Intuitionism Is Not Constructive, Perfectionism Is Unacceptable.

Now The Good Of Political Life Is A Great Political Good. It Is Not A Secular Good Specified By A Comprehensive Doctrine Like Those Of Kant Or Mill. You Could Characterize This Political Good As The Good Of Free And Equal Citizens Recognizing The Duty Of Civility To One Another: The Duty To Give Citizens Public Reasons For One's Political Actions.

Political Philosophy Is Realistically Utopian When It Extends What Are Ordinarily Thought To Be The Limits Of Practicable Political Possibility And, In So Doing, Reconciles Us To Our Political And Social Condition. Our Hope For The Future Of Our Society Rests On The Belief That The Social World Allows A Reasonably Just Society Of Peoples.

The Claims Of Existing Social Arrangements And Of Self Interest Have Been Duly Allowed For. We Cannot At The End Count Them A Second Time Because We Do Not Like The Result.

Properly Understood, Then, The Desire To Act Justly Derives In Part From The Desire To Express Most Fully What We Are Or Can Be, Namely Free And Equal Rational Beings With The Liberty To Choose.

Any Comprehensive Doctrine, Religious Or Secular, Can Be Introduced Into Any Political Argument At Any Time, But I Argue That People Who Do This Should Also Present What They Believe Are Public Reasons For Their Argument. So Their Opinion Is No Longer Just That Of One Particular Party, But An Opinion That All Members Of A Society Might Reasonably Agree To, Not Necessarily That They Would Agree To. What's Important Is That People Give The Kinds Of Reasons That Can Be Understood And Appraised Apart From Their Particular Comprehensive Doctrines.