The Hazards Of The Generalized

Many Of Our Most Serious Conflicts Are Conflicts Within Ourselves. Those Who Suppose Their Judgements Are Always Consistent Are Unreflective Or Dogmatic.

The Only Thing That Permits Us To Acquiesce In An Erroneous Theory Is The Lack Of A Better One, Analogously, An Injustice Is Tolerable Only When It Is Necessary To Avoid An Even Greater Injustice.

First Of All, Principles Should Be General. That Is, It Must Be Possible To Formulate Them Without Use Of What Would Be Intuitively Recognized As Proper Names, Or Rigged Definite Descriptions.

A Comprehensive Doctrine, Either Religious Or Secular, Aspires To Cover All Of Life. I Mean, If It's A Religious Doctrine, It Talks About Our Relation To God And The Universe; It Has An Ordering Of All The Virtues, Not Only Political Virtues But Moral Virtues As Well, Including The Virtues Of Private Life, And The Rest. Now We May Feel Philosophically That It Doesn't Really Cover Everything, But It Aims To Cover Everything, And A Secular Doctrine Does Also.

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.