The Neutrality of the State and Its Justification in Rawls and Mill

Abstract

In this essay I am concerned with drawing instructive parallels between the justifications of a principle of neutrality that occur in John Rawls 's political liberalism and in John Stuart Mill 's substantive liberalism. For both Rawls and Mill, the principle of neutrality is meant to be a crucial part of the claim to legitimacy for their preferred state. I begin with some brief comments about (1) the problem of political legitimacy as it is understood by modem political philosophers and (2) the concept of neutrality and how it is readily suggested by the modern formulation of the problem of political legitimacy. Next, I show how the theories of Rawls and Mill share striking structural similarity in terms of their justification of a principle of neutrality. Moreover, there are points at which the structure of the principle of neutrality is in important respects the same for both philosophers. However, once the parallels are drawn we can isolate the important dissimilarity of these views. On the basis of the distinguishing features of the two approaches, it is argued that there is good reason to reject that of Rawls.