童世骏 《“Overlapping Consensus” on “Overlap..

Diversity or pluralism in values has been widely recognized as a major feature of our times both internationally and domestically, and China is no exception, where this phenomenon is regarded as a major reason for the country’s efforts to pursue the goal of a “harmonious society” at home and the goal of a “harmonious world” abroad.[1]In justifying the goals of “a harmonious world” and “a harmonious society,” reference is often made in China to the traditional Chinese idea of “he er bu tong,” which is often translated in English as “harmony without uniformity.” It is close to the proposition of “qiu tong chun yi” or “seeking common ground while preserving differences” endorsed in the Bandung Conference in 1955, on the one hand, and to the proposition of “unity in diversity” or “united in diversity” accepted as the motto of the European Union, on the other.

All these three propositions, in my view, convey the idea that we should respect diversity as well as unity, but none of them makes it clear enough how these two apparent extremes are to be reconciled and integrated. This reminds us of the idea of “overlapping consensus,” which is used by its main proponent John Rawls, as well as many others, to address the issue of political stability in pluralistic domestic societies and the issue of multiple cultural bases of universal human rights at the global level. In order to see more clearly whether this concept is helpful in answering the question how diversity and unity can be taken care of at the same time, we will have an overview of the ideas proposed by thinkers in various countries and of different schools of thought regarding this concept. I want to argue that these different understandings of the idea of “overlapping consensus” can be interpreted as characterizations of different levels of overlapping consensus to be reached in our efforts to deal with pluralism with the aim of “social stability for the right reasons” (in Rawls’s words). This also means that some deficiencies found in each of these understandings, especially in the best-known version, i.e. the Rawlsian version, of the idea can be overcome by a mutual complementation between them.

1.

The concept of “overlapping consensus” first appeared in Rawls’s A Theory of Justice published in 1971, in which he observes that many disagreements among citizens in their understanding of justice can nevertheless lead to similar political judgments. These similar political judgments, he says, are “overlapping rather than strict consensus.” (Rawls 1971, pp.387-388) The logical implication of the existence of this kind of consensus is very simple: “different premises can yield the same conclusion.” (Rawls 1971, p.387)

Since mid-1980s, the idea of overlapping consensus has turned itself from an idea, mentioned only in passing in Rawls’s earlier book on justice to a major conceptual instrument in his later works on political liberalism for dealing with the phenomenon that “the political conception of justice that regulates its basic institutions is endorsed by each of the main religious, philosophical, and moral doctrines likely to endure in that society from one generation to the next.” (Rawls 1999, p. 473) Rawls considers this idea as the first of the three major ideas of his “political liberalism” (the other two being “the idea of the priority of right” and “the idea of public reason”). (Rawls 1996, p. 212)

       What is called by Rawls “political liberalism” is different both from the Hobbes’s version of liberalism and the Kantian or Mill’s version of liberalism. To Hobbes, liberalism is a modus vivendi, or a temporary compromise between conflicting interests of individuals and groups coordinated and balanced by some well-designed institutions. To Kant or Mill, liberalism is based on certain metaphysical doctrines or “comprehensive” moral doctrines. Neither version, according to Rawls, can solve the problem of social stability under pluralistic conditions: in the case of Hobbes, as soon as the balance of power changes, the existing stability based on it ceases to exist; in the case of Kant and Mill, Kantianism and liberal utilitarianism as comprehensive doctrines with “autonomy” and “individuality” as their respective key concepts are both held by particular parties, and cannot support the basic institutions of a society in which there are many other comprehensive doctrines as well, secular or otherwise.

The key to this position is “the fact of reasonable pluralism” (Rawls 1996, p. 36) in Rawls’s mind. Here the term “pluralism” refers to the existence of various “comprehensive doctrines,” and the term “reasonable” refers first of all to the attitude and mentality of those who, in inter-subjective relations, are ready to engage in fair cooperation and to follow public rules in cooperation as long as other participants follow them as well, which is different from “rational” in that the latter refers to the careful choice of efficient means to specific goals, or the prudent ordering of different goals within a whole life-plan. In order for a society to have a social fact called “reasonable pluralism,” its citizens should be reasonable in this sense. Rawls thinks that the liberal societies in the contemporary West can be characterized in this way; therefore the fact of “reasonable pluralism” can be regarded, in Rawls’s view, as the actual basis of, and political cultural support for, his idea of “justice as fairness,” among other political conceptions of justice.

In Rawls’s position presented above there is an interesting switch between the role of the philosopher and that of the citizen: while the political philosopher should not justify a political conception within a particular philosophical system, the citizen should behave like a philosopher, i.e. he or she should understand and support the conception of justice from his or her own world view and value system in addition to justifying it by means of public reason. Only then, Rawls holds, can there be “stability for the right reasons” (Rawls 1996, pp. 388-389) under the pluralistic condition. For only then can his idea of “justice as fairness,” for example, be truly accepted by the people on the basis of reasons, rather than as a result of external pressure, or their ignorance, or their uncritical acceptance. These “reasons” are different from person to person, and the consensus on a certain idea reached by different people for these reasons is what is called “overlapping consensus.”

After it was advocated in late 1980s, especially since early 1990s, the idea of overlapping consensus has attracted wide attention among political and social theorists. In the following discussion I will review some interpretations or elaborations of the idea that in my view are especially suggestive and helpful in our efforts to explore its full potential when addressing the issue of political stability in pluralistic societies and the issue of multiple cultural bases of universal human rights at the global level.

2

The idea of “overlapping consensus” can at the first stage be understood as the situation in which people, though different in their positions on a certain relevant issue, are similar in their attitudes to each other: they all treat each other in a reasonable way.

The major feature of this understanding of the idea of “overlapping consensus” is to loosen the bond between “reasonable” and “consensus” and to stress the connection between “reasonable” and “disagreement.” From C. S. Peirce to J. Habermas, all those who argue for the so-called “consensus theory of truth” have paid special attention to the connection between “reasonableness” and “consensus,” regarding “reasonable consensus” or “rational consensus” as the equivalent to or guarantee for truth, or in Habermas’s words: “The truth of a proposition means the promise to reach a rational consensus on what is said.”[2] Habermas does not only apply the consensus theory to the problem of truth, but also applies it to the problem of normative rightness, and what makes and fulfils the promise to reach a rational consensus is the practical rather than the theoretical discourse. In practical discourses, “just those action norms are valid to which all possibly affected persons could agree as participants in rational discourses.” (Habermas 1996, p. 107)

Although Habermas is clear that real situations of discourse are far from being perfect, and the goal of reaching consensus is far from being certain, he does give us the impression that, of various ideas respecting the same problem, as long as they differ from each other, at least one is not rational or reasonable. In other words, Habermas seems to admit the possibility of “reasonable consensus” alone and reject the possibility of “reasonable disagreement.” But the latter is just one of the main ideas in Rawls’s political liberalism. Many disagreements, according to Rawls, quite possibly do not result from our prejudices, ignorance, selfishness and wishful thinking. In normal political life and in the process of exercising our faculty of reasoning and judging, the complexities involved in the relation between ends and means, in valuing each person’s claims, in applying our theoretical ability and weighing our evidences and so on, there are many difficulties that cannot be avoided altogether. Rawls calls these difficulties “the burdens of judgment;” and as a result of these burdens, even very reasonable people can make different judgments on the same problem: “many of our most important judgments are made under conditions where it is not to be expected that conscientious persons with full powers of reason, even after free discussion, will all arrive at the same conclusion.” (Rawls, 1996, p. 58)

Rawls’s idea of “reasonable disagreement” is highly regarded by H. Grimen, a Norwegian philosopher, who thinks that Rawls has convincingly shown that “an ideal argumentation situation in Habermas’s sense is subject to the burdens of judgment,” (Grimen 1997, p. 276) and we should never expect that disagreements will totally disappear in the long run. A conclusion from this is that “reasonable political actors must learn to live with reasonable disagreements.” (Grimen 1997, p. 276) Because of these “reasonable disagreements” resulting from “burdens of judgment” we very often have to be satisfied with “overlapping consensus” rather than “qualified consensus” (Grimen 1997, p. 289) or what Habermas calls “begruendete Konsensus,” (Habermas 1995, s. 135) which means the consensus on the basis of reasons accepted by all concerned. Grimen’s emphasis is not on the indispensability of “overlapping consensus” as a result of the improbability of “qualified consensus,” but on the inappropriateness of raising problems on which we cannot possibly expect to reach a qualified consensus for public discussion as a result of the reasonableness of “reasonable disagreement.” To be more exact, the point Grimen emphasizes is what Rawls calls “the method of avoidance”: “In following the method of avoidance, as we may call it, we try, so far as we can, neither to assert nor to deny any religious, philosophical, or moral views, or their associated philosophical accounts of truth and the status of values.” (Grimen 1997, pp. 279-280).

Appropriating the idea of “reasonable disagreement” implied in the idea of “overlapping consensus” is really very important to political unity and social stability under pluralistic circumstances, because in many cases we do have to avoid seeking any qualified consensus or any consensus based on shared reasons that is evidently beyond our reach. This understanding of “overlapping consensus,” however, has the weakness of being too passive in that it focuses more on “overlapping” than on “consensus,” or more on “disagreement” than on “agreement.” In the idea of “reasonable disagreement,” actually, both “disagreement” and “agreement” play crucial roles: “reasonable disagreement” is “reasonable” because people share the same feature of reasonableness in their attitude to each other, and, as Rawls sometimes also argues, in the doctrines they hold. To say that people are “reasonable,” according to Rawls, is to say that they are ready to “propose principles and standards as fair terms of cooperation and to abide by them willingly, given the assurance that others will likewise do so.” (Rawls 1996, p. 49) To say that a doctrine is reasonable, moreover, is to say that this doctrine meets the theoretical demands for a certain degree of consistency and coherence, and meets the practical demands for a certain way of ordering and balancing various values, and it is stable over time and not subject to sudden and unexplained changes. (Rawls 1996, p. 59)

These two senses of “reasonableness,” especially the first one, are, to my view, rooted in our common experiences in the life-world. In some sense it is like what is called li xing by Liang Shuming (1893-1988), one of the most eminent Chinese philosophers in the 20^th century. The Chinese term li xing is usually used as the Chinese equivalent of the English terms reason, rationality, reasonablness, and in some cases, intellect. Liang Shuming draws a distinction between ”li xing” and ”li zhi,” similar to Rawls’s distinction between ”the reasonable” and ”the rational.” Both li xing and li zhi are concerned with speaking, reasoning and thinking, but li zhi is more of calculation of means with regards to ends, while li xing is more of co-living and co-experiencing with fellow human beings in a way that takes life as a whole and as the end in itself. ” If you observe other people or engage in introspection,” Liang Shuming says,“whenever people are seen to be calm, easy-minded, without anything in their mind, most receptive to others, and most capable of reaching understanding with their partners by means of speaking with each other, they are people of li xin. The so-called li xing is nothing but the mental state of being calm and understanding.” (Liang 1990, p. 123) At this level, that is to say, a monological reflection is sufficient to show what is reasonable, and whether an overlapping consensus at this basic level has been reached or not.

3.

“Overlapping consensus” can, at the second stage, be understood as the situation in which people disagree in their values but agree on norms: people holding different values accept and follow a shared set of norms.

The Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor can be regarded as a representative of those who devote efforts to making a conceptual distinction between “norm” and “value” and then applying this distinction to the understanding of the idea of “overlapping consensus.” In discussing the problem what is the unforced consensus on human rights Taylor said: “I suppose it would be something like what Rawls describes in his Political Liberalism as an “overlapping consensus.” (Taylor 1999, p. 124) In all cultures, Taylor says, we can find condemnation of genocide, murder, torture and slavery, and what these condemnations express are the action norms on which there is a universal consensus. Below these shared action norms there are “deep underlying values” which usually “belong to the alternative, mutually incompatible justifications.” (Taylor 1999, p. 125)

Here Taylor relies on the conceptual distinction between       norm and value upon which he himself did not elaborate. In Juergen Habermas’s theory of communicative action this distinction plays an important role. The development of this distinction, according to Habermas, is an important achievement both in the process of development of individual moral consciousness and in the process of rationalization of a community’s life-world. When he is criticizing Rawls for treating rights as goods in the latter’s ideal experiment of “original position,” Habermas elaborates upon the differences between “norm” (to which rights belong) and “values” (to which goods belong) which can be summarized into the following four points: “...norms differ from values, first, in their relation to rule-governed as opposed to purposive action; second, in a binary as opposed to a gradual coding of the respective validity claims; third, in their absolute as opposed to relative bindingness; and, last, in the criteria that systems of norms as opposed to systems of values must satisfy.” (Habermas 1995, p. 115) These abstract distinctions between norms and values manifest themselves in the ways of their applications in everyday life: to the same problem “what I should do,” a reply on the basis of norms is categorically different from a reply on the basis of values. A norm “commands” me to do something, while a value “advises” me to do something. The former tells us what is good to all, or what is in everybody’s interest, while the latter only tells us what is good to me or to us.

Although both accepting the conceptual distinction between norms and values, and agreeing that people with different values can accept and follow the same norms, Habermas and Taylor consider the connection between norms and values differently. While Taylor, like Rawls, thinks that different values can be alternative bases of the same norms, Habermas pays more attention to justifying norms in moral discourse (concerning the question “what is good to all parties concerned”) instead of ethical discourse (concerning the question “what is good to me or to us”). Habermas admits that in pluralistic societies political consensuses are reached mainly among people holding different “values” (and with different interests) on common “norms” (including “principles” as “higher-level norms”[3]), but he argues that we should make a distinction between “consensus” as a social event and “consensus” as an epistemic achievement，or a distinction between acceptance and acceptability. (See Habermas 1995, p. 122)  Individual subjects’ agreements on a certain norm on the basis of their respective value systems can at most converge into an event that is the acceptance of the norm; but the persons who claim the acceptability of the norm should provide reasons in the process of debating with others and manage to convince them to accept these reasons as valid. Participants of the debate are neither observers of objects, nor members of the same particular cultural community who discuss their shared values, but participants in a “moral discourse” which demands each to have the same “moral point of view,” but not the same “ethical way of life.” That is to say, participants in moral discourse usually need to reach consensus with people of other cultures and value systems; and in order to do so, they should have the competence to evaluate each other’s perspective, or even consider an idealized perspective, in order to decide whether a certain norm is in the interest of all parties concerned.

Rawls does not agree with Habermas’s criticism of him, but in his reply to Habermas, Rawls seems to be both clearing up Habermas’s “misunderstanding” of him and moving closer to Habermas’s position. The “overlapping consensus” on political conceptions of justice in his sense, he argues, is not the agreement of interests sought by the politicians in everyday politics, but the “reasonable overlapping consensus;” and it is reasonable because the political conception is not only given a pro tanto justification on the basis of public reason at the first stage, and then given a full justification by members of civil society as individual citizens at the second stage, but also given a public justification by the political society in the form of the overlapping consensus among all the reasonable members of the political society as a result of their integration of the political conception in their several reasonable comprehensive views. (See Rawls 1996, pp. 386-387) Rawls argues that the stability he seeks is thus “stability for the right reasons,” and the overlapping consensus that underlies this kind of stability actually demands something that Habermas would call a “moral perspective.” In explaining what he calls the “wide and general reflective equilibrium” which is the kernel of this public justification, Rawls makes it clear that “this equilibrium is fully intersubjective: that is, each citizen has taken into account the reasoning and arguments of every other citizen.” (Rawls 1996, p. 385)

Here one point deserves special attention, that is, Habermas argues for a distinction between “consensus” as a social event and “consensus” as an epistemic achievement, or a distinction between the acceptance of a norm and the acceptability of a norm, not only in order to tell “stability for the right reasons” from stability without right reasons, but also in order to avoid a particularistic or contextualistic understanding of the principles of justice. Rawls emphasizes the role of political culture in his theory, regarding the political culture of the democratic society in his mind as the realistic basis of political liberalism. “The political culture of a democratic society,” Rawls says, “is always marked by a diversity of opposing and irreconcilable religious, philosophical, and moral doctrines. Some of these are perfectly reasonable, and this diversity among reasonable doctrines political liberalism sees as the inevitable long-run result of the powers of human reason at work within the background of enduring free institutions.” (Rawls 1996, pp. 3-4) Rawls’s concepts such as “reasonable pluralism,” “the public use of reason,” and the “overlapping consensus” on the conception of justice, etc., are predicated upon this political culture and at the same time provide conceptual instruments for the latter’s self-understanding. Political culture as a “fact,” however, is a particular thing; if at the public level the principles of justice are only predicated on the political culture of a particular region or a particular tradition, there is a hidden danger of giving up the demand for a universalistic justification for these principles. This particularistic position can lead to two consequences. On the one hand, it would make it difficult to find out elements in the existing political culture as the basis for the immanent critique and immanent transcendence of this culture and the institutions based on it. On the other hand, it would make it difficult to talk about the universality or universal legitimacy of a certain institution outside a particular society and cultural tradition. Habermas does not agree with Richard Rorty, who regards Rawls as a fellow particularist with “a thoroughly historicist and antiuniversalistic’ attitude.” (Quoted in Habermas 1996, p. 62) But Habermas insists that, in order to keep a clear distance from this tendency, a conception of justice achieved through a hermeneutical clarification of a contingent tradition should be put to test in a moral discourse to see whether it is not only accepted, but also acceptable. (Habermas 1995, p. 122)

When we agree with Habermas on emphasizing the importance of the commonly-made “moral justification” for shared norms vis-à-vis their separately-made value justification or ethical justification, we should add that Habermas may have overlooked the fact that it is after all essential for the universal political conception and principles of justice to be accepted by people from the bottom of their heart or on the basis of their deep-rooted values, and the fact that the social stability supported by the acceptance in Rawls’s sense is after all very different from the social stability achieved by other means, such as temporary comprise of interests and balance of power, or even coercion and deception. Given the distinction between norms and values, and the coexistence of the agreement on norms with the disagreement on values, we may well have both types of justification for the shared norms at the same time: the moral justification and the ethical justification (and not just ethical motivation, as Habermas would say.).

4.

“Overlapping consensus” can, at the third stage, be understood as the situation in which different people admit that although they disagree at present they are ready to seek agreement in the future: people with different views and positions today engage themselves in peaceful coexistence and equal communication in order to deepen their mutual understanding and even to seek a “fusion of horizons” tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.

Rawls and Taylor, as we mentioned above, both think that it is of great significance for people with various values to understand and support the norms they agree on from their respective value systems. Here we should pay more attention to the fact that although people may agree on the importance of the value-based support for norms, they understand this importance from different perspectives. To Rawls, the value-based support for norms or principles provided by comprehensive doctrines is explicated more or less through a hermeneutic circle: on the one hand, comprehensive doctrines will support the political conception of justice as long as they are reasonable; on the other hand, a liberal society is characterized by the “priority of right over the good,” and this means that “admissible ideas of the good must respect the limits of, and serve a role within, the political conception of justice.” (Rawls 1996, p. 176) Rawls is basically content with the fact that various reasonable value systems can support the same set of norms or principles, and this kind of support is to him enough for achieving “stability for the right reasons.” Therefore Rawls does not try, as Habermas does, to go out of this circle by means of the discourse theory or the universal pragmatics; nor does he, like Taylor, emphasize the inherent significance of the value-based support for shared norms to the dignity of the individual or the community concerned. Taylor thinks that although great differences exist between various theological and metaphysical doctrines, and people often do not behave in ways that they say or think to follow, there is a high degree of consensus on the demands for justice and love and their importance. But what is the foundation for this consensus? What are the “moral sources” of the norms and standards that we agree on? The moral sources of universal standards, in Taylor’s view, are very important, because they are concerned with the problem how these standards are “experienced.” (Taylor 1989, p. 515) We may well conform to these standards simply because we feel obliged to do so or because we would feel guilty or unsatisfied with ourselves if we do not conform to these standards. Taylor thinks, however, “it is quite a different thing to be moved by a strong sense that human beings are eminently worth helping or treating with justice, a sense of their dignity or value.” (Taylor 1989, p. 515) In Taylor’s view, “there is something morally corrupting, even dangerous, in sustaining the demand simply on the feeling of undischarged obligation, on guilt, or its obverse, self-satisfaction.” (Taylor 1989, p. 516)

It is, however, easy to recognize that universal standards have moral sources, but not so easy to deal with the fact that these moral sources are very often not only different but also in sharp conflict with each other. Both Rawls’s political liberalism and Habermas’s discourse theory of democracy are, in the last analysis, proposed to tackle this typically modern and difficult problem. Taylor opposes the efforts, represented by Rawls and Habermas in his view, to avoid the conflict between various moral sources of universal standards by means of a proceduralistic approach to morality. He also opposes the tendency seen in critics as well as supporters of modernity that a certain spiritual value and aspiration is refuted absolutely if it has led to pains and destructions. It is difficult, Taylor admits, both to preserve moral or spiritual sources of various kinds and to avoid their mutual negation and destruction. Towards the end of his book Sources of the Self, published in 1989, Taylor considers this task as a serious challenge that must be met, and the prospect of meeting this challenge as a hope that he is convinced of but unable to give sufficient reasons for. (Taylor 1989, p. 521) Taylor did not hide the religious color of this hope at that time, but later he tried to give this hope a philosophical instead of religious justification, the kernel of which is that various value systems and world views can, through dialogues based on mutual respect, yield a mutual understanding, or even a fusion of horizons. Here comes the major point of what I call the overlapping consensus at the third stage.

In the above-mentioned paper published in 1996 on the consensus on human rights, Taylor elaborates on the case that human rights can be justified both by humanism or the idea of human agency in the West and by the Buddhist commandment of ahimsa, and takes it as an evidence that universal standards can receive inter-cultural consensuses. But he immediately points out that this kind of consensus is not a satisfactory end: “Some attempt at deeper understanding must follow or the gains in agreement will remain fragile.” (Taylor 1999, p. 137) Agreement achieved under this condition, for one thing, cannot be complete. The relation between the ecological demand for ahimsa and the ecological problem, for example, is greatly different from the relation between the Western humanism and the ecological problem, and this difference can lead to severe consequences. Consensus achieved under the current condition, moreover, is usually not accompanied by sufficient mutual respect, although such respect is indispensable to the need to constantly renew consensuses by dealing with disagreements in modern times: “If the sense is strong on each side that the spiritual basis of the other is ridiculous, false, inferior, unworthy, these attitudes cannot but sap the will to agree of those who hold these views while engendering anger and resentment among those who are thus depreciated.” (Taylor 1999, p. 138)

Therefore Taylor emphasizes the importance of mutual understanding: “The only cure for contempt here is understanding.” (Taylor 1999, p. 138) In some cases, mutual understanding between different values underlying shared norms is a higher level of agreement achieved after the overlapping consensus on the norms, as in the case of the Western humanism and the Buddhist idea of ahimsa where they need to achieve mutual respect through mutual understanding after they have reached a consensus on the issue of human rights. In some cases, however, mutual understanding between different underlying values is the first step towards a possible overlapping consensus between them, because, as is shown in the case of the gap between modern Westerners and people of some non-Western societies with respect to the issue of gender equality, if between two positions there is no minimum mutual respect, it is difficult to start to bridge the gap between them from the very beginning.

Mutual understanding between different values or world views that have an overlapping consensus on shared norms and principles, in my view, is important not only because the consensus can thus be strengthened, but also because all parties concerned can thus improve and enrich themselves. The overlapping consensus in Rawls’s sense is basically static; there seems to be no significant change within the various world views, value systems or comprehensive doctrines after they have reached a consensus. Rawls did mention that the political culture of liberal democracy can influence various world views and that within this political culture some world views will become more reasonable. But the possibility that different world views can have dialogues and they will change and improve themselves through these dialogues is not seen or at least not stressed by Rawls. Taylor demands that “the bare consensus must strive to go on towards a fusion of horizons;” (Taylor 1999, p. 138) with this demand Rawls would not agree, and neither would we do perhaps, because a complete fusion of horizons is not necessarily desirable, even if it were feasible. But some demands implied in the idea of “fusion of horizons” deserve our serious attention: we should, for example, try our best to understand an idea that we do not agree with at first; in order for us to be able to understand this idea, we should try our best to be less indifferent and hostile and more tolerant and respectful of it. Even when others give us a hostile challenge instead of a friendly invitation, we should also try our best to take the task of meeting this challenge as an opportunity to learn something at the same time, and learning in the real sense means not only self-enrichment, but also self-adaptation. “Overlapping consensus” in this sense or at this stage is not only an epistemic achievement, but also a spiritual achievement.

Overlapping consensus in this sense is no longer a mere “social event,” as was described by Habermas when he was criticizing Rawls, not even a mere cognitive achievement in Habermas’s sense, but also a spiritual growth, or a civilizational progress, which is both inclusive and creative. Confucius made the famous remark, as is recorded in The Book of Changes that “in the world there are many different roads (shu tu) but the destination is the same (tong gui). There are a hundred deliberations (bai lu) but the result is one (yi zhi).” (Wing-Tsit Chan 1963, p.268) In terms of the concepts in his remark, the relation between shu tu (“many different roads”) and tong gui (“the same destination”), and that between bai lu (“a hundred deliberations”) and yi zhi (“the one result”), are not the relation between means and end, or the relation between process and aim. In the process of collective learning and civilizational progress in this sense, tong gui and yi zhi do not mean replacing one with others, nor bringing everything to the same level; neither their contents nor their subjects are predetermined or permanently inflexible. Shu tu and bai lu, on the contrary, are not only transcended by, but also included in, “tong gui” and “yi zhi;” and furthermore, “shu tu” or “bai lu” not only transcend each other, but also transcend themselves, and transcend themselves in close connection with each other.

5.

At the last section of the paper I want to bring up the relation between theory and practice, which is a focus of attention especially in the Marxist tradition. Reaching overlapping consensuses among people and among peoples, in my view, is in the last analysis a historical practice in which we all should participate in a responsible way.

In this connection some ideas of Li Zehou deserve our attention. Li Zehou, one of the most prominent contemporary Chinese philosophers, speaks highly of Rawls’s idea of “overlapping consensus,” including one of its major underlying conceptual distinctions: the distinction between “right” and “the good.” There are two types of morality, according to Li, one is the so-called “societal morality,” and the other is the so-called “religious morality.” While the societal morality is concerned with the problem of right, the religious morality is concerned with the problem of the good. Rawls’s theory of overlapping consensus, Li says, is quite in accord with this distinction, which means “to separate the norms of action and rules of life of various societies, regions, countries and cultures in the modern world from the doctrines, beliefs, emotions and ethics promoted by various traditional religions and ‘isms’, and to cut off the causal connections of these norms and rules both in historical and in theoretical senses. We do not need, for example, to trace the demands for liberty, human rights and democracy in modern societies back to Christianity or Greek culture; we should clearly acknowledge that these are political and legal principles that are commonly followed in modern inter-personal relations….” (Li 1999, p. 71)

The last sentence of the passage cited above expresses what Li Zehou thinks to be his own understanding of, or his own contribution to the understanding of, the idea of “overlapping consensus.” Rawls, according to Li, does not seem to have given a clear explanation to the question how the overlapping consensus at the level of political morality detached from traditional religion, culture and belief is possible or where it comes from. Li’s own solution to this problem is based on the classical Marxist thesis that law and morality as superstructure is determined by economic and material life as its basis: the objective universality of the so-called “modern societal morality,” Li says, “comes from the convergence or integration of the world in our economic life.” (Li 1999, p. 71) As a result of the convergence of our daily material life, including basic necessities of life, medical care, job, transportation, entertainment, and information and so on, changes in our moral and spiritual life are seen by Li Zehou to be inevitable in the direction of the individual’s growing self-consciousness, liberation, and independence. “What is demanded by liberalism and modern ‘societal morality’,” Li says, “is only for individuals to conform to minimum obligations in modern life, and to abide by basic public norms and rules, such as honoring contracts, caring about public property, respecting order, following professional ethical rules, fulfilling obligatory military service, and avoiding harming others, etc. No matter whether it is also a violation of the law, violation of these norms is ‘immoral’ because it is harmful to the order of our common life and to the rights of other people.” (Li 1999, p. 72)

Li Zehou is right in stressing the importance of the issue of the historical or actual basis of the idea of “overlapping consensus.” This issue is important because the fact that so many people from so different cultural communities accept and follow the same norms, principles or standards needs to be explained and it can be explained at least from two perspectives. On the one hand, these universally accepted norms are functional requirements of the systems in which we lead our life in the modern sense; as long as these systems are functioning, these norms have a binding force that we have to submit ourselves to. On the other hand, as a result of our living in this modern world where these norms are followed by convention, we tend to internalize them; or, to put it differently, we have more or less been socialized in a way regulated by these norms. This explains not only why we have to follow these common norms, but also why we usually are quite willing to follow them. To the notoriously “modern” question “why be moral at all?” a moral theorist must give a theoretically justified answer. But for the ordinary people who have already undergone normal processes of socialization (i.e. what Li Zehou called “societal morality” functions), this has never been an actual problem. The problem “why be moral?” (or, for that matter, “why be moral in the way prescribed by “societal morality” in Li’s sense?) has already been solved in practice or in everyday life even before it is posed in theory. That is implied in Marx’s idea that “(a)ll mysteries which misled theory into mysticism find their rational solution in human practice and in the comprehension of this practice,” (Marx 1978, p. 145) hence the Marxist idea of the priority of “changing the world” over “interpreting the world.” [4]

In the same spirit we should not only look for the actual basis for the willingness to follow shared norms, but also look for the actual basis for the willingness to respect each other’s “moral sources” of the shared norms. Moreover, we should not only look for, but also make efforts to build up, in the case of its absence, the actual basis for the willingness to follow shared norms and at the same time respect other people’s value-based justifications and motivations for following these norms. “Overlapping consensus” is thus not a mere idea discussed in political philosophy, nor a mere phenomenon discovered in political culture, but also a goal that we should strive for in political practice.

But it is not enough, in my view, to recognize only the functional necessity of the shared social norms and the psychological mechanism for following these norms. We should not, to be more exact, ignore the dimension of the validity of the norms or reduce the problem of validity of norms to the problem of their facticity. These two issues are inextricably linked, and Li Zehou has made great efforts to show this link with his interpretation of Kant and his studies of the Chinese intellectual history in the last decades. But the connection between these two issues does not mean an integration of the two. We should not only explain how and why norms of “societal morality” are universally accepted, but also explain why and for what reasons these norms deserve to be universally accepted. We should not accept anything as an “ought” simply because it has become an “is,” or because of the prediction that it will become an “is.” On the one hand, there are always multiple elements and possibilities in real life, and we need to make a decision as to which elements and possibilities are to be maintained, developed or realized, and which are to be reduced or even eliminated. On the other hand, we are now in a situation where our technological means of reconstructing our environment and even the Earth as a whole are so powerful that their misuses can lead to consequences that we and our future generations will probably have no chance to rectify. From this perspective another famous thesis of Marx’s can have a new reading: “Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly found, given and transmitted from the past.” (Marx 1978, p. 595) It is true that we do not make our history as we please, and we always make history under circumstances directly found, given and transmitted from the past. But, if only we have, and I think we do have, a measure of freedom to choose what to do, we should be aware of the fact that our present choice will immediately become part of “the circumstances directly found, given and transmitted from the past” to the next generation. Given the enormity of the technological power at our proposal now, a small mistake we make now can quite possibly have significant influences on the future. In this sense, we have a responsibility towards our future generations that is heavier than that any preceding generations have had towards their later generations. It is irresponsible and dangerous under this condition to emphasize too much the priority of social changes over moral changes and to justify the universal validity of public norms of action simply in terms of the convergence of social and material life.

The reason why the idea of overlapping consensus needs to be taken seriously, actually, is just the fact that the accelerating economic globalization enhanced by information technology and global trade system has a tendency to level out cultural diversities and homogenize culturally different regions of the world. Without a self-reflective regulation of this process, the convergence of social and material life is likely to become an “objective ground” not only for the universal validity of the trans-cultural norms of social action, but also for the decrease and even elimination of cultural and value diversities. We should attach great importance to the idea of overlapping consensus just in order to resist the “objective tendency” of homogenization and reduction of multiple cultures and values.

The Marxist thesis on the relation between theory and practice, therefore, requires both a serious reconsideration and an updated understanding in our discussion of the idea of “overlapping consensus.” The issue of the desirability and possibility of overlapping consensus in modern times has both a theoretical aspect and a practical aspect, and under no circumstances should we consider one aspect but lose sight of the other.

Firstly, “practice” here means the common efforts of the people both in the domestic societies and in the international societies. Realizing that in both types of societies there is a task of establishing “overlapping consensus,” we should be aware of the distinction between the two cases: while the boundary of the domestic society is usually the same as that of the sovereign state, there is not a “world government” to interact with the international society. More efforts should be made, therefore, to study the limits and features of “plurality” and “consensus” in each case.

Secondly, “theory” here means the theoretical justification both for the universal validity of norms and the justification for the mutual compatibility between general norms and particular values. Both types of justification are difficult to achieve, and the latter is more so. “Overlapping consensus” is just a term empty of meaning if this kind of compatibility fails to materialize.

Last but not least, the “integration” of theory and practice here means not only that those who specialize in theorizing should be more concerned with the practical basis of their theories and those who specialize in practicing should be more concerned with theoretical guidance, but also means that both types of people should try to integrate the theoretical and practical attitudes in how they are doing as well as in what they are doing. On the one hand, those who are supposed to do theoretical work should be aware of the fact that they are “changing” the world as well by means of “interpreting the world” in a world filled with key words such as “knowledge-based economy,” “information age” and “consumption of symbols.” From the perspective of the idea of “overlapping consensus,” the practical consciousness of those who theorize in this sense reminds us of the importance of avoiding and resisting the activities that would inflict cultural harms upon other communities in the name of freedom of speech, as are seen in some European countries in recent years. On the other hand, those who practice should be aware of the obligation to engage in enlightened discourses, in order to base our decisions for joint actions on well-informed and well-deliberated judgments. From the perspective of the idea of “overlapping consensus,” the theoretical consciousness of those who do practical work reminds us of the importance of more efforts to include various cultural perspectives and value positions in the processes of making decisions and acting on them, in order to make sure that no universal principles and shared norms are violated.

                                                                                         May – July, 2008

                                                                         Shanghai, Paris and Vejle

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—, 1995: “Reconciliation through the Public Use of Reason”, The Journal of Philosophy, Volume XGII, No. 3, March 1995

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—, Charles Taylor, 1999: “Conditions of an Unforced Consensus on Human Rights”, East Asian Challenge for Human Rights, edited by Joanne R. Bauer and Daniel A. Bell, London: Cambridge University Press

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