justiWcation presupposes the principles of justice, being grounded on fairness,
but its adoption as a political principle is the condition for the possibility of
generalizing the principles of justice as the core of liberal legitimacy well
beyond those people who belong to the liberal tradition and already share the
liberal culture. Openess and potential inclusiveness are indeed the traits
characterizing the neutralist versus the perfectionist interpretation; these
traits are meant to constitute the appeal and the speciWcity of liberalism
over other political ideals. The liberal commitment to them is precisely
what, in the neutralist version, makes liberalism a universalist project where
anyoneandeverybodyof whatever origin, culture, or creed canWnd a just and
respectful social arrangement where their expectations and life-plans can in
principle be fulWlled.
Yet the neutralist program aimed at openness, inclusiveness, and non-
discrimination turns out to be largely self-defeating, because of the constitu-
tional framework of the argument and of its reductive interpretation of
pluralism which jointly induce a basic insensitivity to social diVerences. In
theWrst place, the constitutional structure of the argument makes diVerences
look allequally diVerent, thus disguising the fact that some aremore diVerent
than others. Yet, some diVerences, notably race, ethnicity, sexual orientation,
and culture, are markers of oppressed and excluded collective identities to
which various kinds of disadvantages are attached, amongst which non-
membership or second-class membership in the polity are especially prom-
inent. But given that diVerences are disregarded in the public sphere, this fact
is overlooked and the issue of inclusion is simply conceived as the extension
of rights to individuals despite their identity. The resulting diVerence-blind
attitude, far from neutralizing the exclusionary eVect of certain diVerences,
actually reinforces it. Moreover, pluralism is conceived of as pluralism of
potentially conXicting conceptions of the good (Rawls 1988 ). Conceptions of
the good, whether shared or not, are in principle reducible to individuals who
hold them and can in principle change or revise them. Once again diVerences
in collective identities are made to disappear. Therefore, the neutralist model
is indeed open to anyone, but only as individuals; and this approach does not
help bearers of diVerent identities to become members on an equal footing
with the majority whose collective identity is settled, taken for granted, and
deposited in societal standards.
As a result, the neutralist model suVers from a special paradox which the
perfectionist model avoids. The neutralist model proposes liberalism as the
political ideal for an open, inclusive, and free society, whose basic principles
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