  Scheffler makes a suggestion as to how one might incorporate into the theory of justice a norm against certain inequalities of rank, power, and status and justify the selection of the “certain inequalities” that are singled out in this way. One might invoke the Rawlsian political liberalism project (Rawls, 2005). In this project what is rock-bottom is the idea of society as a system of fair cooperation among free and equal people. This idea is understood in philosophically noncommittal ways so that it can plausibly command support from all of the reasonable comprehensive conceptions of the right and the good affirmed by members of society and also from reasonable individuals who affirm no such comprehensive conception. The principles of justice are the principles people committed to this idea of social cooperation would affirm as capturing the core of their intuitive pre-theoretical commitment. Norms of relational equality that figure in this scheme would then qualify as principles of justice that all citizens of modern democracies can affirm, and to which we are already implicitly committed. To evaluate this suggestion one would have to examine and assess the Rawlsian political liberalism project.