The neutrality of the Liberal State in Rainer Forst

Abstract

The present article endeavors to portray Rainer Forst's arguments in his book Contexts of Justice in defense of the so-called neutrality of the liberal State. To this aim, I will provide a reconstruction of Thomas Nagel's theory based on reciprocity and universality arguments, as well as of some critiques of liberal neutrality and of the rejoinders to them. At the end, I will present the function of right in Rainer Forst's view, by way of his description of the liberal State as ethically neutral.