The Nature of Political Theory

162 The Nature of Political Theory

practices, which he calls maximal morality, precedes universal minimal morality. In
fact, the minimal is abstracted from the maximal (Walzer 1994b: 13). Overall, the thin
universalism is regarded as reiterative. However, it still acknowledges that, subject to
minimal universal constraints, there are many different and equally valuable ways
of life that have an equivalent right to flourish within their respective locations (see
Walzer in McMurrin (ed.) 1988: 22). Walzer thus essentially wishes to hold onto the
communitarian claim of cultural or communal difference, while at the same time,
adhering to a thin universalism. Walzer has to walk a fine path here.His earlier con-
ception of the role of the political theorist does make a clear distinction between the
theorist who purports to climb a mountain, moving outside society, as against the
theorist as, what he calls, the ‘connected critic’, who interprets the lives of fellow cit-
izens from within a community. For Walzer, in this latter piece, the connected critic
appears to be the only way forward. We cannot simply walk out of a way of life and
try to find a universal foundation (see Walzer 1983: xv). We need to look within our
own community and culture to find our most secure foundation. Yet, for Walzer, this
culture does still contain the trace of thin universals.

Political Liberalism

One effect of this broad communitarian critique has been considerable heart search-
ing in the camp of procedural liberalism. Whether one regards the communitarian
critique as cogent or not, it certainly caused a subtle shift in Rawls’ own work. How
large or how significant that shift is open to debate. On one level, Rawls’ political
liberalism is a response to the arguments raised by communitarianism. However, at
the same time, it is also a somewhat fatalistic recognition of the problem of pluralism.
In the later work of Rawls, it is noticeable that the whole tone becomes altogether
more pessimistic. The early confident use of justice theory—even more confident
in Rawls’ acolytes such as Barry—gives place to something more gloomy and con-
strained. Rawls main problem is no longer morality, freedom, or even justice,per se,
but rathercontainmentof the effects of pluralism. The pluralism, which Rawls focuses
on is one wherereasonablecitizens, accepting the basic conventional structures of a
liberal democratic constitutional state, nonetheless diverge on questions of the good.
Rawls thinks this divergence inevitable. Reason does not unify. He succinctly states
his problem, ‘How is it possible that there may exist over time a stable and just society
of free and equal citizens profoundly divided by reasonable though incompatible reli-
gious, philosophical and moral doctrines?’ (Rawls 1993: xviii). Rawls rough answer
to the problem of reasonable pluralism is that in ‘practical political matter no general
moral conception can provide a publicly recognized basis for a conception of justice in
modern democratic state’ (Rawls, in Strong (ed.) 1992: 96). Instead of ametaphysical
liberalism Rawls suggests apoliticalliberalism.
Political liberalism takes reasonable pluralism for granted. Its task is to work out
a conception of justice for a constitutional democratic regime embodying reason-
able pluralism. Rawls does not seek a new metaphysical foundation. Rather, the ‘aim