There are two kinds of comprehensive doctrines, religious and secular. Those of religious faith will say I give a veiled argument for secularism, and the latter will say I give a veiled argument for religion. I deny both. Each side presumes the basic ideas of constitutional democracy, so my suggestion is that we can make our political arguments in terms of public reason. Then we stand on common ground. That's how we can understand each other and cooperate.

The bad man desires arbitrary power. What moves the evil man is the love of injustice.

At best the principles that economists have supposed the choices of rational individuals to satisfy can be presented as guidelines for us to consider when we make our decisions.

If you compare the United States with Europe, my view is that what happened in Europe is that the church became deeply distrusted by people, because it sided with the monarchs. It instituted the Inquisition and became part of the repressive state apparatus. That never happened here. We don't have that history.

There are infinitely many variations of the initial situation and therefore no doubt indefinitely many theorems of moral geometry.

The idea of public reason has to do with how questions should be decided, but it doesn't tell you what are the good reasons or correct decisions.

You hear that liberalism lacks an idea of the common good, but I think that's a mistake.