This essay deals with two conceptions of the political; one that entails a clash of civilizations associated with a Schmittian critique of liberalism and a second which envisions the political as an emerging domain. The latter idea can be associated with the later work of John Rawls which separates the comprehensive from the political. I argue that it is this idea when reconstructed in relationship to a theory of multiple modernities that can be appropriated for an emerging notion of global justice. Hence, it is in the domain of the political that we should look for a new and emerging concept of justice.

Politics and ethics are closely linked in many ways. One such link is the central but still contentious notion of the person. Take the case of today’s European Union. Most basically, member states disagree on what and who persons are. This EU paradox may be resolved when political debates about sovereignty’s limits expand to include ethical discussions of the nature of persons. The aim of this paper is to point in the direction of an account of the person that will support proper understandings of those ethical, and not just political, values that the Preamble of any eventual European Union constitution will need to entrench tomorrow.