The inadequacy of Rawl's moral interpretation of "liberalism"

The intellectual achievement of the most prominent Western philosopher during four decades of scientific endeavor, John Rawls (1921-2002), is an interpretation of liberalism, which, despite its commonalities with the liberal tradition, comprises a new approach to interpretation and explanation of the basics of this political and philosophical school. Rawl's intellectual endeavor includes two stages the output of which is two different interpretations of liberalism. The first stage of his political thought, expressed in his famous book devoted to the theory of justice, shows his philosophical and moral approach to social justice and its output is an interpretation of liberalism founded on a particular moral and philosophical doctrine. In the second stage of his political thought, Rawls, proposing the theory of "political justice" and "political liberalism", claims that it is possible to propose an interpretation of liberalism and social justice that, despite the content of the book Theory of Justice, in not based on any particular moral and philosophical doctrine. The present paper deals with Rawls moral interpretation of liberalism, excluding political liberalism that is the output of his second intellectual stage.