Overlapping consensus

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Overlapping consensus is a term coined by John Rawls in Political Liberalism.

The term refers to how supporters of different comprehensive doctrines can agree on a specific form of political organization. These doctrines can include religion, political ideology or morals.

The overlapping consensus “depends, in effect, on there being a morally significant core of commitments common to the ‘reasonable’ fragment of each of the main comprehensive doctrines in the community” (Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy 2003).

The commitments as applied to a liberal society, for example, would be basic human rights and freedoms such as that of expression and religion, as well as abiding by notions of democracy and the rule of law.