Elvio Baccarini

The method of reflective equilibrium implies that moral principles received from philosophical reasoning and considered moral judgments received intuitively are finally justified if they cohere with each other. This idea is combined with the proposal of rational consensus (Lehrer), which shows the way in which divergences of judgements could be made to converge. This second method is used to the end of rendering more plausible the intuitions used in reflective equilibrium, and, so, to show the appropriateness of the coherentist method in ethics.

Must liberalism, in dealing with issues of basic rights and primary goods, take into account national belonging as a particularly important form of cultural belonging? The paper first discusses liberalism which is frequently defined as difference-blind and which considers citizens solely on the basis of some of their abstract and common features. The alternative position is liberal nationalism, according to which individuals and their primary goods stand at the center of considerations of justice, but which also finds it impossible to ignore cultural belonging when discussing primary goods and basic rights of individuals. In discussing the strategy which affirms national cultural belonging as a precondition for autonomy, an attempt is made to show that this is not a sufficient basis for the role of a special national cultural belonging in the definition of primary goods, because even if a national cultural belonging is needed for practicing autonomy, specific national cultural belonging isn’t.