Political Thoughts: Rawls' Overlapping Consensus and Dworkin's Theory of Justice

Running head: POLITICAL THOUGHTS
POLITICAL THOUGHTS
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1POLITICAL THOUGHTS
Overlapping consensus was an idea that was theorized by John Rawls in the book “A
theory of Justice”. The political term refers to the fact that though justice system and concept is
different in various regions and countries, there are some principles of justice that all these
different regions agree upon (Saward, 2018). Social norms, religious principles, political
ideology and other similar doctrines may fall in this overlapping consensus theory, where the
overall concept may be varying in different groups, there are some principles on which all these
groups agree upon. John Bordley Rawls, who was the proponent of this concept, was a political
thinker in United States of America. He was an advocate of democracy and liberal ideas. He was
an important contributor at Harvard University, and University of Oxford. His book “A Theory
of Justice” in 1971 has redefined the normative philosophy on politics. Normative philosophy in
politics describe those philosophies that distinguishes between right and wrong and moral and
immoral activities.
The book by John Rawls “A theory of Justice” attempts to explain justice in its various
forms, especially distributive justice, in which justice will be distributed equally among all the
sections of the society, even those who are in the brinks of social order (Buchanan, 2017).
The idea of overlapping consensus lies in the fact that there are some basic similarities of
the concept of morality, or goodness in all the societies. Therefore, it must be understood that
though the social groups in various regions of the world may be different according to overall
social customs and norms, but they would have some principles on which they agree upon.
Example of such overlapping consensus in terms of justice can be given by the example that
murder is considered a severe crime in all countries and cultures of the world, and most of the
countries reward capital punishment who commit a crime like murder. Therefore, even if a
country is secular, or is dominated by particular religion, death penalty is a crime in most of the

2POLITICAL THOUGHTS
countries worldwide. In case of religion one example of such overlapping consensus can be
given as follows. Though there are different customs, rituals and practices in various religions,
the overall principle of believing in the existence of a supreme creator God, and trying to connect
to him in various ways, is same across all religions. In case of social overlapping consensus, it
may be stated that though there are difference of social structures and norms in various parts of
the world, the institution of marriage prevails in all cultures. However, in this particular regard
the concept of overlapping consensus in the justice system is described and analyzed.
Ronald Myles Dworkin is an eminent jurist in the United States of America, and a thinker
and scholar of the Constitutional law of the United States. He was also a philosopher and
political thinker. He has substantial contribution to law and political philosophy of the country.
Dworkin in his book “Law’s Empire” has stated the theory of law as integrity, which have been
considered as one of the most impactful contemporary theories of the present times. He had
advocated “moral reading” of the laws and interpretivist approach to the Constitution of the
United States of America.
Dworkin has also worked extensively in describing what is equality and how equality can
be executed in real time. He has also authored a book called the “Sovereign Virtue” where he has
proposed the theory called the “equality of resources” (Waluchow & Sciaraffa, 2016). He
advocated that the individual abilities, talents of the person must not impact the resource
allocation in the society. Every person with whatever abilities he or she might be born must be
enjoying equal rights and resources from the state. His theories are engraved with the principle
that all the individuals are entitled to equal attention from the society and the social system must
be designed in a way that the structure enables the individuals to enjoy equal rights. Rights
according to Dworkin protect the fundamental values of the human beings from “collective