Sublime

Recentrant son propos sur le politique, il s’agit de démontrer que la meilleure organisation publique est celle qui laisse à chacun la liberté de croire, de penser et de s’exprimer.

ancient theories of justice start with virtue, while modern theories start with freedom.

For Rawls, a just society is one in which we can “face one another openly,” in the sense that we can offer a justification to one another for the way society is organized, including to the least well off.

Now consider a thought experiment: Suppose that when we gather to choose the principles, we don’t know where we will wind up in society. Imagine that we choose behind a “veil of ignorance” that temporarily prevents us from knowing anything about who in particular we are. We don’t know our class or gender, our race or ethnicity, our political opinio

Under democratic socialism, we are committed to sharing the socially necessary labor time, but also to reducing it as much as possible through technological innovation. Based on our different abilities, we participate in the social labor that we recognize as necessary for the common good (food production, construction, health care, childcare, educa

As citizens, he argued, we need two essential moral “powers” or “capacities.” First, the “capacity for a conception of the good”—in other words, the ability to reflect on and pursue our own idea of how we want to live. Second, the “capacity for a sense of justice”—the ability to form our own view about how we should organize society, and to coopera

Liberty is not freedom from obligations or freedom for selfish interests but a freedom of care for oneself and for others. Individual fulfilment based on personal autonomy has to be balanced with mutual flourishing. Equality is not sameness but a respect for the basic and integral dignity of everyone: their body, mind and soul.

Rosanvallon offers three paths toward legitimacy, both for democratic and for counter-democratic institutions. First, an institution is legitimate if it enjoys majority support. This reads as an extension of electoral democracy: if the majority of people voted for a candidate, she should hold office; if a similar majority believe in a free and inde