Abstract
In this article, I examine the ways in which “Public Reason” (or public reasons, in plural) can be said to resonate with some types of reasons as presented and defended in contemporary legal theory. I begin by identifying the concept of Public Reason within the context of a discussion sparked by the between “internal” and “external” reasons, which was made famous by Bernard Williams. I will then compare this interpretation of Public Reason with Joseph Raz’s celebrated concept of exclusionary reasons. Next, I refer to two concepts of moral “neutrality” and how such concepts affect our understanding of Public Reason. I also reflect upon whether it is tenable to draw a distinction between the good reasons for actions that we conduct in our own lives and good reasons to be adopted in public life. Finally, I raise the question of a distinction between the reasons which we press in general societal discourse and those that we press in the advocacy-related law-making process.
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Notes
Rawls (1993), 66–67.
See Quong (2011), 256–57.
Williams (2005), 3–7.
Id, 7.
Elefthariadis (2008), 57.
Gaus (2011), 233.
Williams (1981), 101.
Id, 112.
Id, 107.
Id, 110.
Id, 105.
See Sadurski (1990), 111–19.
Williams (1981), 103, emphasis added.
Id, 104.
Williams (1995), 35.
Id, 38, emphasis in original.
Harsanyi (1985), 69.
Williams (1981), 105.
Goodin (1986), 82.
John Stuart Mill, “On liberty” (1859) in Mill (1989), 96.
Regan (1985), 57.
Williams (1995), 36, emphasis added.
Dworkin (1978), 248–253.
I am grateful to Michael Sevel for the discussion of this and related points.
Raz (1999), 39.
Raz, id 38. Of course, not all second-order reasons are exclusionary, see id, 184–85.
Waldron (1999), 196.
See Waldron (2007), 107–134.
Raz (1999), 184.
Raz (1986), 46.
Id, 46.
Id, 46.
Raz (1999), 183.
For discussion, see Sadurski (1990).
A strong connection between a liberal ideal of “impartiality” (a word used in a similar fashion to neutrality) and the ideal of “public justification” (of which the ideal of Public Reason is a part) is the strong underlying feature of a classical article by Nagel (1987), 215–40.
Patten (2012), 257.
See, e.g., Quong (2011), 18.
Id, 218–19.
Nagel (1987), 221.
Nagel (1987), 230.
Elefthariadis (2008), 58.
Rawls (1993), 56–57.
See Id, 56.
This is the point made forcefully by Jeremy Waldron who endorses the idea of burdens of judgment and then extends upon the field of political disagreement (or disagreement about justice), see Waldron (1999), 112–13 and 151–53. Waldron is correct to argue that there may be reasonable disagreement about justice (or more generally, political action) but incorrect, in my view, that sources of disagreement are the same regarding the conceptions of the good and the conceptions of justice.
Nagel (1987), 232.
Quong, (2011), 195.
Raz (1990). Note that Raz’s article had been published before Rawls’s (1993) appeared and addresses mainly, as far as Rawls is concerned, his two articles which had foreshadowed the book: “Justice as fairness: political not metaphysical,” (Rawls 1985) and “The idea of an overlapping consensus,” (Rawls 1987).
Raz (1990), 23, reference omitted.
Id, 23.
Id, 23.
Quong (2011), 232–233.
Id, 23.
Id, 42 n. 85.
Rawls (1999), 144.
Id, 153.
Id, 153.
Id, 154.
Larmore (2008), 210.
Dryzek (2000), 169, emphasis added.
Id, 169, italics removed.
Waldron (2015), 132.
Rawls (1999), 154.
Waldron (2015), 132.
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Sadurski, W. Public Reason in the Universe of Reasons. Jus Cogens 1, 41–58 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42439-019-00004-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42439-019-00004-y