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. .

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.

Hyper-pluralism and the multivariate democratic polity

2012 ◽  
Vol 38 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 435-444 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessandro Ferrara
Keyword(s):  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Public Reason ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Religious Conflict ◽  
Overlapping Consensus ◽  
Law Of Peoples ◽  
Democratic Polity ◽  
Modus Vivendi ◽  
The Law ◽  
Global World

In the global world, momentous migratory tides have produced hyper-pluralism on the domestic scale, bringing citizens with radically different conceptions of life, justice and the good to coexist side by side. Conjectural arguments about the acceptance of pluralism, the next best to public reason when shared premises are too thin, may not succeed in convincing all constituencies. What resources, then, can liberal democracy mobilize? The multivariate democratic polity is the original answer to this question, based on an interpretation of Rawls which revisits Political Liberalism in the light of The Law of Peoples. The unscrutinized assumption is highlighted, often read into Rawls’s Political Liberalism, that a polity moves homogeneously and all of a piece from religious conflict to modus vivendi, constitutional consensus and finally to overlapping consensus. Drawing on The Law of Peoples, a different picture can be obtained.

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.

Religion’s Political Role in Rawlsian Key

2012 ◽  
Vol 19 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 1-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johannes A. van der Ven
Keyword(s):  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Public Reason ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Language Game ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Quadratic Equation ◽  
Political Role ◽  
The Common

AbstractIn Political Liberalism, expanded edition, Rawls repeatedly wants religions to accept liberal democracy for intrinsic reasons from their own religious premises, not as a modus vivendi. This article is to be considered an exploration in that field. In the first part the narrative of the St. Paul’s speech before the Areopagus in Athens by Luke is hermeneutically analyzed, as it tries to find common ground with Hellenistic philosophy and to do so by using deliberative rhetoric. In the second part these two characteristics of the Lukean story are considered the building blocks for the intrinsic acceptance of liberal democracy, albeit not in a substantive, but a formal key. The common ground Luke explored then was religious in nature, whereas in our days, at least in North-Western Europe, religion belongs to a cognitive minority. Moreover philosophy does not provide a common ground either, as there is a pluralism of competing schools nowadays. But intercontextual hermeneutics metaphorically permits to draw the following quadratic equation: as Lukean Paul related the Christian message to his philosophical context in order to find common ground, so we are to relate it to our context, the common ground of which is not philosophical, but political, which refers to the context of public reason. This article argues for accepting Rawls’ concept of using a bilingual language game for religion to present its religious convictions into the public debate and in due course translate them in terms of public reason. Such a translation requires a deliberative argumentation, that corresponds to the rules of logics and epistemology in practical reason.

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.

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.

scholarly journals Liberalismo y metafísica. Sobre “Los substratos metafísicos de la teoría demo-liberal” de C. Kohn

1970 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pedro Francés
Keyword(s):  
Market Economy ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Reasonable Description

RESUMENEste trabajo tiene como objetivo responder a las críticas al liberalismo formuladas en un reciente trabajo de Carlos Kohn. Para mostrar esto expondré, en primer lugar, por qué pienso que Kohn generaliza ilegítimamente una concepción bastante estrecha de liberalismo, relacionada con la economía. En segundo lugar señalaré los límites de esa concepción, y cómo puede definirse otra más comprehensiva, en la que enmarcaré la mayor parte del liberalismo político contemporáneo y, un tanto audazmente, el contractualismo clásico de Hobbes. En tercer lugar, trateré de mostrar que, esta versión comprehensiva es una razonable descripción de la política, que no depende lógicamente de suposiciones dudosas sobre los presupuestos y requisitos de la economía de mercado y que, por ello, escapa indemne a la crítica de KohnPALABRAS CLAVELIBERALISMO-LIBERALISMO POLÍTICO-DEMOCRACIA LIBERAL-CAPITALISMOABSTRACTThe paper aims to revise the critiques to liberalism recently formulated by Carlos Kohn. i will explain, firstly, why I think Kohn wrongly generalizes a quite thin conception of liberalism, related to the economy. Secondly, I will suggest the limitations of that conception. Instead, another, more comprehensive notion can be formulated that can encompass both contemporary political liberalism and, even audaciously, Hobbes' cassical contractualism. Thirdly, I will argue that this comprehensive notion is a reasonable description of politics. it does not depend on doubtfull assumptions over the principles of market economy. hence, it escapes Kohn's critique.KEYWORDSLIBERALISM- POLITICAL LIBERALISM-LIBERAL DEMOCRACY-CAPITALISM

scholarly journals Continuity through Renewal: John Dewey, the International Institute in Spain, and Resisting the Assault on the Humanities

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-38
Author(s):  
Andrew Bennett
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Educational Reform ◽  
John Dewey ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
The Other ◽  
International Institute ◽  
Humanities Education ◽  
Shared Space ◽  
Democratic Societies ◽  
A Site

This paper marks the relation between humanities education and democracy as one of mutual necessity, since the pragmatic value of each is dependent on the other to be recognizable and realizable. Such an understanding is drawn from the ideas of the American philosopher and educator John Dewey. Dewey’s system clearly reveals the nature of the stakes of the assault on the humanities; it also indicates the educational measures democratic societies should take in response. By instantiating the “conjoint communicated experience” of democracy in a public, shared space in which differences are respected, human meanings are explored, and the expansion of knowledge and experience is valued as an end in itself, the humanities classroom emerges as a site of social renewal, as well as one of resistance to illiberalism. In order to present such a site in a manner befitting Dewey’s pragmatism, a lesser-known, local example of the value of humanities education is examined in this paper: that of the International Institute in Spain, located in Madrid. Beginning with its founding as a school for girls by Boston missionaries in 1892, and through its role at the center of a network of institutions invested in progressive educational reform in Spain during the pre-civil war period, IIE stands as a testament to the continuity through renewal that defines both liberal democracy and humanities education.

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