Can Rawlsian Containment of Hateful Viewpoints Be Effective?

While most of the literature has attempted to justify harsh and soft containment given some fundamental commitments of political liberalism, I focus on how justified forms of containment can in themselves be deemed effective. This article shows that a reading of Rawls allows for a comparison of diff...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Social Theory & Practice Vol. 49; no. 4; pp. 681 - 708
Main Author: Fumagalli, Corrado
Format: Article
Published: Florida State University Oct2023
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Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
Description
Summary:While most of the literature has attempted to justify harsh and soft containment given some fundamental commitments of political liberalism, I focus on how justified forms of containment can in themselves be deemed effective. This article shows that a reading of Rawls allows for a comparison of different containment practices based on their capacity to protect the stability of liberal democracies under serious threat. And, in making it possible to compare harsh and soft containment, I evaluate immediate stability gains against citizens' judgements about their liberal democratic institutions.