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In this article, it will be shown that philosophers/theoreticians of justice, such as John Rawls, are engaged in a kind of performative contradiction, since despite their implicit call for justice, their mere academic activities in developing a theory of justice, does not really help the cause of justice in society. Then by referring to thoughts of Heidegger, Levinas, and Nietzsche, among others, it will be shown that although the struggle to achieve social justice is necessary and has the highest priority, it is an impossible task; and yet human beings are existentially obliged to engage in this unavoidable task.  Finally, it will be shown as why this "task of social justice" will be best achieved as, what could be called, "authentic development" or horizontal development at the bottom, and playing chess with the powers that be.  In defining "authentic development," it will be compared with what Denis Goulet calls by the same name; where he defines the desired development with its results, rather than its process.

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John Rawls’s political philosophy is involved in what has been called constructive interpretation. It requires that a theory of justice be limited within the boundaries of political or social practices of any particular society, but not with the most abstract elements. A constructivist conception of justice represents the principles of justice not as part of some abstract moral rules known through theoretical reason, but rather as “the outcome of a procedure of construction” founded in practical reasoning. Rawls argues that reasoning about what justice is demanding should proceed from the social practices which are already established. He maintains that among the many existing social practices, we should attend to the most basic existing social structures (i.e., major institutions) because their effects are “so profound and present from the start.”  

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John Rawls introduced the idea of public reason as a precondition of decision-making processes based on justice in a well-ordered society. There are critics, however, who doubted whether the idea is consistent with deliberative democracy. While Rawls saw his idea of reasonable overlapping consensus as an outcome of public reasoning, his suggested political liberalism seems to be morally too thick to work as the basis of such a consensus in culturally diverse societies. Here, through a critical evaluation of Rawls’s view, I try to use his idea of public reason by reference to the brilliant distinction he makes between ‘the rational’ and ‘the reasonable’. I show that it is the latter, which defines the nature of ‘the political’, that could be employed for the relationship between different cultural identities of a society, governed by political principles justified by referring to thin or non-moral arguments that in turns allow liberal as well as non-liberal cultural communities to participate in a just framework of social cooperation. Moreover, I argue that this revised interpretation of Rawlsian overlapping consensus can help us in the democratic assessment of constitutions and revising them in order to became more legitimate to citizens. Using this theoretical framework, and as the Islamic Republic is claimed to represent a religious democracy, I suggest that the criterion of public reason can be used in assessing the Constitution of the Islamic Republic and, therefore, highlights the necessary revisions for achieving more democratic basic structures of the Iranian society.