John Rawls'un siyaset anlayışının Arendtçi perspektiften eleştirisi

This thesis analyzes John Rawls' theory of justice as fairness and then discusses his theory through Arendtian thought. Throughout the study, we seek an answer to the following question: Is it possible to explain the basis of politics as ahistorical, universal and independent of understandings of the good? Moreover, even if political understanding is grounded in this way, how will sustainability in society be ensured? As a modern interpreter of the contractarian tradition, Rawls grounds the basic structure of society as a public system of rules on the prioritization of the just over the good. He reveals through a fictional initial situation how the conception of justice as an impartial and universal Archimedean basis will reach its definition through a process. In this study, we examine Rawls' reasoning and question how impartial his process of arriving at a political conception of justice is. We elaborate Rawls' conception of politics by following his two main works (Theory of Justice, Political Liberalism) and then we direct Arendt's criticisms of traditional political philosophy to Rawls' theory. We then compare the two thinkers' definitions of politics and the public sphere in particular, focusing on the challenges and advantages of their perspectives. We aim to substantiate our argument by emphasizing the disconnection between thought and action in Rawls' philosophy. We demonstrate that this disconnection primarily stems from the original position, which is a hypothetical contract. We highlight the impossibility of any decision made by an individual under the veil of ignorance, isolated from human plurality, being political in nature. Additionally, we assert that citizens cannot conceive of political justice independently of their conceptions of the good. Through examples drawn from the public sphere, we explain why Rawls' attempt to establish political justice as a basis for reconciliation among differing conceptions of the good is unrealistic.