Povertà, uguaglianza e giustizia sociale: Repubblicanesimo kantiano e contrattualismo rawlsiano

Poverty, equality and social justice are terms that have forcefully returned to the fore, albeit with varying modalities and intensities, in the contemporary political, economic and social lexicon. The liberal drunken-ness and unjustified enthusiasm for the dynamics of the market had designed a world in which well-being and happiness seemed to be within everyone's reach and fully available. But the awakening following the revelry of creative finance has given us back a much more dramatic and conflictual scenario. From this point of view, political philosophy cannot exempt itself from the task of analyzing these phenomena and defining a sense and direction for the political agenda in complicated times such as the present. It is therefore neces-sary to return to reflect on concepts and perspectives that are perhaps too hastily liquidated. In this article, I propose to examine these concepts using the controversial relationship between Kantian philosophy and John Rawls' contractualism as a guiding thread.