Autonomy, constructivism and public reason: John Rawls’s Appropriation of Kant.

Abstract

In order to think about the reactualization of classic authors of philosophyas a way of face the challenge of contemporary democracy and of politicalthought, the present article intends to expose an interpretation by John Rawlsfrom aspects of Kant’s practical philosophy. Three concepts are particularly importantin this articulation between Kantian philosophy and the Rawlsian project ofa normative justification of political liberalism: the conception of autonomousmoral persons, the normative grounds anchored in a Kantian procedure ofconstruction, and the idea of public reason that guides the rational deliberationof citizens in a constitutional democracy. We intend to investigate if the claim ofa normative justification based on the impartial moral point of view and representedby the procedure of construction can be maintained together with thenecessity of considering the justification of the principles of political liberalismas derived from fundamental intuitive ideas regarded as latent in the public politicalculture as well.