Right-wing populism, the reasonable, and the limits of ideal theory: A reply to Gila Stopler

Abstract

Abstract This article replies to Gila Stopler’s critique of John Rawls’s Political Liberalism. It argues that there are two strands in Stopler’s arguments. The first is Stopler’s critique of Political Liberalism for its accommodation of “right-wing populism.” This article argues that “right-wing populism” is not a “reasonable comprehensive view” under Rawls’s theory. Thus, Political Liberalism does not accommodate this view; it excludes it from the possibility of a reasonable overlapping consensus. The second strand in Stopler’s article can be interpreted as an invitation to think about the value of idealization in political theory. More concretely, this article argues that Stopler’s claims can be read as suggesting that political liberalism’s flaw is not that it tolerates illiberal views, but that it tells us little about how to achieve and maintain an overlapping consensus about justice in the kind of societies we actually inhabit. This article briefly argues that this critique deserves attention, especially given the circumstances of today’s societies, where extreme views are not uncommon and the effects of climate change threaten the very possibility of justice.