IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 5 ENGLISH | Page 74

the One True Opinion and suppose that you disagree with them (they might be Socialists and you might be a Liberal or vice versa). You may be forced to pay lip service, but
in your heart you would not agree with them. One would not want such a situation to
arise with regard to the basic features of a country’s Constitution.
Indeed, a secure democratic regime must be freely supported by at least a majority of its
politically active citizens. A constitution should guarantee fairness of procedures; its
‘preamble’ should be broad and general, its procedural nature should favor no particular
political party. It is by the people and for the people – as long as it remains possible for
it to live up to its ideas, it should be worthy of the support of the people. Such support is
critical for the stability of the regime.
Nevertheless, a democratic political culture has certain fundamental ideas (e.g., liberty
and equality) that make it possible to argue for a political conception of justice. We may
disagree over the foundations for our fundamental ideas, but we can achieve an overlapping consensus in regard to the “constitutional essentials” (for example - freedom of
assembly, freedom of the press, freedom of speech, the right to vote).
Our worldviews grow out of the ability
of human beings to form a “sense of the
good” (what is valuable to me, what is
important to me) and this is part of the
“fact of pluralism.” Pluralism is not the
same as Relativism (it is good to be
open minded, but your brains should not
fall out).

We should recall that the basic values
of liberty and equality form the soul of a
democratic constitution.
But these values get interpreted in different ways in the course of legislative
action and judicial review, to say nothing of our individual disagreements.
Rawls argues that the sources of ‘reasonable disagreement’ arise from:

• Differences in ascertaining evidence, weighing evidence, analyzing hard cases;
• Differences in life experience/value formation and its influence on the interpretation of
evidence and cases;
• Basic conflicts of values and disagreements over the ordering of values.
People can look at the same numbers in
a healthcare debate and come up with
different policy solutions. How so? Because they will weigh the evidence differently, some looking for more government involvement and others for a
more market oriented approach. They’ll
tell different stories about who we are
and what we, as a nation, value. There’s

nothing wrong with such disagreements,
they are the outcome of pluralism. As a
democracy, we must work through these
problems and perhaps find smart compromises along the way.
In sifting from local roundtable discussions to a national conversation on a
constitution it will be important to alter

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