a matter of scope: that is, the range of subjects to which a conception
applies ... [it] is general if it applies to a wide range of subjects ... It is comprehensive when it
includes conceptions of what is of value in human life ... [it] is fully comprehensive if it covers all
recognized values and virtues within one rather precisely articulated system«. Vgl. auch S. 30:
»Citizens usually have both political and nonpolitical aims and commitments.« Zum Metaphysikbegriff
siehe oben S. 42, Fn. 84.
400 J. Rawls, Political Liberalism (1993), S. 13 f.: »The third feature of a political conception of justice is
that its content is expressed in terms of certain fundamental ideas seen as implicit in the public
political culture of a democratic society. ... what we may call the 'background culture' of civil society.«
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