The normatism of rawlsian neocontractualism: a theory of justice without ethical foundations

Abstract

The objective of this brief essay is to provide a conceptual framework capable of presenting the ideological-reflexive character of the theory of justice and consequently of rawlsian neocontractualism. In this sense, we we try to demonstrate that Rawls’ work constituted a frontline trench in the battle of ideas, as a way of reconstructing liberal-bourgeois civil hegemony in the last quarter of the 20th century. It was an offensive of the political economy of capital against that of labor, which opened a counter-reform process, dressed up in a garland of flowers. This process constructed a new type of liberalism – social liberalism – which in large measure has been responsible for the solidity of the consensus surrounding liberal democracy. Even in the midst of a structural crisis of capital it has demonstrated impressive vitality.