Political principles can float free of the background ethical views that embed them.

Evidence

Taylor agrees with Rawls that the political ethic will be embedded in some understanding or other of the good, but argues against Rawls that background understandings and foreground political principles need not be tightly bound together as the latter maintains. This model of secularism is not only intellectually appealing, it is also, Taylor believes, one that the modern democratic state cannot do without. — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 20

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Rawlsian overlapping consensus and political liberalism debates. — connects to: Habermas restricts moral philosophy to procedural justification, leaving substance to citizens — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism: A Marxist…, 424