Freestanding Legal Pragmatism

John Rawls has recently presented liberalism as a political philosophy that can stand free of the comprehensive moral and metaphysical views with which it has been associated. You don't have to be a neo-Kantian like Rawls, so he argues, to accept his Kantiansounding theory of justice. Millian utilitarians, Aristotelian perfectionists, and Thomistic theists can also commit to the basic liberal rights: democratic government, freedom of speech and religion, equal opportunity, the rule of law, private property, and a welfare safety net. Rawls believes that there is no need for citizens to resolve their deepest philosophical disagreements in order to be able to agree on principles of justice.