Just Wide Enough

John Rawls ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 35-50
Author(s):  
James Boettcher
Keyword(s):  
Public Reason ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
The Other ◽  
Political Autonomy

This chapter proposes to widen Rawls’s idea of public reason in order to respond to a dilemma originally developed by David Reidy in his article “Rawls’s Wide View of Public Reason: Not Wide Enough” (2000). The dilemma is that public reason is either indeterminate or inconsistent with the animating values of political liberalism, including the value of political autonomy. Reidy’s article identifies two different ways in which public reason might turn out to be indeterminate, one arising when there are too few public reasons in support of some law or policy and the other when there are too many. The latter problem is not as serious as Reidy supposes, at least with respect to several conceptions of justice that might provide the content of public reason. The problem of there being too few reasons suggests that the idea of public reason should include a more expansive set of politically relevant justifying reasons than is otherwise suggested by Rawls’s theory. The chapter proposes a principle for widening public reason and maintains that such a principle is consistent with political autonomy.

scholarly journals Religion, Religions and J.Rawls’ Political Project

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 267-285
Author(s):  
Valentina Gentile
Keyword(s):  
Public Reason ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Political Transition ◽  
Political Autonomy ◽  
Political Project ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Decent Peoples

The essay explores the relationship between religion and Rawls from the perspective of some issues that are central to his political project: political autonomy, public reason and the implications of the fact of pluralism for the development of the idea of decent peoples. Religion has a dual dimension in political liberalism, plural and singular. The problem of the liberal political transition is to allow these two dimensions to coexist harmoniously within the liberal political project.

scholarly journals Public reason as a political ideal: John Rawls’s conception

2007 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-234
Author(s):  
Djordje Pavicevic
Keyword(s):  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Public Reason ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Major Elements ◽  
The Other ◽  
Political Justification ◽  
Convergence Point ◽  
Political Ideal ◽  
Moral Superiority

The article dealt with Rawlsian idea of public reason as a convergence point of his conception of political liberalism. The idea of public reason is taken as a norm of political justification a as well as a political ideal. Major lines of criticism of the Rawls' conception are also discussed in the article. The conclusion is that is possible to defend major elements of Rawls' conception against criticism along Rawlsian lines of argumentation. The thesis advocated through the text is that it is significant legacy of Rawls' conception of public reason that it discloses limitations of political ideal of liberal democracy. It is argued that one important consequence is that liberalism has to disclaim its own moral superiority in order to make political ideal viable. The other is that any particular society has to find its moral bases in public reason of particular society, that is burdened with peculiar culture and history. .

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.

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.

Shared intentions, public reason, and political autonomy

2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (6) ◽  
pp. 776-804 ◽  
Author(s):  
Blain Neufeld
Keyword(s):  
John Rawls ◽  
Public Reason ◽  
State Power ◽  
Public Justification ◽  
Political Autonomy ◽  
Public Reasoning ◽  
Corporate Body ◽  
Gerald Gaus

AbstractJohn Rawls claims that public reasoning is the reasoning of ‘equal citizens who as a corporate body impose rules on one another backed by sanctions of state power’. Drawing upon an amended version of Michael Bratman’s theory of shared intentions, I flesh out this claim by developing the ‘civic people’ account of public reason. Citizens realize ‘full’ political autonomy as members of a civic people. Full political autonomy, though, cannot be realised by citizens in societies governed by a ‘constrained proceduralist’ account of democratic self-government, or the ‘convergence’ account of public justification formulated recently by Gerald Gaus and Kevin Vallier.

La Idea de “Razón Publica” (y su Revisión) en el Último Rawls

2003 ◽  
Vol 11 (22) ◽  
pp. 5-31
Author(s):  
Fernando Aranda Fraga ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Public Good ◽  
John Rawls ◽  
Public Reason ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
The Political ◽  
Theory Of Justice ◽  
Key Topics ◽  
Political Philosopher

In 1993 John Rawls published his main and longest work since 1971, where he had published his reknowned A Theory of Justice, book that made him famous as the greatest political philosopher of the century. We are referring to Political Liberalism, a summary of his writings of the 80’s and the first half of the 90’s, where he attempts to answer the critics of his intellectual partners, communitarian philosophers. One of the key topics in this book is the issue of “public reason”, whose object is nothing else than public good, and on which the principles and proceedings of justice are to be applied. The book was so important for the political philosophy of the time that in 1997 Rawls had to go through the 1993 edition, becoming this new one the last relevant writing published before the death of the Harvard philosopher in November 2002.

Paradox of Europeanness

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dace Dzenovska
Keyword(s):  
European Integration ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
The Other ◽  
Moral Landscape

The introductory chapter outlines the argument of the book by drawing on the first publicly debated refugee case in Latvia. It traces two public positions that emerged in relation to the case: one representing openness to difference associated with political liberalism and the other refusal of difference associated with nationalism. The chapter argues that both positions enact and defend particular regimes of inclusion and exclusion. Their emergence as morally and politically opposed positions in the context of postsocialist democratization and European integration in Latvia points to a tension that characterizes the contemporary European political and moral landscape, namely the imperative to profess and institutionalize the values of inclusion and openness while at the same time practicing—and also institutionalizing—exclusion and closure. For Latvians, then, becoming European after socialism meant learning to live inclusion and exclusion the European way. It meant learning to live the paradox of Europeanness.

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