Online research in philosophy

(In German.) The book addresses Rawls's post-1985 political liberalism. His justification of political liberalism -- as reflected in his arguments from overlapping consensus -- faces the problem that liberal content can be justified as reciprocally acceptable only if the addressees of such a justification already endorse points of view that suitably support liberal ideas. Rawls responds to this legitimacy-theoretical problem by restricting public justification's scope to include reasonable people only, while implicitly defining reasonableness as a substantive liberal virtue. But this virtue-ethical grounding of political liberalism is itself unreasonable. The phenomenon of disharmony of practical reason gives the reasonable reasons to take it that political legitimacy does not obtain if and where moral-political principles are acceptable from their point of view only.

A common objection to the idea of public reason is that it cannot resolve fundamental political issues because it excludes too many moral considerations from the political domain. Following an important but often overlooked distinction drawn by Gerald Gaus, there are two ways to understand this objection. First, public reason is often said to be inconclusive because it fails to generate agreement on fundamental political issues. Second, and more radically, some critics have claimed that public reason is indeterminate because it cannot provide any citizen with sufficient reason(s) for making important political decisions. Against the first of these objections, I argue that the purpose of public reason is not to end reasonable disagreement. Rather, it is to provide a suitable framework of values and principles within which citizens may resolve their moral and political differences. Against the second objection, I argue, first, that the indeterminacy of public reason is much less common than its inconclusiveness; and, second, that there are second-order decision-making strategies that may enable citizens to cope with cases of indeterminacy. The incompleteness of public reason, whether it takes the form of inconclusiveness or indeterminacy, is not a reason for citizens to abandon their commitment to public justification. Key Words: public reason • public justification • political liberalism • Rawls • Gaus.

Under free institutions the exercise of human reason leads to a plurality of reasonable, yet irreconcilable doctrines. Rawls's political liberalism is intended as a response to this fundamental feature of modern democratic life. Justifying coercive political power by appeal to any one (or sample) of these doctrines is, Rawls believes, oppressive and illiberal. If we are to achieve unity without oppression, he tells us, we must all affirm a public political conception that is supported by these diverse reasonable doctrines. The first part of this essay argues that the free use of human reason leads to reasonable pluralism over most of what we call the political. Rawls's notion of the political does not avoid the problem of state oppression under conditions of reasonable pluralism. The second part tries to show how justificatory liberalism provides (1) a conception of the political that takes seriously the fact that the free use of human reason leads us to sharply disagree in the domain of the political while (2) articulating a conception of the political according to which the coercive intervention of the state must be justified by public reasons.

The idea of public reason is central to political liberalism's aim to provide an account of the possibility of a just and stable democratic society comprised of free and equal citizens who nonetheless are deeply divided over fundamental values. This commitment to the idea of public reason reflects the normative core of political liberalism which is rooted in the principle of democratic legitimacy and the idea of reciprocity among citizens. Yet both critics and defenders of political liberalism disagree over whether or not the idea of public reason permits citizens to appeal to their comprehensive conceptions of the good in public deliberation over matters of basic justice. Our aim in this paper is to provide a defense of an exclusive idea of public reason, and at the same time we aim to dispel the underlying concerns of two prominent criticisms of the idea of public reason—the concern of alienation from the political process, as expressed by religiously oriented critics, and the concern over women's equality, as expressed by feminist critics. We argue that inclusive accounts of the idea of public reason are not consistent with political liberalism's core commitments. Further, we claim, inclusive accounts of the idea of public reason deepen feminist concerns. We think that, properly understood, an exclusive account of the idea of public reason can address feminist concerns about political liberalism and avoid alienating (reasonable) religious persons in an unacceptable way. Thus, we conclude that an exclusive account of the idea of public reason is our best hope for reconciliation.

Liberals often claim that coercive laws can not be justified on religious grounds. Accordingly, they urge citizens to 'bracket' religious arguments in the public square; they often endorse judicial review, as a mechanism for ensuring compliance with these strictures of public reason. Critics complain that this call to bracket religion is arbitrary and unfair, as all viewpoints - religious and secular alike - rest fundamentally upon articles of faith. I offer a reply. I begin by challenging this view that religious and secular viewpoints are on a par, drawing upon jurisprudence under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In Charter jurisprudence, religious beliefs and practices are singled out for especially generous protection (relative to secular beliefs and practices). The justification for this generosity, I argue, is that religious beliefs are taken (by the courts) to be inscrutable. This inscrutability justifies the accommodation of religious beliefs and practices, but it also justifies the bracketing of religion from deliberations over laws and policies of general application, in the way that political liberalism prescribes. I then consider whether my account offends the equality rights of religious believers, or the Charter's commitment to multiculturalism.

Public reason liberals typically defend an accessibility requirement for reasons offered in public political dialog. The accessibility requirement holds that public reasons must be amenable to criticism, evaluable by reasonable persons, and the like. Public reason liberals are therefore hostile to the public use of reasons that appear inaccessible, especially religious reasons. This hostility has provoked strong reactions from public reason liberalism's religion-friendly critics. But public reason liberals and their religion-friendly critics need not be at odds because the accessibility requirement is implausible. In fact, the accessibility requirement is ambiguous between two interpretations, one of which is too stringent and the other too loose. Depending upon the interpretation, accessibility either restricts the use of too many secular reasons or permits appeal to a wide range of religious reasons. The accessibility requirement should therefore be rejected.

This book advances a theory of personal, public and political justification. Drawing on current work in epistemology and cognitive psychology, the work develops a theory of personally justified belief. Building on this account, it advances an account of public justification that is more normative and less "populist" than that of "political liberals." Following the social contract theories of Hobbes, Locke and Kant, the work then argues that citizens have conclusive reason to appoint an umpire to resolve disputes arising from inconclusive public justifications. The rule of law, liberal democracy and limited judicial review are defended as elements of a publicly justified umpiring procedure.

In recent years liberals have had much to say about the kinds of reasons that citizens should offer one another when they engage in public political debates about existing or proposed laws. One of the more notable claims that has been made by a number of prominent liberals is that citizens should not rely on religious reasons alone when persuading one another to support or oppose a given law or policy. Unsurprisingly, this claim is rejected by many religious citizens, including those who are also committed to liberalism. In this paper I revisit that debate and ask whether liberal citizens have a moral obligation not to explain their support for existing or proposed laws on the basis of religious reasons alone. I suggest that for most (ordinary) citizens no such obligation exists and that individuals are entitled to explain their support for a specific law and to persuade others of the merits of that law on the basis of religious reasons alone (though there may be sound prudential reasons for not doing so). My argument is grounded in the claim that in most instances advocating laws on the basis of religious reasons alone is consistent with treating citizens with equal respect. However, I acknowledge an exception to that claim is to be found when using religious reasons to justify a law also implies that the state endorses those reasons. For this reason I argue that there is a moral obligation for some (publicly influential) citizens, and especially those who hold public office, to refrain from explaining their support for existing or proposed laws on the basis of religious reasons. I conclude by suggesting that this understanding of the role of religion in public political discourse and the obligations of liberal citizens is a better reflection of our experience of liberal citizenship than that given in some well-known accounts of liberalism.

Justificatory liberalism1 rests on a conception of members of the public as free and equal. To say that each is free implies that each has a fundamental claim to act as she sees fit on the basis of her own reasoning. To say that each is equal is to insist that members of the public are symmetrically placed insofar as no one has a natural right to command others, nor does anyone have a natural duty to defer to the reasoning of others. Given this conception of persons as free and equal, the legal authority of the state, because it is based on the use, and the threat of, force against its citizens, is deeply problematic: state functionaries employ power to force citizens, or issue threats to use force against them, to induce conformity to the law. On what grounds could anyone exercise such power and yet claim that she is respecting the person (as free and equal) that is imposed upon? In Immanuel Kant’s eyes, a crucial and necessary condition is that the person imposed upon by the law verifies that following the law is the thing to do — it is what his own reason instructs him to do. If the imposed law reflects the reason of those who are subject to it, Kant and his followers have insisted, in a fundamental sense the law treats them as free and equal (qua legislators) even though (qua subjects) they are bound. “A rational being belongs to the realm of ends as a member when he gives universal laws in it while also himself subject to these laws. He belongs to it as sovereign when he, as legislator, is subject to the will of no other.”2 Justificatory liberalism thus starts out with the idea of “free persons who have no authority over one another”3 and seeks to show how their reason can lead each to freely accept common laws to which they are subject. Only coercive laws that are publicly justified in this way — they are endorsed by the reason of all members of the public — can respect each as free and equal. “Respect for others requires public justification of coercion: that is the clarion call of justificatory liberalism.”4 My concern in this essay is not to motivate justificatory liberalism, but to investigate its relation to we might call “substantive” liberalisms..

In Political Liberalism and the essay "The Idea of Public Reason Revisited" John Rawls argues that citizens must refrain from introducing sectarian values intopolitical debate over fundamental political questions unless the positions they are endorsing can be supported by public reasons. I will argue that this duty allows for a more limited use of non-public ideas and values than is suggested in Rawls's discussion. ln addition, I will argue that reconciliation between citizens and the reinvigoration of free exchange and debate both call for an extension of this duty to debate over issues that are of immediate concern to citizens. I argue that public reason requires citizens to support only those public policies which can be defended by appeal to liberal political values (values such as comity, social stability, equality, happiness), and to sincerely affirm liberal political values as the ultimate justification of the use of state power to implement the public policies they support.