My main aim in this paper is to analyze the problem of moral justification in John Rawls, characterizing the theory of justice as fairness as a coherentist system of justification that relies on a holistic coherentist epistemology, a social contract theory that introduces a social ontology, and a pragmatist strategy of justification in contractarian theory. I will analyze the core characteristics of the pragmatic presupposition of justification in social contract theory, which uses the argument of social stability and political legitimacy as a guarantee of the legitimacy of the rules, that is, of the principles of justice. I will mainly make use of two articles relevant to this debate: "Justice as Fairness: Political not Metaphysical" and "Reply to Habermas" § 1, 2. A specific objective here is to show the complementarity between descriptivism and prescriptivism in this strategy of justification that allows an overcoming the fact/value dichotomy.
Fact/value dichotomy; Coherentist system of justification; Pragmatist strategy of justification