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Fear of Theory
Shapiro, Scott
Shapiro, Scott
Abstract
Legal Reasoning and Political Conflict. Cass R. Sunstein. Oxford University Press 1996. Pp x, 220. Fourteen years after he published A Theory of Justice, John Rawls surprised his many readers by announcing that he no longer believed his celebrated theory to be true. Not that he believed it was false either: rather, he had come to think that any such theory must refrain from taking a position on its own validity. To claim the "truth" for one's own point of view, Rawls worried, might be construed as excessively partisan. Liberal theories of justice must not only preach tolerance for other ways of life, but for other theories as well.