On justification, idealization, and discursive purchase Thomas M. Besch [Forthcoming in Philosophia (accepted July 2018)] 1. Authoritative acceptability? In one way or other, conceptions of acceptability-based moral or political justification take it that acceptability can constitute, or relevantly contribute to, validity, or justification.1 While such conceptions evidently can vary greatly, all must qualify the kind of acceptability that they take to constitute, or contribute to, validity, or justification: where acceptability is said to have this status, some conception of the authoritativeness of acceptability must be in play. Call this Authoritativeness Necessary: AN Acceptability can constitute validity, or justification, in relation to a given subject matter and in a given context only if it is, or counts as, authoritative relative to that subject matter and in that context. There are many candidate conceptions of authoritativeness–e.g., standards of justification might seek reasonable, rational, coherent, respectable, or epistemically responsible, justified, and so on, acceptability. But it is not always in plain view what bar for authoritativeness a conception (or practice) of justification adopts. For instance, a justification practice, JP, might provide its bar for authoritativeness only indirectly, through restrictions on its constituency: thus, rather than defining as authoritative only "reasonable" acceptances, JP might accord full membership in its constituency only to "reasonable" people. At any rate, we do not know the content, status, or applicative yield of a standard of acceptability-based justification unless we know what kind of acceptability it counts as authoritative. Standards of acceptability-based justification, S, are indexed to their bar for authoritativeness. Whatever authority or merit S can have or impart to the views, principles, policies, and so on, that S applies to, it depends, as well, on S's bar for authoritativeness. If S sets that bar too high or too low, or distinguishes authoritative from non-authoritative acceptability in terms that are relevantly objectionable, S's suitability as a justification standard is cast in doubt–at least so long as moral or political justifications must do more that establishing views, principles, policies, and so on, as "conditionally reasoned" (O'Neill 1996 p. 51) or hypothetically justified, on grounds that are relevantly disputed. Thus, it matters greatly to set the bar for authoritativeness in the right place. What constrains eligibility for the role of a conception of the authoritativeness of acceptability? I shall engage the issue in relation to two themes: (i) the level of idealization that a bar for authoritativeness, ψ, imparts to a standard of justification, S, and (ii) the degree of discursive purchase that S accords to people when S adopts ψ (for now, let "discursive purchase" refer to the normative influence of an agent's actual say in justifications, or on its outcomes). Both (i) and (ii) impact eligibility. If ψ imparts to S an idealization value that is too high or too low, justifications by S will be objectionable. And if ψ entails that S allocates to people discursive standing of too much or too little purchase, justifications by S are, again, objectionable. Yet as far as non-ideal justification between actual agents is concerned, considerations that favour higher, rather than lower, idealization values often pull in a 1 I use the label "acceptability-based" justification in a wide sense that includes consensus and convergence justification. On convergence and consensus: D'Agostino 1996, p. 30; see also below. Conceptions of acceptability-based justification can vary in a wide range of respects: e.g., see Forst 2010 and 2012; Postema 1995a and 1995b, Macedo 1991, Rawls 2005 and 2001, Larmore 2015, Boettcher 2015, Gaus 2010, Vallier 2015 and 2016, Wall 2016. 2 different direction than considerations that call for higher, rather than lower, purchase.2 However, if ψ's eligibility turns on whether S+ψ gives due weight to pro-idealization and pro-purchase considerations, how may ψ be calibrated? With this question in the background, I pursue two aims. Idealization has received much attention in recent debate.3 Many agree that high degrees of idealization can be problematic but few deny that acceptability-based justification must for better or worse involve some level of idealization (at least in the weak sense of "hypotheticalization," see section 3). And there is no consensus as to how much idealization is proper, and how much is too much. My first aim, then, is to suggest one way to think of over-idealization. I shall suggest that S over-idealizes relative to a given group of people when S's bar for authoritativeness puts authoritative rejections out of their actual reach. That is, at whatever level of idealization S sets that bar, it must set ψ low enough so as to make it a genuinely available option for such people to reject views that they are committed to reject in ways that S recognizes as authoritative. This at the same time defines a baseline of discursive purchase in relation to discursive rejection rights. Next, discursive purchase is rarely acknowledged in its own right as a relevant dimension in which to assess standards of justification. Often, it seems, the weight that S accords to an agent's say is seen as a mere function of the degree in which S idealizes. But this seems one-sided. True, discursive purchase and idealization are linked: as we shall see, high idealization values entail low degrees of purchase, while high degrees of purchase require low idealization values (section 3). But it does not follow that pro-idealization considerations must (always) take priority over pro-purchase considerations in calibrating standards of justification. Alethic views of justifications–for my purposes, Wall's "pure" theory of public justification (Wall 2016) will serve as exemplary here–prioritize proidealization considerations: they primarily serve ends that call for high idealization values (section 4). But there are other, recognitive views that pursue ends that call for high degrees of discursive purchase–e.g., Rawls-type political liberalism is in this category. One of my aims, then, is to lift the profile of discursive purchase. I suggest a moderately recognitivist case for the view that moral or political justification should give weight to pro-purchase considerations: it should set its bar for authoritativeness low enough to enable relevant actual people to access what I will refer to as the recognitive discursive minimum (sections 5 and 6). I proceed as follows. Sections 2 and 3 elaborate on discursive purchase, idealization and the relationship between them. Section 4 distinguishes alethic and recognitive views of acceptability-based justification as responding differently to the complex pull of pro-purchase and pro-idealization considerations. Sections 5 and 6 argue that moral or political justification should give weight to pro-purchase considerations. Section 5 suggests that S over-idealizes when S's bar for authoritativeness puts authoritative rejections out of the actual reach of relevant people. This also marks a baseline for minimal discursive purchase. At first sight, this rules out only strong alethicism–i.e., views that set aside recognitive concerns in calibrating relevant justification standards, such as Wall's view of "pure" public justification– but the view can be amplified to rule out more. Section 6 advances a moderate recognitive case for this view. Drawing on Rawls's insight that we see ourselves as "self-authenticating" sources of valid claims, I suggest that the avoidance of over-idealization in relevant justification practices is instrumental to making the recognitive discursive minimum available to relevant people. Section 7 concludes. Before I start, let me address one concern. D'Agostino argues that reasonableness–he 2 As Enoch 2017 in effect observes, although he does not employ the notion of discursive purchase. 3 Kang 2016 surveys stages of the debate; see also Valentini 2012, Stemplowska 2012, Schmidtz 2016, Enoch 2015, Gaus 2016. 3 construes it in Scanlonian/Rawlsian terms–is part of the conditions for politics which, he claims, enable public political justification, seen as a form of acceptability-based justification (D'Agostino 1996, p. 25f.). Thus, when the conditions for politics are at hand, perhaps a conception of the authoritativeness of acceptability is readily available? Says D'Agostino: [B]eing reasonable is clearly a condition for politics generally and for public justification specifically. (...) The circumstances of politics are those features of our world that make political activity necessary–that is, disagreement and mutual dependence. The conditions for politics are those features of our personalities that make political activity feasible–that is, reasonableness and recognition of the burdens of judgment. The limits of politics are therefore encountered whenever we find ourselves in the circumstances of politics without the conditions being realized. If we disagreed with one another in a state of mutual dependence but did not think of one another as reasonable, we would not be able to resolve our disagreement politically. (Ibid.) This makes a good point, but it oversimplifies. First, even if we agree on a politically basic notion of the reasonable, there is a difference between interlocutor-recognition as reasonable and the content of our standards of justification. Betty and Paul might recognize each other as reasonable, while she reasonably believes, and he reasonably rejects, that public justification must count as authoritative only rational (as opposed to reasonable) acceptability. The point: whatever puts us in the conditions for politics does not directly translate into a calibration of standards of public political justification. Second, it seems part of the circumstances of politics that we disagree as to what skills, capacities, virtues, and so on, we may require in others as a matter of their basic political reasonableness. And whatever puts us in the conditions for politics (if they are ever met) must cohere with the expectation of such disagreement. At any rate, perhaps Betty takes it that her relationship with Paul meets the conditions for politics only if he is reasonable by her lights– and vice versa. And perhaps these conditions truly obtain only if each is reasonable by the others' lights. Still, they can disagree about the standards of public reason-giving. Third, perhaps we should graft ideas of the reasonable that people actually adopt onto the standard of public justification by somehow defining its bar for authoritativeness in their terms. There is more than one way to do this despite disagreements about reasonableness. E.g., one way might be a convergence approach. Say, we might take it that φ is valid only if relevant agents each can accept φ "reasonably" in terms of a conception of reasonableness that they, but perhaps not others, endorse (perhaps provided that relevant others can recognize that conception as one of reasonableness).4 But this is problematic. Such a standard of justification adopts a single bar for authoritativeness across all agent-specific views of reasonableness: i.e., a bar low enough to count as authoritative any discursive input that at least one input-provider construes as reasonable. And depending on how permissive their views of reasonableness are, this might set this bar too low. At any rate, it invites reasonable contestation and stands in need of justification. Another approach is to employ an O'Neill-type method of abstraction (O'Neill 1996, pp. 38-44). E.g., we might argue that φ is valid only if each relevant agent can accept φ "reasonably" by a conception of reasonableness that is abstracted from, and hence entailed by, their respective conceptions of reasonableness. Say, Betty might believe that reasonableness commits us to be prepared to give others reasons that are good by our own standards. Paul might believe that it commits us to be prepared to give others reasons that all should accept. But both must accept the more abstract view that reasonableness involves a 4 This is a relative of Vallier's view. See Vallier 2016, pp. 603ff. 4 commitment to reason-giving. But this leaves us with similar concerns (Besch 2012). If a conception of reasonableness, R*, is accurately abstracted from conceptions R1 and R2, R* cannot identify anything as unreasonable that R1 or R2 identify as reasonable. Hence, a standard of justification that defines its bar for authoritativeness in terms of an abstract conception of reasonableness must count as authoritative any input that input-providers deem reasonable. And this, too, might set that bar too low. Thus, it invites reasonable contestation and stands in need of justification. Either way, abstraction and convergence approaches already suppose that a bar for authoritativeness may be set at a suitable low, permissive level. But why should we place that bar at that level in the first place? The view that I shall advocate below is compatible with convergence or abstraction approaches, but it concerns this latter, more fundamental question. 2. Discursive purchase Discursive purchase is a property of the discursive standing that acceptability-based justification accords to people. Thus, I start with discursive standing. The views of justification that matter now take it that φ's acceptability constitutes, or contributes to, φ's validity, or justification. Where authoritative acceptability has this strong, justification-constitutive role, relevant people have the standing of recipients and co-authors of justification. Thus, if φ is valid, or justified, φ not only applies to them, but it does so, in a strong sense, "in their name" (Nagel 2005, p. 121). In different terms: relevant people are here being accorded constitutive discursive standing, or discursive respect (Besch 2014). A justification practice, JP, that accords constitutive discursive standing to people does two things: (i) JP accords people discursive standing: JP attaches positive value or weight to φ's authoritative acceptability by them; (ii) JP takes there to be a justification-constitutive direction of fit between φ's acceptability and φ's authority: JP takes it that φ depends for its normative authority on its authoritative acceptability. Constitutive discursive standing contrasts with weaker, justification-derivative forms of discursive standing. The key difference concerns (ii). Where JP accords to people derivative discursive standing vis-à-vis φ, JP attaches value to φ's acceptability, or what it regards as valuable forms of acceptability. But JP does not take it that φ depends for its authority on its acceptability. People here are recipients and clients, but not co-authors, of justification; JP might value unanimity or consent, but it seeks "ideal unanimity" (Nagel 1991, pp. 33-4.) or "normative consent" (Estlund 2008, p. 10). Consider now discursive purchase.5 We consider discursive purchase when we consider what normative influence in justification, or on its outcomes, an agent's discursive standing accords the agent, given her actual deliberative resources–widely conceived so as to include whatever views, skills, attitudes, volitions, interests, preferences, capacities, and so on, she actually draws on in her practical reasoning. Discursive purchase is not a matter of the influence of non-actual, ideal or model agents with ideal deliberative resources. Nor is it a matter of the influence of actual agents with idealized deliberative resources. Instead, discursive purchase is a matter of the normative influence of actual agents, given their actual deliberative resources. With this actualist focus, the category of purchase helps to describe and account for whatever normative distance there is, if any, between the way in which actual agents actually go about their practical reasoning (say, when they try to reason well by their 5 What I say here about discursive purchase suffices for my present purposes, but for a fuller picture is best seen in conjunction with what I say elsewhere: see Besch 2014, 2017 and 2018. 5 lights), and the way in which they would have to go about their reasoning for relevant justification practices to recognize their reasoning as authoritative. Amongst other things, it is through this distance that we encounter the normativity of justification, or its standards. In a sense, then, the category of purchase helps to earth that normativity by indexing it to a relevant factual baseline. Specifically, the label "discursive purchase" focuses our attention on two things: as part of the concept of discursive purchase, (i) the degree of normative influence that an agent's discursive standing accords her in relevant justification practices in relation to other agents; and as a correlate of this, (ii) the value, worth, or use, that having, or being accorded, this influence can have for the agent. While these things can come apart, they usually are entwined: other things being equal, as the normative influence of Betty's standing increases, so does its value, worth, or use, for her. And as this influence decreases, so does its value, worth, or use. Of course, this does not hold if Betty does not welcome such influence to begin with, or if she believes that valuable degrees of such influence cannot exceed a certain level. But I shall simplify and assume that increases of the purchase of an agent's discursive standing favourably correlate with increases of the value, worth, or use, that this standing has for the agent. Not least, I shall leave open exactly what value, worth, or use, discursive purchase might have for agents–evidently, this might change significantly from one agent to the next–but I shall later submit the conjecture that a minimum degree of discursive purchase matters to us insofar as we see ourselves as "self-authenticating sources of valid claims" (Rawls 2001, p. 23) (section 6, below). As to degrees of discursive purchase, compare two justification practices, JP1 and JP2. JP1 accords Betty actualist discursive respect. It adheres to a standard of justification that accords Betty constitutive discursive standing, and it builds its standard of justification on a bar for authoritativeness that average adults like Betty easily meet anyway, given their actual deliberative resources. Say, according to JP1's justification standard, if Betty cannot actually accept φ in light of her actual views and volitions, given at least minimal criticality and local coherence, this is evidence that φ is not authoritatively acceptable by Betty. This would give Betty a real measure of normative influence in JP1, or on it outcomes: for it is readily within her reach to exercise what, in JP1, counts as an authoritative normative say. Accordingly, her discursive standing is rich in discursive purchase. JP2 accords Betty counterfactualizing discursive respect. JP2 adheres to a standard of justification that accords her constitutive discursive standing, but the standard builds on a bar for authoritativeness that adults like Betty are unlikely, or unable, to ever meet. Say, JP2's justification standard takes Betty's rejection of φ to count as authoritative only if some ideal condition holds–e.g., only if Betty would reject φ if she was ideally reasonable, ideally knowledgeable, or ideally responsible epistemically, or some such. If Betty coherently rejects φ, this would not count as evidence against φ's authoritative acceptability so long as Better Betty–i.e., Betty's ideal twin who meets all ideal conditions–would not reject φ. This leaves Betty with little normative influence, if any, whenever her voice does not match Better Betty's voice. JP2 would accord Betty discursive standing that has very little purchase. Several things spring to mind. First, justification practices that accord people constitutive discursive standing might not accord them a meaningful normative say–as illustrated by Betty in JP2. To accord people a meaningful normative say, their discursive standing must also be rich in discursive purchase. Second, distinct justification practices can accord people standing of the same abstract kind, while their standing relevantly differs in purchase. E.g., JP1 and JP2 accord people constitutive discursive standing, but while the fact that Betty coherently rejects φ carries positive weight in JP1, it may mean little in JP2. Thus: discursive standing of the same abstract kind can be unequal in purchase. Third, discursive standing that is of the same abstract kind can vary in purchase also 6 within a single justification practice. What purchase the standing has that JP can allocate depends, as well, on (i) the bar for authoritativeness that JP adopts–e.g., on how high or low JP sets that bar relative to the resources of relevant people–and on (ii) the level of deliberative resources relevant people bring to the task of justification. As to (ii), consider JP3. It accords to Dominant Group and Marginal Group discursive standing of the same kind and applies to all people the same bar for authoritativeness, ψ–thus, let us say, their standing is formally equal. But their standing can still be unequal substantively if it relevantly differs in purchase. E.g., ψ might fit the way in which members of Dominant Group typically deliberate anyway, while members of Marginal Group meet ψ only if their views first undergo filtering, secondguessing, preference-laundering, and so on. At any rate: purchase differentials can arise within a given justification practice when it applies the same bar for authoritativeness to agents who relevantly differ in deliberative resources. This raises complex questions about the nature of discursive equality. Are purchase differentials between relevant people ever permissible? What level of purchase should justification practices accord to people–specifically, is there a minimum level of purchase? I addressed the first question, i.e., the matter of purchase justice, elsewhere, and so I set it aside here.6 What matters now relates to the second question. I begin to engage it after I consider idealization and its relationship to discursive purchase. 3. Idealization and purchase The discursive purchase of the standing that a justification standard can allocate and the degree in which it idealizes are related: higher, more "radical" degrees of idealization entail lower degrees of purchase, and higher degrees of purchase require lower, more "populist" idealization values.7 Call this the Idealization Purchase Relation (with "S" for a standard of acceptability-based justification and "DR" for a relevant set of deliberative resources): IPR Idealization and discursive purchase are related: (i) if S's degree of idealization is high relative to DR, S allocates discursive standing that is low in purchase relative to DR: high degrees of idealization entail low degrees of discursive purchase; (ii) if S allocates discursive standing that is rich in purchase relative to DR, S is low in its degree of idealization relative to DR: high degrees of discursive purchase require low degrees of idealization. Take again JP1 and JP2, above. JP2's justification standard sets its bar for authoritativeness high relative to people's deliberative resources. In this respect, JP2's standard has a high idealization value. But the higher this bar is set relative to people's resources, the harder it is for them to register what counts as an authoritative say. And so Betty's discursive standing in JP2 had little purchase. JP1's justification standard sets the relevant bar low relative to the relevant resources. In this regard, JP1's standard has a low idealization value. Hence, it is easy for Betty to register an authoritative say and so her standing has much purchase. The question of how high or low that bar is set, then, is linked to the question of how rich or poor in purchase the discursive standing is that the standard allocates, and vice versa. IPR looks self-suggesting. But as the conceptual terrain here is complex, it is best to elaborate. I focus on IPR's notion of idealization and on degrees of idealization. A good point of departure is O'Neill's concern that idealization can easily lead to falsehood. An [assumption, conception, theory, standard] idealizes when it ascribes predicates–often seen as enhanced, 'ideal' predicates–that are false 6 Besch 2018 and 2017. 7 I adapt the notions of "populist" and "radical" idealization values from Vallier 2011, p. 371ff. 7 of the case in hand, and so denies predicates that are true of that case. (...) Insofar as contemporary theories of justice start by assuming 'ideal' conceptions of persons, rationality or independence (...) they assume rather than establish specific ideals. If they then do not offer reasons for starting from these idealizing assumptions (...) [they] will, strictly speaking, be inapplicable to the human case. (O'Neill 1996, p. 41.) This intertwines two things. Take a conception of citizens as reasonable people who are wholeheartedly committed to honour fair, reciprocally acceptable terms of cooperation. This conception can serve as a descriptive or a normative model of citizens. In the first role, it refers to actual citizens in descriptively selective terms–terms that might be true of some citizens, but that likely are false of others. To base inferences about actual citizens on this conception hence "can easily lead to falsehood." In the second role, the conception specifies an ideal that some citizens might relevantly reject, and that hence might be in need of justification. Thus, when conceptions of justice build on this ideal without justifying why it should be accepted, they (problematically) "assume rather than establish specific ideals." The notion of idealization is often used to flag O'Neill-type concerns: theories are said to "idealize" to convey that they depict their subject matter in potentially inaccurate, selective terms, or invoke normative models or ideals that need, but lack, justification. There are many other, non-pejorative uses of the notion. A particularly prominent use draws on Rawls's idea of ideal theory. Roughly, a theory idealizes in this sense if it supposes for its justifications or applications relevantly enhanced counterfactual conditions, such as conditions of full compliance or full reasonableness. Another prominent usage surfaces when Enoch writes that theories of public reason idealize when they "go hypothetical" in construing acceptability as justificatory only if it is qualified, or reasonable (Enoch 2015, p. 117), or when Vallier notes that idealization in standards of acceptability-based justification "determines which reasons are accessible" (Vallier 2011, p. 371). Relevant here is idealization in a non-pejorative sense on the lines of the last usage just indicated–a sense that aligns it with hypotheticalization. Specifically, what matters are idealizing standards of acceptability-based justification that apply outside ideal theory. Why focus on these? Consider three justification practices (with "S" for a standard of justification): JNN Non-ideal theory, for-now principles. S identifies what principles are suitably acceptable by actual people in the actual world; if φ meets S, φ counts now, for actual people in the actual world, as valid, or justified. JIT Ideal theory, for-then principles. S identifies what principles are suitably acceptable by ideal citizens of an ideal, well-ordered society; if φ meets S, φ counts then, for ideal citizens of an ideal society, as valid, or justified. JIN Ideal theory, for-now principles. S identifies what political principles are suitably acceptable by ideal citizens of an ideal society; if φ meets S, then φ also counts now, for actual people in the actual world, as valid, or justified. JNN and JIN employ S to structure a relationship between actual people–e.g., a Nagel-type political relationship between actual citizens such that principles that meet S apply to them "in their name" (Nagel 2005, p. 121). In this sense, these justification practices apply S to actual people. And here the question arises what normative influence these people have in these practices, or in arriving at these principles. Hence, questions of discursive purchase arise. And this makes such practices relevant now. By contrast, JIT structures an ideal, hypothetical relationship between the non-existent, ideal citizens of a non-existent, ideal society. If we leave things strictly at that–rather than applying ideal theory principles to the actual world–the question of the normative influence of actual people in arriving at these principles seems out of place. 8 Standards of acceptability-based justification that apply to actual people involve some degree of idealization, or hypotheticalization. As registered in AN (see section 1, above), they construe as justifying not what actual people actually, without normative qualification, accept, or not reject, but what people can, could, or would authoritatively accept, or not reject, e.g., when they are reasonable, rational, coherent, or when they deliberate respectably. Standard idealization targets include people's deliberative resources and the way people put them to use. (To simplify, I henceforth think of the latter as an expression of doxastic, epistemic, or other norms that people follow and subsume it under their deliberative resources.) As soon as these things are subjected to filters, constrains, or requirements, so that a gap opens between how relevant people actually deliberate and how they should deliberate, or would deliberate if they did so authoritatively, idealization occurs. As that gap widens, idealization values increase. Turning next to degrees of idealization, it is not always apparent to what degree justification standards idealize. At any rate, their idealization value cannot always be read off their linguistic surface. One reason for this matters now. To make the point with an example, it seems straightforward that S* φ is valid only if φ is reciprocally acceptable by reasonable people, and people are reasonable only if their justification-relevant behaviour has property P, idealizes to a high degree if P is such that within the group of relevant people–i.e., the people to whom S* is being applied–no-one can instantiate P despite best efforts at using all available deliberative resources (say, First Group). S* seems to idealize to a lesser degree if P is such that all relevant people instantiate P effortlessly anyway when they deliberate about matters like φ (Second Group). But now hold S* and P constant, and treat the groups as variables. S* would have a high idealization value relative to First Group, but a low idealization value relative to Second Group. And if we do not know to which group S* is to apply, or what resources their members have, then we do not know whether S*'s idealization value is high or low. The point: S*'s idealization value varies with, and depends on, the deliberative resources of relevant people. This, I submit, generalizes. Standards of acceptability-based justification that apply outside ideal theory idealize as soon as they invoke relevant authoritativeness constraints. The degree in which they idealize varies with, and depends on, the deliberative resources of relevant people: idealization values are relativized to these resources. Two questions spring to mind. What people, seen as subjects of deliberative resources, matter for the assessment of idealization values? As I focus on justification practices like JNN and JIN, the self-suggesting answer is that these are the actual people to whom relevant standards of justification apply. However, second, should idealization values be relativized to actual people's actual resources, or their–again–idealized, filtered resources? Let me index them to the resources that relevant actual people actually have. This is not the only possibility. E.g., we might relativize idealization values to the resources that actual people should have, or would have if their respective points of view were suitably enhanced or perfected–which would give us, say, normative or perhaps idealized idealization values. This might be useful for some purposes other than the ones pursued here. But here, what matters are actual people as they are. I hence continue to think of degrees of idealization as relativized to the actual resources of relevant actual people. Suitably construed, then, idealization values and degrees of purchase fall into the same normative horizon. Both are anchored in the actual deliberative resources of actual people and both turn on whether there is a normative gap between their actual reasoning and authoritative reasoning. As IPR registers, the greater this gap is for a given standard, the higher will be the standard's idealization value, and the lower will be the purchase of the discursive standing it 9 can allocate. And the richer in purchase that standing is, the lower must be the standard's idealization value. 4. Alethic and recognitive conceptions IPR underscores what often is plain: considerations that favour higher, rather than lower, idealization values can pull in a different direction than considerations that favour discursive standing of higher, rather than lower, discursive purchase. E.g., there might be reasons to idealize S's bar for authoritativeness, ψ, to a high level so as to enable justifications to set aside as non-authoritative epistemically less-than-suitably responsible discursive input. But this is objectionable if S+ψ1 cannot accord all relevant people discursive standing of highenough purchase. Conversely, we might have reasons to build S on ψ2 if this allows justifications to accord people high-purchase standing–or even a qualified "veto" (Forst 2010, p. 719). Still, S+ψ2 is objectionable if it commits justifications to count as authoritative, say, unreasonable discursive input. Thus, what weight should we give to pro-idealization and propurchase considerations in calibrating justification? Conceptions of justification respond differently to the pull of these considerations: some give strict priority to pro-idealization concerns, while others give much weight to pro-purchase concerns. Consider, then, alethic and recognitive conceptions of moral or political justification–a non-exhaustive and tentative distinction that relates to, but cuts across, Rorty's distinction between objectivity views and solidarity views.8 These conceptions are located on opposite sides of the idealization/purchase continuum owing to the different priorities in light of which they calibrate their standards of justification. Take alethic conceptions first. They take it that moral or political justification must give priority to alethic ends, widely conceived: that is, it must primarily aim at conclusions that, in some robust and reflectively stable sense, are true, truth-analogue, or objective. Alethic conceptions typically regard discursive input as authoritative only if it has high levels of epistemic merit, responsibility, or respectability. But as actual people, given their actual deliberative resources, are imperfect as epistemic agents, alethic conceptions tend to idealize more, rather than less. Thus, while they can vary greatly in their conceptual, metaphysical, or other underpinnings–e.g., they can be realist or constructivist, perfectionist or anti-perfectionist–these conceptions share a commitment to alethic ends that requires high idealization values. Accordingly, they tend to allocate to relevant actual people, given their actual deliberative resources, discursive standing of very low purchase. Wall's theory of "pure" public justification can serve as a good example here, at least on one reading of his view. In considering the degree in which public justification should idealize the agents it fully enfranchises–which indirectly specifies the sort of acceptability that it counts as authoritative–he insists that "the only relevant considerations are epistemic or truth-related" (Wall 2016, p. 218). For Wall, acceptability-based, public justification must be calibrated in highly idealized terms that ensure that all public reasons at the same time are "valid" reasons. "Valid" reasons truly are good, and truly apply to people–and they have this 8 Rorty's distinction is between objectivity views that take reasonable thought to aim at truth (where truth is construed in correspondence-theoretical terms) and solidarity views that take it to aim at acceptability by relevant people. See Rorty 2010a and 2010b. Some alethic views are not objectivity views. E.g., Habermas's discourse ethics is anti-realist and thus is not an objectivity view. But it is an alethic view in aiming at truthanalogue validity. Accordingly, it strongly idealizes (it idealizes deliberation indirectly, by idealizing its discursive context). See Habermas 2009, pp. 31-115. Many recognitive views are solidarity views. But some espouse ideas of weak objectivity: see Rawls 2005, p. 110ff. Others assume that the kind of respect that public justification should express really is of value: see Larmore 2015, p. 76ff. and Larmore 2008, chapter 6. Not least, some conceptions of acceptability-based justification are neither alethic or recognitive. E.g., Gauthier-type, Hobbesian views pursue non-recognitive prudential goals, such as individual or collective safety: see Gauthier 1995. 10 rank not because they are acceptable by actual people. For Wall, a "valid reason is a reason that applies to a person whether or not he appreciates, or even can appreciate, it" (ibid, p. 207). Accordingly, public justification fully enfranchises only ideal, exemplary epistemic agents. Exemplary agents are "highly idealized versions of actual political subjects" who exercise ideal and accurate "skill in forming judgments, accessing evidence, and applying [reliable] standards of reasoning" (ibid, p. 220). They are idealized to a level that guarantees that reasons that these agents judge to be acceptable are also valid in Wall's sense. Accordingly, φ counts as publicly justified if epistemically ideal agents would not reject φ (ibid, pp. 216-7, 218). But φ nevertheless counts as publicly justified to real people if their ideal, epistemically exemplary twins would not reject φ–where real people have discursive standing of little purchase, if any (ibid, pp. 209-10, pp. 222-3). If actual Betty cannot coherently accept φ, this does not count against φ's justifiability so long as her idealized, epistemically exemplary twin Better Betty would not reject φ. Writes Wall: Many actual political subjects will not be aware of all the evidence available to them that pertains to the justification of the political arrangements apply to them, and many will not apply correct standards of reasoning in forming judgements about the justification of these arrangements. Less demanding proposals are certainly available... Decreasing the degree of idealization, however, would amount to a compromise with rational epistemic justification. On the view I am proposing, public justification expresses the demand to justify political arrangements to subjects understood as exemplary agents. It does not ask state officials to tailor their justifications to the epistemic defects of actual subjects. (Ibid, p. 220.) If, in calibrating the standard of public justification, the only relevant ends are truth-related, or alethic, then lowering its bar for authoritativeness would compromise its ability to pursue these ends.9 Recognitive conceptions attach much weight to pro-purchase considerations. They take it that moral or political justification should give much weight to, if not prioritize, recognitive ends, widely conceived:10 its standards and terms should cohere with, or express, proper recognition of, or respect for, relevant actual people–or their right to justification (Forst 2012), their dignity (Forst 2011) , their autonomy (Forst 2010), their capacity for reasons (Larmore 2015), freedom and equality (Macedo 1991), their "robust" moral selfhood (Postema 1995a), and so on. Importantly, recognitive conceptions attach a special interpretation to what this calls for: they take it that justification will properly recognize or respect people only if it accords them high-purchase discursive standing–so as to accord them a meaningful normative say in relevant matters, if not a (qualified) veto. Recognitive conceptions hence construe justification in terms that idealize less, rather than more. Political liberalism is an example (if we read it as claiming that public justification 9 I read Wall here as favoring high idealization values such that at least some actual agents are unlikely to be able to perform like ideal, exemplary epistemic agents would. There might also be a low-idealization reading of his view. I set it aside here–what matters now is to illustrate the contrast between alethic and recognitive views, rather than to find the best reading of Wall's account. But I gesture at a low-idealization reading of that account below, see the notes to section 6. 10 To refer to recognitive conceptions in the terms I use here is not meant to suggest that their differentia specifica is their instantiation of Darwall-type recognition respect (Darwall 1977). In Darwall's terms, to "have recognition respect for someone as a person is to give appropriate weight to the fact that he or she is a person by being willing to constrain one's behaviour in ways required by that fact" (ibid, p. 45). Alethicists can interpret this in terms that are consistent with their alethic commitments (see Wall 2016, p. 222, and below). What is specific for recognitive conceptions is not that they attach importance to recognition respect, but how they interpret it: they take it to require high-purchase discursive standing (see below). 11 should occur also in the actual world).11 Political liberals insist that a public justification of political principles should not construe considerations as good reasons that relevant people relevantly disagree about–Rawls refers to "reasonable" people and "reasonable" disagreements–as this would not suitably respect these people. To respect "the freedom and equality of citizens," political liberals suggest, the "goodness of good reasons" should be construed "entirely [as] a function of their capacity to gain widespread agreement among reasonable people" (Macedo 1991, p. 46f). Accordingly, to respect other people "when coercion is involved is (...) to require that political principles (...) be as justifiable to them from their perspective as they presumably are to us" (Larmore 2015, p. 78; my emphasis)– where "them" refers to (at least) all actual "reasonable" people "to which such principles are to apply" (Larmore 1996, p. 137). This kind of respect is the "moral basis of the liberal principle that the fundamental rules of political association are legitimate only if they can be the object of reasonable agreement" (Larmore 2015, p. 79). Thus: an idea of respect here calls for a form of justificatory neutrality that gives much weight to what actual "reasonable" people can or cannot actually accept. Public justification hence accords them discursive standing of high purchase. By implication, public justification cannot prioritize alethic ends: "reasonable" people "reasonably" disagree about the nature or role in public reasoning of (robust) truth, objectivity, or truth-analogue validity. Thus, alethic ends give way to an aim of respect–which in turn calls for justifications that actual "reasonable" people can agree or converge on. In passing: it might be argued that the distinction between alethic and recognitive conceptions is not one between conceptions of justification, but one between these and conceptions of deliberation: while justification is a domain of alethic ends, recognitive ends may be salient in public deliberation, seen as an activity of reason-giving between people. In response: we are free to reserve "justification" for justifications that prioritize alethic ends– just like proponents of recognitive views are free not to follow such a linguistic policy. For my purposes, I count alethic and recognitive conceptions as views of justification. On this policy, it is a substantive question what weight moral or political justification should give to pro-purchase and pro-idealization considerations, or recognitive and alethic ends. 5. Authoritative rejections Should we follow alethic or recognitive ends or priorities? The question can be taken up from many angles, e.g., epistemic, metaphysical, moral, or political angles, amongst others. I will take it up from this angle: even as we give weight to alethic ends, how much weight should we minimally give to recognitive ends? Are there recognitive constraints on idealization? Can we set, on recognitive grounds, a criterion for over-idealization? One way to look at matters is to consider rejection rights. Recall IPR: the more a justification practice idealizes its bar for authoritativeness, the less readily available it is for relevant actual people to register in this practice authoritative rejections. How available should this be for people–say, when they by their own lights conscientiously try to reason well? Here is one view that springs to mind–call it Authoritative Rejection Available (for an agent A, relevant views φ that apply to A, and a relevant justification practice JP): ARA If, upon consideration, A cannot coherently accept φ, it should be a genuinely available option for A to reject φ in ways that JP counts as authoritative. That is: at whatever level of idealization JP sets its bar for authoritativeness, JP should set it low enough to make it a genuine option for actual people, given their actual deliberative resources, to reject relevant views in ways that JP recognizes as authoritative. This limits the idealization value of justification practices, or their standards, and it sets a mark for over- 11 Such a reading–I call it the "deep view"–is advanced in Besch 1998, 2012, and 2017. 12 idealization: justification practices (or views of such practices) over-idealize when they put it out of the genuine reach of actual relevant people to reject relevant views authoritatively that they cannot coherently accept. Accordingly, ARA sets a baseline of minimum discursive purchase in relation to rejection rights.12 Some remarks on ARA are in place. First, let me situate ARA. Call strong alethicism the view that in calibrating the standard of moral or political justification, "the only relevant considerations are epistemic or truth-related" (Wall 2016, p. 218). Call moderate alethicism the view that, in calibrating that standard, alethic considerations may trump other considerations, e.g., pro-purchase considerations. Next, strong recognitivism is view that, in calibrating that standard, the only relevant considerations are recognitive in the above sense–a sense that interprets proper respect or recognition as requiring the allocation of discursive standing of high discursive purchase. Not least, call moderate recognitivism the view that in calibrating the relevant standard, recognitive considerations may trump other considerations, e.g., pro-idealization considerations. ARA seems unavailable only for strong alethicism–such as Wall-type view of "pure" public justification–and it sits most comfortably with moderate recognitivism. I will not advance a case against strong alethism, however. My aim is not to prove any variant of the above views wrong, but to make a suggestion that, if it is adopted, asks us to give relevant weight to pro-purchase considerations at least in relation to rejection rights. Second, ARA does not simply apply Ought Implies Can (OIC) to justification practices. It does not claim that people cannot intelligibly be required to meet a bar for authoritativeness that they cannot meet. Instead, ARA raises a substantive claim as to the permissibility of idealization values. Why not simply apply OIC? Here is one reason. Applications of OIC to relevant requirements, or "oughts," suppose that we have a lock on demand-waivers–i.e., limitations, widely conceived, that count as significant enough for us to waive "oughts," or to warrant our inferences from "cannot" to "not ought" (Besch 2011). A "cannot" of logical impossibility always waives "oughts," a "cannot" of empirical impossibility nearly always does. Yet when the "cannot" is of a softer kind–e.g., consider motivational or intellectual limits–it is often contested whether OIC licenses an inference from "cannot" to "not ought." At any rate, if (i) Betty cannot meet a bar for authoritativeness, ψ, we may not infer that (ii) it is not the case that she ought to meet ψ, if it is open whether her inability should count as a demand-waiver. Of course, we might insist that her inability should count as a demand-waiver when it is not a genuinely available option for her to meet ψ, and infer on this basis, via OIC, that JP cannot require Betty to meet ψ. But this would distort things: for what we really would be saying is that JP fails ARA vis-à-vis Betty, and hence JP should not require Betty to meet ψ. Third, to meet ARA, justification practices must set their bar for authoritativeness in a manner sensitive to the actual deliberative resources of actual people. Alas, we do not always know what their resources are. People's resources may rarely fall below a baseline that comes with intelligent agency. But evidently there are great differences between people's resources that can significantly affect how available, if at all, it is for them to meet a given bar for authoritativeness. Thus: unless we set that bar at suitably low levels of idealization to begin with–say, somewhere in proximity of a baseline of the sort just referred to–we may not know whether the bar is set low enough to ensure that all relevant people can meet it. And this calls into question whether we may rely on that bar in assessing validity. Specifically, suppose JP adopts threshold ψ; then we may infer from (i), below, claim (ii) only if (iii) holds: 12 Note that by focusing on discursive rejection rights, ARA is more than one step removed from the worry that people cannot have a basic right to a democratic say as this would entail a basic right to exercise power over others. See Arneson 2003 and 2015. ARA does not suggest we attribute to people a right to exercise power over others; rather, ARA suggests that it should be within people's reach to authoritatively reject or object to attempts of others to exercise (discursive) power over them. 13 (i) No relevant person can reject φ ψ-authoritatively. (ii) φ is valid. (iii) It is a genuinely available option for all relevant people to reject φ ψauthoritatively. The inference from (i) to (ii) supposes that JP may adopt ψ to assess validity. But if (iii) is false, or if we do not know whether (iii) is true, it is open whether JP may adopt ψ. This undercuts the inference–or so ARA suggests. Thus: ARA may not rule out that justification practices set their bar for authoritativeness at high levels of idealization, but it can add much uncertainty to practices that do so. Fourth, ARA by itself rules out only extreme levels of idealization. E.g., it rules out indexing authoritativeness to the powers of Wall-type ideal, epistemically exemplary agents– assuming that this ideal has a very high idealization value such that attaining these powers is not a genuine option for actual people.13 However, depending on what we take it to require for a bar for authoritativeness to be within an agent's genuine reach–and, evidently, there can be different, more or less demanding views on the matter–ARA rules out more. For example, take again political liberalism. Arguably, its view of public justification qualifies rejections as authoritative only insofar as they are "reasonable" in a sense that requires the endorsement of liberal values–values, though, that some citizens in good standing cannot actually accept coherently.14 Now assume that these citizens, too, are relevant in public justification. And suppose, as well, that the fact that they cannot actually accept these values coherently shows that meeting the relevant bar for authoritativeness is not within their genuine reach. Hence, ARA would rule out indexing that bar to these values. The point: the more readily available meeting a bar for authoritativeness must be for people in order for this to count as an option that is genuinely available to them, the lower is the level of idealization that ARA permits. Thus, while ARA is by itself a minimalist view, it does not rule out that we set the mark for over-idealization at higher levels of discursive purchase. Fifth, there is a difference between (i) the availability of authoritative rejections and (ii) their effectiveness, i.e., their normative impact in justifications, or beyond. ARA states a view about (i); it leaves room for different views about (ii). And there can be different views on the matter. For a maximalist example, take Forst's conception of justification as "reciprocalgeneral justification" (Forst 2017. p. 4), or as justification by a standard of reciprocal and general acceptability (Forst 2007, p. 214, and Forst 2017, pp. 1-36). His view construes authoritative rejections in terms of an exercise of veto-rights that protect, or help to protect, people from undue impositions, domination, or forms of disrespect that come with this (Forst 2001, p. 168f; Forst 2010, p. 719). Forst leaves open exactly how the exercise of discursive veto-rights can have this protective function (we may conjecture, though, that they can have this function only if justification practice is embedded in suitably supportive social structure, widely conceived, that is geared toward high levels of compliance with such rights). At any rate, it is on the assumption that these rights have that function that Forst finds "reciprocal- 13 As stated earlier, I read Wall's view in high-idealization terms. But we could also read it in lowidealization terms, as a two-stage view of public reasoning. Stage 1 is the stage of "pure" public justification: it provides the highest available level of justification between people who exemplify the highest available level of aptitude; stage 2, the stage of "impure" public justification, is a stage of reasoning with less apt agents–it does not add to stage-1 justifications but aims to persuade less apt agents to accept stage-1 principles. This is compatible with recognitivism. It also recalls Macedo's two-stage view of public justification: at stage 1, public justification addresses "reasonable" people; at stage 2, the reasonable "re-engage" the unreasonable to persuade them to accept stage-1 principles–where stage-2 results do not count toward stage-1 justification. See Macedo 1991, p. 61. 14 See Besch 2012 and Enoch 2015. 14 general justification" at the core of a "basic structure of justification" that (putatively) enables many important things, such as fundamental justice, a reconciliation of authority with freedom and equality, or real democracy and true non-domination (Forst 2017, pp. 131-137). On a more minimal view, authoritative rejections in the first instance negatively contribute to the justification status of relevant views–whatever then follows, or should follow, from this at the level of political or moral practice. For my present purposes, all I need is some such minimal view. I assume that if an agent authoritatively rejects φ (or expresses authoritative doubts or disagreement with φ), this negatively affects to φ's justification status: e.g., it evidences that φ fails to be suitably justifiable to every relevant person, provides reasons to doubt φ, or puts φ in need of (further) justification, and so on. This is compatible with, but does not entail, more demanding views of the proper or desirable impact of authoritative rejections in justification, or beyond.15 Finally, ARA is relevant also for alethicists like Wall–but not as an objection. "Pure" public justification sets aside the constraints of actual, engaged public reasoning. It seems fair to assume that from the perspective of such reasoning, it is often elusive what reasons, if any, are valid in Wall's sense (say, valid*) and what reasons our ideal, epistemically exemplary twins would identify as good, public reasons. But then consider actual discursive life. Say, Paul and Betty disagree about a political proposal, φ: Paul supports φ on the basis of a presumptive good reason R, which Betty rejects. If it is elusive for Paul to begin with whether R is valid*, (i) he will not know whether his ideal twin Better Paul agrees that R is a reason that he, real Paul, should treat as a public reason to φ, and (ii) he will not know whether actual Betty's rejection of R is supported by reasons which Better Paul (or Better Betty) recognizes as reasons that he, real Paul, should count as a good reason to not accept R. But then "pure" public justification is not available for Paul. And this just is the situation of real people. Thus: either there is no permissible form of public justification, or at least one permissible form of public justification is "impure." What bar for authoritativeness may permissible impure public justification adopt? Plainly, it is improper for Paul in such justification to discount Betty's rejection of R as non-authoritative for the reason that it mismatches Better Paul's (or Better Betty's) judgments–for these are elusive. According to ARA, then, permissible impure public justification should set its bar for authoritativeness low enough so that it is a genuine option for real Betty to reject views she is committed to reject in a way that permissible impure public justification counts as authoritative. 6. ARA's appeal ARA knocks on open doors from the perspective of recognitive conceptions of justification: 15 A note is in place on two issues that I must otherwise set aside. Recall first that ARA sets a bar for minimum discursive purchase. And we can agree that purchase may not fall below that minimum, while we disagree about what would be a proper or desirable level of purchase in relation to a given subject matter, context, or constituency of justification. Thus, first, ARA is compatible with justification practices that require different levels of purchase in moral and political matters–so long as ARA is met. Second, ARA constrains the legitimacy of exercises of political power if we suppose that political power is exercised legitimately only if it abides by principles that are justifiable to, or are authoritatively acceptable by, relevant people. But note that this may or may not amount to much: e.g., on Forst's view, it might amount to more than on the minimal view used here (but even this minimal view entails an important recognitive benefit, see below). It follows that legitimate exercises of political power can meet ARA even if they do not accord relevant people much discursive purchase. From an alethic perspective, this might be a desirable implication; from a recognitivist perspective, it might not go far enough. However, the view put forward here does not deny (nor does it entail) that a proper or desirable level of discursive purchase must exceed ARA's minimum level–at least in some cases, or for some subject matters, contexts, or constituencies. Whether this is so will be contested between alethicists and recognitivists, amongst others. A full account of purchase needs to address these issues. For now, all I can do is to focus on the availability of authoritative rejections and to propose a view of minimum purchase that at least some alethicists might be able to endorse. For reasons to highlight this here, I am indebted to an anonymous reviewer. 15 the forms of respect or recognition that they call for go far beyond ARA. Yet I bypass their ideas of respect or recognition as a ground to base ARA on. E.g., consider the notion of respect. Contrary to what recognitivists sometimes suggest, respect does not commit us to accord to people high-purchase discursive standing. It is one thing to accept that respect commits us to act toward others on grounds they can, or could, accept. But it is another matter to construe this in light of a particular view of the authoritativeness of acceptability and its relationship to the validity of reasons, principles, and so on. Recognitivists often construe respect in light of the view that authoritative acceptability constitutes validity, or justifies, and they calibrate authoritativeness so as to allocate people high-purchase discursive standing. Thus, they often construe respect as discursive respect, and a high-purchase variant of it at that. But we can interpret respect in different terms, including terms that cohere with strong alethicism (Besch 2014 and 2015; Wall 2016). Thus, to base ARA on respect merely shifts the issue: why (or when) should we exercise respect as high-purchase discursive respect? Can we support ARA on other grounds? There may be many ways to do so, given how minimal ARA is. To at least gesture at one, I draw on Rawls's insight that people see themselves as "self-authenticating sources of valid claims" (Rawls 2001, p. 23). Says Rawls: [Citizens] regard themselves as being entitled to make claims on their institutions so as to advance their conceptions of the good (...). These claims citizens regard as having weight of their own apart from being derived from duties and obligations specified by a political conception of justice, for example, from duties and obligations owed to society. (Ibid.) This makes two points. We take our raising of claims to confer on them a positive weight such that others should take them seriously. And we take them to have this weight "on their own"–i.e., their weight does not depend on whether others agree with them from within their framework of normative conceptions. Thus, we take our raising of claims to confer on them a positive weight such that others should take them seriously even if they disagree with us–say, at least where we conscientiously try to reason well.16 Rawls focuses on our political self-conception as citizens and claims on political institutions, but the underlying point generalizes: we see ourselves as self-authenticating sources of valid claims in moral or political matters more generally, at least when these matters affect us.17 That is, we take ourselves to be entitled to make claims on others in relation to what they regard as good reasons in such matters, and we expect them to recognize us as having this entitlement. And it seems to be a core part of this recognition that others attach, or are prepared to attach, positive weight to our claims even when our claims express a (motivated) non-acceptance of what they see as good reasons–widely conceived so as to include explicit rejections, objections, or other expressions of disagreement or doubt. What specifically we thereby expect of them–e.g., what measure of openness or receptivity toward us or our claims this involves–might vary from one person, one context, or one subject matter to the next. At a minimum, we expect others to regard our rejections of what they see as good reasons as something that can provide reasons to doubt, or put in need of justification, these reasons, or their presumptive goodness. I call this the discursive minimum of what we expect of others as a response to our standing as self-authenticating sources of valid claims. 16 Rawls refers to self-authenticating sources of valid claims. This obscures things: it is not the case that we take our raising of claims to suffice for their validity in some standard sense. For now, I assume that Rawls oscillates between two options. Either "valid" refers to the weight that is conferred on our claims by our raising them, in which case it means, e.g., "positively matters in its own right." Or it refers to validity in some standard sense, in which case Rawls tells us that we regard ourselves as self-authenticating sources of claims and as capable of sourcing claims that are valid. 17 This is aligned with Rawls's earlier writings: see Rawls 1980, pp. 543ff. 16 Plainly, the discursive minimum is a good. And it can be seen to be a good even if we do not commit to the forms of respect and recognition at the heart of recognitive views of justification. For, obviously, the discursive minimum falls far short of what these views call for. That Betty regards Paul's non-acceptance of her presumptive good reason φ as something that can put φ, or φ's goodness, in need of justification does not commit her to the view that the goodness of reasons is a function of their acceptability, or that justification must accord relevant people high-purchase discursive standing. By implication, the discursive minimum may not give people much in the way of the recognition that they need or merit–especially if we think of this in the demanding terms recognitivists sometimes attach to it. Of course, when others accord us high-purchase discursive standing, the discursive minimum is available to us in relation to them. E.g., if Betty accords Paul a Forst-type, high-purchase right to justification, then by her lights his (motivated) non-acceptance of φ will count as evidence that φ is not reciprocally acceptable by all relevant people. Now, the discursive minimum is conditioned. At least normally, others accord us this minimum only where they take us to merit this minimum. Yet they will take us to merit this minimum only when they take it that we, or our claims, meet basic requirements of authoritativeness–or so I shall suggest. Consider matters from the perspective of recognition providers. When do we not take the claims of others to cast doubt on, or put in need of justification, views that we already endorse? Discursive practice, I submit, suggests something like this: normally, we do not attach the relevant positive weight to claims that we take to be relevantly defective–e.g., claims that are, or that we see as, unreasonable, irrational, inconsistent, unintelligible, morally perverted, wrong-headed, intolerable, and so on–or that we take to fail some relevant bar for authoritativeness. Larmore makes a related, stronger point when he notes that we need reasons "to open our mind just as we need one to close it," so that, in order to cast doubt on views we already have, "we must have good reasons to believe it is doubtful" (Larmore 1996, p. 59). He adds: A good reason for us to doubt, and so to raise the question of justification, must be one that is good by our own light, for it must be supported by other beliefs of ours. (Ibid, p. 63.)18 We need a reason to open our mind just as we need one to make our mind up. (...) Questions of justification arise with in a context of given beliefs that do not in and of themselves need to be justified. Such then are the terms in which we should judge, not only our own thinking, but the thinking of others as well. (Larmore 2015, p. 71.) For Larmore, the embedded deliberator-relativity of reasons to doubt suggests a contextualist view of rational belief (Larmore 2015 and 2008, pp. 4-5, 11f, 59ff). For what matters here, we only need a weak variant of his point. He seems right to note that when we assess whether the claims of others give us reasons to doubt our own views–or to "open our minds" and "raise the question of justification"–we assess the weight of their claims in terms of other views of ours. Now, bluntly put, we usually draw a line between views that we take to be possible (albeit perhaps unlikely) candidates for getting things (partly) right (call them Qualifieds) and views that we regard as too defective to be such candidates (Disqualifieds). And we draw this line in terms of views that we already endorse. Put in these terms, Larmore claims: we regard the claims of others as giving us reason to doubt our own views only if, by our lights, these claims are Qualifieds that are suitable supported by other views of ours. What I need now is more limited: normally, we regard the claims of others as giving us reasons to doubt our own 18 Larmore uses "belief" in a wide sense, and I follow him: that φ is a belief does not mean that φ is perceptual, corresponds to some 'mind-independent' reality, or is not prescriptive. 17 views only if, by our lights, these claims are not Disqualifieds. Thus, at least normally we make the discursive minimum available to others only where we take them, or their claims, to not violate what we regard as basic requirements of authoritativeness. What does this entail at the site of justification? This is not straightforward. But the above suggests this: the discursive minimum is available to us only where others see us as raising claims that they regard as authoritative, or at least not as non-authoritative. E.g., Betty regards Paul's (motivated) non-acceptance of her presumptive good reason, φ, as putting φ, or φ's goodness, in need of justification, only if she regards his non-acceptance of φ as reasonable, or at least as not unreasonable. However, while strong alethicists might agree that the discursive minimum should be available to people in some contexts, they might disagree that it should be available at the site of moral or political justification. Thus, I make another, openly recognitivist assumption–call it Justification Recognitively Relevant: JRR People who regard themselves as self-authenticating sources of valid claims in moral or political matters expect others to accord them the recognitive discursive minimum at the site of moral or political justification. Thus, given our self-conception as self-authenticating sources of valid claims, the recognitive discursive minimum will adequately be available to us only if others make that minimum available to us at the site of practices of moral or political justification. The suggested upshot: the discursive minimum will adequately be available to us only when others, as participants of these practices, regard us as raising claims that meet, or at least not violate, whatever bar for authoritativeness these practices adopt, and that they as their participants uphold. If this is so, then there are reasons to adopt ARA. This view requires that moral or political justification set its bar for authoritativeness low enough to make it a genuine option for actual people, or their claims, to meet that bar in relation to the exercise of rejection rights. If Betty's and Paul's justification practice JP meets ARA, then it is a genuine option for Betty to reject Paul's presumptive good reason, φ, in ways that, by JP's standards, Paul is committed to regard as authoritative. This is instrumental to making the discursive minimum adequately available to her–either negatively in removing a hurdle for Paul's recognition of Betty as someone who, at the site of moral or political justification, merits that minimum, or positively if Paul takes her rejection of φ to put φ in need of justification. 7. Conclusion The above pursued two main aims. One aim was to suggest that acceptability-based moral or political justification over-idealizes when its bar for authoritativeness puts authoritative rejections out of the reach of actual people. Another aim was to suggest that such justification should give weight to recognitive ends. Thus, I suggested ARA, and gestured at a moderate recognitivist case for this view. ARA leaves almost everything to fill in. It does not specify exactly what degree of idealization would be proper or desirable in moral or political justification. ARA only sets a mark for over-idealization. Accordingly, it does not specify how much discursive purchase the discursive standing of relevant people must have. ARA only identifies a level of minimum purchase: moral or political justification should at least accord relevant people standing of enough purchase to make it a genuinely available option for them to authoritatively reject views that they actually are committed to reject. That is, if we aim to make the discursive minimum available in a given practice of moral or political, acceptability-based justification, then this practice should satisfy ARA. As we have seen, this only rules out particularly strong forms of alethicism. Next, ARA leaves open how readily available the "genuinely available option" just referred to must be. As we have seen, the more readily available it must be for Betty to meet a relevant bar for authoritativeness, ψ, for it to be true that meeting ψ is a genuine option for 18 her, the lower will be the idealization value that ARA permits, and the higher will be the purchase of the discursive standing that ARA-compliant justification accords. But just how much purchase should the discursive standing have that acceptability-based justification must accord to people? How much normative influence in such justification, or on its outcomes, should people have, given their actual deliberative resources? These questions need answering before we can in good confidence claim to have set the bar for authoritativeness at a proper or right level (whatever that level may be). Not least, ARA leaves open how suitable levels of discursive purchase are best attained. Moral or political justification can adjust purchase in various ways. Two adjustment strategies suggest themselves. Suppose a justification practice, JP, that accords every relevant person discursive standing of the same kind and applies the same bar for authoritativeness throughout: A1 Hold constant the deliberative resources of relevant people and treat JP's bar for authoritativeness as the adjustment variable: set ψ higher or lower relative to a reference bundle of expectable minimum deliberative resources. A2 Hold constant JP's bar for authoritativeness and treat deliberative resources as the adjustment variable: adjust the available expectable minimum bundle of relevant deliberative resources. As to A1, rather than counting Betty's rejection of φ as JP-authoritative only it is compatible, e.g., with key capacities, skills, or value commitments, that many relevant people do not have, we might adjust things downward to count Betty's rejections of φ as JP-authoritative already if other people regard her as being justified from her perspective, or as entitled to reject φ by her standards.19 As to A2, we might argue that people, to qualify as fully JP-relevant, must undergo a relevant level of civic, moral or political education or deliberation training, or be exposed to relevant high-value information. Of course, A1 and A2, or mixed variants, may not be promising. E.g., A1 risks underidealizing JP's bar for authoritativeness by counting discursive input as authoritative that some relevant people might reasonably regard as relevantly defective.20 A2 risks making moral or political justification impermissibly paternalist. 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