Summary

This text argues that there is an essential analogy between necessary conflicts in the minds of individuals and necessary conflicts in states and societies; and that this is the universal basis of procedural justice. The rational method of resolving these conflicts is the same, but conflict resolution in the state requires institutions, which have their own peculiar histories- hence the variety of outcomes. This is a new basis for political liberalism. It starts from Plato's analogy in the Republic between conflict in the soul and conflict in the city. Plato's solution required reason to impose agreement and harmony on the warring passion, and this search for harmony and agreement constitutes the main tradition in political philosophy up to and including contemporary liberal theory. The author undermines this tradition by developing a distinction between justices in procedures, which demands that both sides in a conflict should be heard, and justice in matters of substance, which will always be disputed. Rationality in private thinking consists in adversary reasoning, and so it does in public affairs. Moral conflict is eternal and institutionalised argument is its only universally acceptable restraint and the only alternative to tyranny.