The Moral Foundation of Public Justification and Public Reason

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christie Hartley
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Public Reason ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Public Justification ◽  
Mutual Respect ◽  
Moral Foundation ◽  
Liberal Democracies

This chapter discusses the moral foundation of public justification for political liberals. Two conceptions of liberal democracies are contrasted together with their distinctive accounts of public justification. It is argued that political liberals view liberal democracies as a shared project among persons with the end of living on terms of mutual respect with others and that this leads to a shared reasons view of public justification. This view is shown to be superior to the convergence account of public justification on the grounds that (1) convergence accounts of public reason fail to capture what is distinctive about democratic decision-making, namely, that it represents a kind of collective willing, and (2) convergence accounts lack normative stability. Political liberalism offers both.

Exclusive Public Reason

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christie Hartley
Keyword(s):  
Public Reason ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Moral Duty ◽  
Public Justification ◽  
Moral Foundation ◽  
Narrow Scope ◽  
Public Reasoning ◽  
Comprehensive Doctrines

This chapter develops the idea of public reason based on the shared reasons account of public justification. It is argued that the moral foundation for political liberalism delimits a narrow scope for the idea of public reason, such that public reasons are required only for matters of constitutional essentials and basic justice. It is also argued that where public reason applies, persons as citizens have a moral duty to never appeal to their comprehensive doctrines when engaging in public reasoning. Hence, an exclusive account of public reason is vindicated. Finally, we respond to various potential objections to our view, such as the claim that the shared reasons view requires identical reasoning and the claim that public reason is interderminate or inconclusive.

Integrity and the Case for Restraint

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christie Hartley
Keyword(s):  
Public Reason ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Public Justification ◽  
Moral Ideal ◽  
Democratic Societies

This chapter discusses the concern that exclusive accounts of public reason threaten or undermine the integrity of some religiously oriented citizens in democratic societies. It discusses various notions of integrity that might be claimed to ground such a concern. It is argued that purely formal accounts of integrity that do not distinguish between the integrity of reasonable and unreasonable persons, as specified within political liberalism, cannot underwrite integrity challenges that should concern political liberals. It is further argued that if the inquiry is limited to conceptions of integrity that distinguish between reasonable and unreasonable persons, the supposed burdens persons of faith face are not burdens different from those that all citizens face equally. It is claimed the concern is best understood as a challenge to the account of public justification and the account of public reason as a moral ideal.

From Public Reason to the Democratic Decision-Making Process

2018 ◽  
pp. 24-62
Author(s):  
Benjamin R. Hertzberg
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Public Reason ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Public Justification ◽  
Religious Politics ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Political Approach ◽  
The Ideal

This chapter criticizes the ideal of public reason, showing that even when it is specified in several plausible ways, it does not provide citizens with sufficient guidance in evaluating religious politics. Instead, the ideal must be placed within a larger, way-of-life conception of democracy that considers religion’s roles in citizens’ civic lives. The chapter develops a minimal conception of public reason and analyses two criticisms of it: that public reason is a culturally protestant political approach that ignores crucial aspects of religion and that public reason violates religious citizens’ integrity. It then assesses two predominant responses to the second criticism: restricting the domain of public reason norms and adopting the convergence conception of public justification. Both responses demonstrate public reason’s inability to offer citizens sufficient guidance in evaluating religion’s political influence.

Public Reason and the Moral Foundation of Liberalism

2004 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 311-331 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jon Mahoney
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reason ◽  
Public Reason ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Moral Foundation ◽  
Modus Vivendi

AbstractI argue against Rawls’s freestanding conception of liberalism. On my view, the moral foundation of liberalism can be defended in one of three ways: (1) as a conception one accepts as a result of one’s affirmation of political liberalism, (2) as a conception one must affirm as a presupposition for political liberalism, or (3) as a philosophical truth about practical reason and persons. The first option makes it impossible to distinguish a moral consensus from a modus vivendi. The second renders the moral foundation of liberalism dogmatic because it affirms a moral foundation for which no justification is provided. Since there are good reasons for rejecting (1) and (2), that leaves option (3). I argue that (3) should be the preferred option for liberals who advance liberalism as a political doctrine with a moral foundation.

Free Speech and the Duty of Civility

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matteo Bonotti
Keyword(s):  
Free Speech ◽  
Public Reason ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
Public Justification ◽  
Legal Enforcement

This chapter critically examines which arguments for free speech may be consistent with Rawls’s political liberalism, in order to establish whether there are good reasons, within political liberalism, for rejecting the legal implementation of the duty of civility. Among the various arguments for freedom of speech, the chapter argues, only those from democracy and political legitimacy seem to justify Rawls’s opposition to the legal enforcement of the duty of civility. However, the chapter concludes, since Rawls’s own conception of political legitimacy is not merely procedural but grounded in the ideas of public justification and public reason, political liberalism is in principle consistent with some restrictions on free speech, including those which would result from the legal enforcement of the duty of civility.

Is There a Right to Polygamy? Marriage, Equality and Subsidizing Families in Liberal Public Justification

2011 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 246-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew March
Keyword(s):  
Public Reason ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Public Justification ◽  
Liberal State ◽  
Civil Union ◽  
Union Status ◽  
Common Objection ◽  
Domestic Partnerships ◽  
The Right ◽  
Female Equality

AbstractThis paper argues that the four most plausible arguments compatible with public reason for an outright legal ban on all forms of polygamy are unvictorious. I consider the types of arguments political liberals would have to insist on, and precisely how strongly, in order for a general prohibition against polygamy to be justified, while also considering what general attitude towards "marriage" and legal recognition of the right to marry are most consistent with political liberalism. I argue that a liberal state should get out of the "marriage business" by leveling down to a universal status of "civil union" neutral as to the gender and affective purpose of domestic partnerships. I then refute what I regard as the four most plausible rational objections to offering this civil union status to multi-member domestic partnerships. The most common objection to polygamy is on grounds of gender equality, more specifically, female equality. But advancing this argument forcefully often involves neglecting the tendency of political liberalism (by whatever name it goes in contemporary, complex, multicultural societies) to tolerate a certain amount of inequality in private, within the bounds of robust and meaningful freedoms of choice and exit. Properly understood, polygamy involves no inherent statement about the essential inferiority of women, and certainly not more than many other existing practices and institutions (including many expressions of the main monotheistic religions) which political liberals regard as tolerable, even reasonable. Arguments from the welfare of children, fairness in the spousal market, and the abuse of family subsidies are also considered and found insufficient for excluding polygamy.

The Ethics of Reasoning from Conjecture

2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 521-544 ◽  
Author(s):  
Micah Schwartzman
Keyword(s):  
John Rawls ◽  
Public Reason ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Cultural Imperialism ◽  
Epistemic Authority ◽  
Public Justification ◽  
Basic Features

An important objection to political liberalism is that it provides no means by which to decide conflicts between public and non-public reasons. This article develops John Rawls’ idea of ‘reasoning from conjecture’ as one way to argue for a commitment to public reason. Reasoning from conjecture is a form of non-public justification that allows political liberals to reason from within the comprehensive views of at least some unreasonable citizens. After laying out the basic features of this form of non-public justification, this article responds to three objections based on concerns about insincerity, cultural imperialism, and the epistemic authority of those who reason from conjecture.

Equal Citizenship and Public Reason

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christie Hartley ◽  
Lori Watson
Keyword(s):  
Division Of Labor ◽  
Public Reason ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Public Justification ◽  
Marginalized Groups ◽  
Substantive Equality ◽  
Law And Policy ◽  
Gendered Division Of Labor ◽  
Historical Sites ◽  
Equal Citizenship

This book is a defense of political liberalism as a feminist liberalism. The first half of the book develops and defends a novel interpretation of political liberalism. It is argued that political liberals should accept a restrictive account of public reason and that political liberals’ account of public justification is superior to the leading alternative, the convergence account of public justification. In the second half of the book, it is argued that political liberalism’s core commitments restrict all reasonable conceptions of justice to those that secure genuine, substantive equality for women and other marginalized groups. Here it is demonstrated how public reason arguments can be used to support law and policy needed to address historical sites of women’s subordination to advance equality; prostitution, the gendered division of labor and marriage, in particular, are considered.

Autonomy in Transactions

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 170-183
Author(s):  
Thomas Gutmann
Keyword(s):  
Division Of Labor ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Mutual Recognition ◽  
Contract Law ◽  
Liberal Theory ◽  
Public Justification ◽  
Individual Rights ◽  
Principles Of Justice ◽  
Normative Foundations

Abstract The article presents a ‘critique from within’ of Peter Benson’s book ‘Justice in Transactions’, while sharing its premise that a theory of contract has to be liberal one. It identifies three problems with Benson’s answer to the question of how the relation between freedom and equality in contract law should be understood. It criticizes Benson’s Hegelian metaphysics and claims that a principle of mutual recognition and respect between juridical persons does not require that contracts only allow the alienation and appropriation of different things of the quantitatively same value. It demonstrates that Rawls’s idea of a ‘division of labor’ within principles of justice is more plausible than Benson’s reformulated account, which loses sight of the premise that a liberal theory of contract must locate the normative foundations of ‘contract’ in individual rights, and, in addition, is at odds with Rawls’s project in ‘Political Liberalism’ and its concept of public justification.

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