Freestanding Conceptions of Justice

The question of whether freestanding conceptions of justice are truly possible is enormously interesting. A "freestanding" conception of justice is the term John Rawls employs to describe a conception of justice that "is neither presented as, nor as derived from, (a comprehensive doctrine)" (P.L., 12) It is, in other words, an abstraction made by citizens away from their religious or philosophical views. Surveying the public political culture of our society we seek to identify a conception of justice that best expresses the practice of citizens in the political institutions of a free, democratic society. Our comprehensive views may support this concept--and indeed Rawls is hopeful that reasonable comprehensive views will be able to support this--but we must ask whether it is possible for citizens to operate with an attenuated of the right, one in which they bracket off their own deeper convictions for the sake of limiting justice.