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.

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.

Religious Epistemology and the Problem of Public Justification

2016 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Breul
Keyword(s):  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Public Reason ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
Public Justification ◽  
Religious Convictions ◽  
Epistemic Structure ◽  
Private Matter ◽  
Main Components ◽  
Expressive Dimension

SummaryIn this paper I argue that the debate on the legitimacy of using religious arguments in public discourse displays a one-dimensional understanding of the epistemic structure of religious beliefs. This holds true even for the most recent and most advanced approaches such as Andrew March’s innovative typology of religious arguments. Hence, my first aim in this paper is to provide an analysis of the epistemic structure of religious beliefs. I suggest that religious convictions have two main components: they have a cognitive-propositional dimension (belief) as well as a regulative-expressive dimension (faith). Therefore, they may be intersubjectively accessible, but not mutually acceptable. My second aim in this paper is to show that mutual acceptability is an adequate criterion for political legitimacy. However, although the demands of public reason require mutual acceptability, religious convictions ought not to be privatized as they offer essential input for public discourse beyond public justification. Thus, it is necessary to insist on the mutual acceptability of reasons in public justifications, but this does not imply that religion is a private matter.

scholarly journals An overview of Liberalism Without Perfection

2014 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-11
Author(s):  
Ivan Cerovac
Keyword(s):  
Public Reason ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
Overlapping Consensus ◽  
Political Justification ◽  
The Status ◽  
Critical Scrutiny ◽  
The One ◽  
Influential Book

Quong?s influential book probably represents the most sophisticated defence of Rawlsian political liberalism. This review focuses on its content and systematizes it by chapters, emphasizing its relevance both in the first part, where the author puts the liberal perfectionist position under critical scrutiny by advancing three major objections (regarding autonomy, paternalism and political legitimacy), and the second, where the author presents and defends a distinctive version of political liberalism that clearly differs from the one presented by Rawls in several important features. The review also summarizes Quong?s innovative arguments regarding the nature of an overlapping consensus, the structure of political justification, the idea of public reason, and the status of unreasonable persons.

Partisanship and Political Liberalism in Diverse Societies

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matteo Bonotti
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Public Reason ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
Third Parties ◽  
Overlapping Consensus ◽  
Political Obligations ◽  
Central Argument ◽  
The Stability

Since its publication in 1993, John Rawls’s Political Liberalism has been central to debates concerning political legitimacy, democratic theory, toleration, and multiculturalism in contemporary political theory. Yet, despite the immense body of literature which has been produced since Rawls’s work was published, very little has been said or written regarding the place of political parties and partisanship within political liberalism. This book aims to fill this gap in the literature. Its central argument is that political liberalism needs and nourishes political parties, and that political parties are therefore not hostile but vital to it. First, partisanship generates its own distinctive kind of political obligations, additional to any political obligations people may have qua ordinary citizens. Second, contrary to what many critics argue, and despite its admittedly restrictive features, Rawls’s conception of public reason allows significant scope for partisan advocacy and partisan pluralism, and in fact the very normative demands of partisanship are in syntony with those of public reason. Third, parties contribute to the overlapping consensus that for Rawls guarantees stability in diverse societies. Fourth, political liberalism nourishes political parties, by leaving many issues, including religious and socio-economic ones, open to democratic contestation. In summary, parties contribute both to the legitimacy and to the stability of political liberalism.

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 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.

Partisan Speech and Political Legitimacy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matteo Bonotti
Keyword(s):  
Public Reason ◽  
Hate Speech ◽  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
The Political ◽  
Special Protection ◽  
Ordinary Citizens

This chapter asks whether partisans should enjoy greater freedom of speech than ordinary citizens, including freedom to use hate speech when the latter is (or should be) legally regulated. The chapter shows that partisan speech offers a threefold contribution to political legitimacy, by acting as a loudspeaker, helping to set the political agenda, and advancing broad manifestoes and programmes. This threefold contribution of partisan speech to political legitimacy offers a pro tanto justification for exempting partisans from hate speech laws. However, the chapter argues that a justification-based (as opposed to merely procedural) conception of political legitimacy would often justify hate speech legislation and, crucially, that the special commitment that partisans ought to display to public reason, as illustrated in the previous chapters, implies that partisan speech should not be granted any special protection or exemption from hate speech legislation, despite its threefold contribution to a procedural kind of political legitimacy.

Kant and Rawls on Free Speech in Autocracies

2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 615-640 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Niesen
Keyword(s):  
Free Speech ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
Core Area ◽  
Law Of Peoples ◽  
Democratic Regimes ◽  
Core Feature ◽  
Democratic Societies ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Important Extension

AbstractIn the works of Kant and Rawls, we find an acute sensibility to the pre-eminent importance of freedom of speech. Both authors defend free speech in democratic societies as a private and as a public entitlement, but their conceptions markedly differ when applied to non-liberal and non-democratic societies. The difference is that freedom of speech, for Kant, is a universal claim that can serve as a test of legitimacy of all legal orders, while for Rawls, some legal orders are owed full recognition even if they do not in principle guarantee freedom of speech. I explain Kant’s account of free political speech and argue that the defence of individual rights should be seen as its core feature, both in republican and in autocratic states. I then argue that a much-overlooked shift in Rawls’s development to Political Liberalism likewise ties his account of free speech in democratic societies to issues concerning rights and justice. In a next step, I discuss Rawls’s perspective on some non-democratic regimes in his Law of Peoples, regimes that he understands as well-ordered but which do not guarantee freedom of speech. I criticize Rawls’s account from Kant’s perspective and suggest to introduce a ‘module’ from Kant’s pre-republican thought into Rawls’s conception, aiming to secure a core area of rights- and justice-related speech. My claim is that under Kant’s view of autocratic legitimacy, an important extension of speech rights is called for even in non-liberal, non-democratic states, and that a Rawlsian account should and can adopt it.

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