scholarly journals Religious Reasoning in the Liberal Public from the Second-Personal Perspective

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Zoll
Keyword(s):  
Public Reason ◽  
Personal Perspective ◽  
Public Justification ◽  
Personal Account ◽  
State Action ◽  
The Public ◽  
Plural Society ◽  
Public Reason Liberalism ◽  
The Stability

There is a constant dissent between exclusivist public reason liberals and their inclusivist religious critics concerning the question whether religious arguments can figure into the public justification of state action.  Firstly, I claim that the stability of this dissent is best explained as a conflict between an exclusivist third-personal account of public justification which demands restraint, and an inclusivist first-personal account which rejects restraint. Secondly, I argue that both conceptions are deficient because they cannot accommodate the valid intuitions of their opponents. They either imply a violation of the integrity of religious citizens or they give room for cases where a religious majority can impose a political norm on a minority without having given this minority a reason to comply with the norm. Finally, I defend an inclusivist model of public reason liberalism which relies on a second-personal conception of public justification. I claim that this model breaks the impasse in favor of inclusivism because religious arguments can play a role in public justification, but they can never justify state action on their own in a plural society. Thus, the problematic cases that motivate exclusivism are excluded without having introduced a principle of restraint which violates the religious integrity of citizens.

scholarly journals Does Convergence Liberalism Risk Anarchy?

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcus Schultz-Bergin
Keyword(s):  
Public Reason ◽  
Sufficient Reason ◽  
Public Justification ◽  
Wide Scope ◽  
The Public ◽  
Social Arrangement ◽  
Diverse Society ◽  
Public Reason Liberalism ◽  
Social Arrangements ◽  
David Enoch

Public reason liberals argue that coercive social arrangements must be publicly justified in order to be legitimate. According to one model of public reason liberalism, known as convergence liberalism, this means that every moderately idealized member of the public must have sufficient reason, of her own, to accept the arrangement. A corollary of this Principle of Public Justification is that a coercive social arrangement fails to be legitimate so long as even one member of the public fails to have sufficient reason to endorse the arrangement. This high bar for justification has led many critics, most notably David Enoch, to argue that convergence models are incapable of vindicating liberalism. They argue that in a sufficiently diverse society, there will always be someone for whom an arrangement is not justified, and therefore convergence liberalism leads to anarchy – the view that no law or coercive social arrangement is legitimate. Other critics accept that convergence liberalism could vindicate core liberal institutions but nothing more, and thus argue that the view makes libertarians effective “dictators”. In either case, critics hold that this objection is sufficient to reject convergence liberalism, either in favor of alternative public reason views or as a means of rejecting all public reason views. In this paper I argue that convergence liberalism can overcome this anarchy objection. I show that the objection largely rests on misinterpretations of convergence liberalism, and thus clarify aspects of the theory. However, I also show that internal debate over the scope of public justification – what stands in need of justification – must be resolved in favor of a wide scope, encompassing both State-based and non-State-based coercion, in order to overcome the anarchy objection. Therefore, my response to the anarchy objection has implications for how convergence liberalism should be developed going forward.

Public justification versus public deliberation: the case for divorce

2015 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Vallier
Keyword(s):  
Public Reason ◽  
Public Deliberation ◽  
Sufficient Reason ◽  
Coercive Power ◽  
Public Justification ◽  
Substantial Impact ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Reason Liberalism ◽  
Citizen Deliberation ◽  
The Ideal

I drive a wedge between public deliberation and public justification, concepts tightly associated in public reason liberalism. Properly understood, the ideal of public justification imposes no restraint on citizen deliberation but requires that those who have a substantial impact on the use of coercive power, political officials, advance proposals each person has sufficient reason to accept. I formulate this idea as the Principle of Convergent Restraint and apply it to legislators to illustrate the general reorientation I propose for the public reason project.

Does Public Reason Liberalism Rest on a Mistake? Democracy’s Doxastic and Epistemic Problems

2021 ◽  
pp. 135-155
Author(s):  
Jason Brennan
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Public Reason ◽  
Normative Theory ◽  
Public Justification ◽  
Political Outcomes ◽  
Public Reason Liberalism ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Beliefs And Attitudes ◽  
Voter Knowledge

Public reason liberalism is a normative theory meant to adjudicate citizens’ conflicting beliefs about the right and the good. However, it rests upon controversial and likely mistaken empirical claims about voter psychology and voter knowledge. In political science, there are two major paradigms—populism and realism—about the relationship between voters’ beliefs and political outcomes. Realism holds that most citizens lack the kinds of beliefs and attitudes which public reason liberals believe are normatively significant. If so, then most citizens lack the kinds of ideological disputes which public reason liberalism is supposed to adjudicate. Worse, most citizens lack the kinds of normatively significantly beliefs upon which public justification must rest.

Rethinking Religious Reasons in Public Justification

2013 ◽  
Vol 107 (3) ◽  
pp. 523-539 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANDREW F. MARCH
Keyword(s):  
Human Activity ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Public Reason ◽  
Public Deliberation ◽  
Public Justification ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political Communities ◽  
Religious Reasons ◽  
Moral Questions

This article intervenes in the debate on the place of religious arguments in public reason. I advance the debate not by asking whether something called “religious reasons” ought to be invoked in the justification of coercive laws, but by creating a typology of (a) different kinds and forms of religious arguments and, more importantly, (b) different areas of political and social life which coercive laws regulate or about which human political communities deliberate. Religious arguments are of many different kinds, are offered to others in a variety of ways, and the spheres of life about which communities deliberate pose distinct moral questions. Turning back to the public reason debate, I argue then that political liberals ought to be concerned primarily about the invocation of a certain subset of religious reasons in a certain subset of areas of human activity, but also that inclusivist arguments on behalf of religious contributions to public deliberation fail to justify the use of religious arguments in all areas of public deliberation.

Das Recht zu reden: Eine sozialethische Theorie über die Präsenz von religiösen Minderheiten im öffentlichen Diskurs

2006 ◽  
Vol 60 (3) ◽  
pp. 235-253
Author(s):  
Christoph Jedan
Keyword(s):  
Public Reason ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Specific Group ◽  
Religious Minorities ◽  
The Public ◽  
Marginalised Groups ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Stability ◽  
General Demand

How can the marginalisation of religious minorities be prevented and their presence in the public sphere enhanced? The first part of this article argues that the general demand of specific group rights for marginalised groups is self-contradictory and that it does not give sufficient attention to the specific problems of religious minorities. The older, liberal demand of protecting the rights of individuals remains the best answer. The second part of this article analyses Rawls’ political liberalism as a contribution to the debate on the role of religious minorities. The third part states that a wider view than Rawls’ ‘wide view of public reason’ is needed to adequately balance the legitimate demand of religious minorities to be present in the public debate and concerns about the stability of a deliberative democracy.

Religious Establishment and Public Justification

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Vallier
Keyword(s):  
Public Reason ◽  
Public Justification ◽  
Religious Symbols ◽  
Public Reason Liberalism ◽  
Points Of View ◽  
Religious Establishment

This chapter develops a principle that determines when governmental activity constitutes an objectionable form of establishment, either religious or secular. Situated within the theory of public reason liberalism, the principle holds that non-coercive forms of establishment, such as the use of religious symbols in government, are governed by a publicly justified purpose requirement. To be permissible, the relevant governmental act must have a purpose that can be publicly justified to multiple qualified points of view. Given that few acts of establishment, religious or secular, have that purpose, this chapter concludes that public reason liberalism is generally unfriendly to non-coercive establishment.

scholarly journals The Pope’s Public Reason

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 137-148
Author(s):  
Aurélia Bardon
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Public Reason ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
Pope Francis ◽  
State Action ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Religious Reasons

Since the beginning of Europe’s “refugee crisis,” Pope Francis has repeatedly argued that we should welcome refugees. This, he said, is an obligation for Christians who have “a duty of justice, of civility, and of solidarity.” This religious justification is a problem for liberal political philosophers who are committed to the idea of public reason: state action, they argue, must be justified to all citizens based on public, generally accessible reasons. In this article, I argue that the claim that liberal public reason fully excludes religion from the public sphere is misguided; not all religious reasons are incompatible with the demands of Rawlsian public reason. Understanding how a religious reason can be public requires looking into both what makes a reason religious and what makes a reason public. I show that the pope’s reason supporting the claim that we should welcome refugees is both religious and public.

Rescuing Public Justification from Public Reason Liberalism

2019 ◽  
pp. 39-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabian Wendt
Keyword(s):  
John Rawls ◽  
Public Reason ◽  
Public Justification ◽  
Theoretical Level ◽  
Public Reason Liberalism ◽  
Gerald Gaus ◽  
The Right

Public reason liberals from John Rawls to Gerald Gaus uphold a principle of public justification as a core commitment of their theories. Critics of public reason liberalism have sometimes conceded that there is something compelling about the idea of public justification. But so far there have not been many attempts to elaborate and defend a “comprehensive” liberalism that incorporates a principle of public justification. This chapter spells out how a principle of public justification could be integrated into a comprehensive liberalism, and it rebuts three objections: That the idea of public reason could not be sustained in a comprehensive liberalism, that public justification would lose its point (be it to provide stability, express respect, or form a community), and that the principle of public justification could not work on the right theoretical level. The chapter concludes that everything worthwhile about public justification can be extracted from public reason liberalism.

IMPACT OF GOVERNMENT DEBT ON FINANCIAL SECURITY OF UKRAINE

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olena Pikaliuk ◽  
◽  
Dmitry Kovalenko ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Public Debt ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
The State ◽  
Financial Security ◽  
State Budget ◽  
The Public ◽  
Debt Security ◽  
The Stability ◽  
The Impact

One of the main criteria for economic development is the size of the public debt and its dynamics. The article considers the impact of public debt on the financial security of Ukraine. The views of scientists on the essence of public debt and financial security of the state are substantiated. An analysis of the dynamics and structure of public debt of Ukraine for 2014-2019. It is proved that one of the main criteria for economic development is the size of public debt and its dynamics. State budget deficit, attracting and using loans to cover it have led to the formation and significant growth of public debt in Ukraine. The volume of public debt indicates an increase in the debt security of the state, which is a component of financial security. Therefore, the issue of the impact of public debt on the financial security of Ukraine is becoming increasingly relevant. The constant growth and large amounts of debt make it necessary to study it, which will have a positive impact on economic processes that will ensure the stability of the financial system and enhance its security.

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.

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