Principi senza fatti. Riflessioni sulla critica di G.A. Cohen a J. Rawls

Principles without Facts. Reflections on G.A. Cohen’s critique of J. Rawls ABSTRACT: In this paper, the authors challenge Cohen's view that the primary task of philosophical enquiry is to analyse purely normative concepts, such as justice, rather than the definition of substantive conceptions about which principles are just. If principles of justice are action-guiding, as Cohen maintains they are, this means they have to account for a general principle of realizability. Moreover, in order to be realizable, a theory must take general fact-dependent elements into account, like conceiving of the person endorsing that theory and conceiving of the circumstances in which moral agents find themselves. However, it is these factdependent elements that Cohen tries to rule out. If these elements were accounted for, it would remain unclear which regulatory principles Cohen's justificatory principles are supposed to justify. If justificatory principles are to justify particular regulatory principles, can they really do so without factual considerations? Can the question «what is justice?» make sense without the question «whom is justice for? »?

Michele Bocchiola, Federico Zuolo, Principi senza fatti. Riflessioni sulla critica di G.A. Cohen a J. Rawls in "TEORIA POLITICA" 1/2008, pp 107-121, DOI: