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SAINT JOHN

could accept when these obligations have been so diligently, carefully, judiciously, sensi-
bly, and painstakingly observed by Rawls himself—and this thought may be accompanied
by a feeling of shame at perhaps not being worthy. Alternatively, the thought may arise
that one ought not to make ‘‘unreasonable’’ rebukes to a decent and ‘‘reasonable’’ inter-
locutor such as Rawls—a thought accompanied, perhaps, by a feeling of guilt by any
reader tempted in this direction. While the conversational style ofPolitical Liberalism,in
particular, should be kept distinct from what one imagines the parties to the original
position to be doing in their conversation, and Rawls’s remarks on moral psychology
should be kept distinct from either of these conversations, Rawls violates these distinc-
tions rhetorically as much as he defends them argumentatively, and these are strategic
violations, not errors. Keen-sighted analytical philosophers such as Bernard Williams have
long noticed this slippage between levels of argumentation, but, because they have failed
to concern themselves with the rhetorical functions of Rawls’s texts, they have responded
to such maneuvers only by crying foul or faulting them as mistakes and lapses in rigor,
rather than acknowledging them as part of an efficacious technique.^47
Recall the three levels of deliberation announced inPolitical Liberalism: carried on
(1) by the representative figures imagined in the original position, (2) by the ideal citizens
of the theoretically constructed, well-ordered society, and (3) by us, that is, John Rawls,
you, and me, citizens of the world as we know it, who on the occasion of confronting a
text such asPolitical Liberalismare meant to be engaged in a discussion about the proper
conception of political justice.^48 Where these distinctions cross is precisely where Rawls’s
argument gains its force, when it does. Everything, for Rawls, depends upon one’s willing-
ness to be reasonable, and to be reasonable in a particular sense of the word, meaning
primarily to make judgments in accordance with the criterion of reciprocity, that is, to
propose and accept only principles that strike oneself and one’s interlocutors as fair. I
would claim that the rhetorical genius of Rawls’s conversational prose is to inclineour
discussion, which takes place at the third level, to proceed in ‘‘reasonable’’ terms, where
‘‘reasonable’’ is understood in the sense given within the first two levels of deliberation,
and to do so without our yet having explicitly accepted these terms. To accept these terms
explicitly, we must already be reasonably inclined, and being reasonably inclined consists
precisely in expressly accepting these terms as the ones that best describe this inclination.
This, of course, recalls the condition of Rousseau’s paradox of politics, and the measure
of Rawls’s saintliness is the extent to which he has, by mobilizing disavowed and largely
unrecognized rhetorical modes, managed to negotiate this paradox. Put in other terms,
the miracle of Rawlsianism lies in its subtle renegotiation of the registers of reason and
faith.
Although, Rawls says, philosophy and logic cannot coerce us, he admits that they
might leave us ‘‘feeling coerced.’’ This is a fantastic distinction to make. Here is Rawls’s
precise formulation: ‘‘Political philosophy cannot coerce our considered convictions any
more than the principles of logic can. If we feel coerced, it may be because, when we

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