Public Reason

plato.stanford.edu
May 20th, 2013

Public reason requires that the moral or political rules that regulate our common
life be, in some sense, justi!able or acceptable to all those persons over whom the
rules purport to have authority. It is an idea with roots in the work of Hobbes,
Kant, and Rousseau, and has become increasingly in"uential in contemporary
moral and political philosophy as a result of its development in the work of John
Rawls, Jrgen Habermas, and Gerald Gaus, among others. Proponents of public
reason often present the idea as an implication of a particular conception of
persons as free and equal. Each of us is free in the sense of not being naturally
subject to any other person's moral or political authority, and we are equally
situated with respect to this freedom from the natural authority of others. How,
then, can some moral or political rules be rightly imposed on all of us, particularly
if we assume deep and permanent disagreement amongst persons about matters of
value, morality, religion, and the good life? The answer, for proponents of public
reason, is that such rules can rightly be imposed on persons when the rules can be
justi!ed by appeal to ideas or arguments that those persons, at some level of
idealization, endorse or accept. But public reason is not only a standard by which
moral or political rules can be assessed: it can also provide standards for individual
behavior. Because we make moral and political demands of each other, if we are to
comply with the ideal of public reason, we must refrain from advocating or
supporting rules that cannot be justi!ed to those on whom the rules would be
imposed. We should instead, some insist, only support those rules we sincerely
believe can be justi!ed by appeal to suitably shared or public considerationsfor
example, widely endorsed political values such as freedom and equalityand
abstain from appealing to religious arguments, or other controversial views over
which reasonable people are assumed to disagree. In this way, public reason can
be presented as a standard for assessing rules, laws, institutions, and the behavior
of individual citizens and public o#cials.
This entry is structured around questions about the nature of public reason that
continue to be the subject of sustained debate in the literature. Section 1 considers
competing positions regarding the underlying rationale for public reason. Section
2 identi!es di$erent views about the appropriate scope of public reason. Does it
apply to all moral rules, only to political rules, or only to some sub-set of political
rules? Section 3 considers the question of public reason's constituency: to whom
must our rules be justi!able in order to be considered legitimate or authoritative?
The next question, in section 4, concerns the content of public reason; in
particular, to what extent is this content determined via a process of philosophical
re"ection as opposed to actual moral deliberation? Section 5 considers the
structure of public reason, with particular focus on whether public reason requires
some shared perspective or set of considerations, or whether it can be achieved
without any common moral or political perspective. Section 6 addresses the site of
public reason: where do its norms properly apply and when do they regulate
individual conduct? Section 7 identi!es some of the most in"uential objections
that have been pressed against the idea of public reason, and Section 8 concludes
with a survey of a few important, but underdeveloped, topics.

1. Why Public Reason?

The idea of public reason appears to inhabit a middle ground between two more
familiar standards of evaluation in moral and political philosophy. On the one
hand, there is consent. Some political philosophers, for example, argue that
political legitimacy requires the actual or implied consent of the governed (Otsuka
2003, 89113; Simmons 1999). On the other hand, there is truth: we can simply ask
whether any alleged moral or political principle is true. Public reason does not aim
either at consent or truth. Public reason instead requires that our moral or political
principles be justi!able to, or reasonably acceptable to, all those persons to whom
the principles are meant to apply. An account of public reason must !nd some way
of giving the perspective of individual persons a signi!cant role, without allowing
this to collapse into consent: public reason is not simply a way of identifying those
principles to which people already consent. But equally, public reason must not
de!ne those principles that could be justi!ed to, or be acceptable to, each person
as simply those principles that are true. In either case, the idea of public reason
would do no independent work.

This apparent middle ground between consent and truth may seem puzzling in
several respects. One puzzle is whether there is, in fact, a coherent and stable way
of explicating the notion of reasonable acceptability or justi!cation (Raz 1990, 46).
But even if we assume the idea of public reason is coherent, we can plausibly ask
why we ought to accept this idea, that is, what is the basis for adopting public
reason as the relevant standard to evaluate rules and to govern individual conduct?
This section considers !ve di$erent answers to this question (these answers can,
of course, also be combined). It is helpful to begin by considering these di$erent
positions regarding the basis of public reason, since how one chooses to answer
this question often has direct implications for the scope, constituency, content,
site, duties, and structure of public reason.

Each of the positions below is usually combined with an assumption about

pluralism or reasonable disagreement over a wide range of moral, ethical, and
other philosophical matters. That is, virtually all proponents of public reason
assume that there is deep and intractable disagreement amongst some people, and
this disagreement is not simply the result of irrationality, prejudice, or self-interest,
but rather arises as a result of the normal functioning of human reasoning under
reasonably favorable conditions. This assumption about pluralism or disagreement
seems an essential part of the rationale for public reason since without it, it might
seem hard to understand why our moral or political principles ought to be
justi!able or acceptable to others, as opposed to simply true or correct. The most
in"uential conception of such pluralism or disagreement is Rawls's account of the
burdens of judgment and the subsequent fact of reasonable pluralism (Rawls 1996, 36
37, 5557), though this account is controversial, and has been subject to extensive
criticism (e.g. Galston 2002, 4647; Gaus 1996, 131136; Wenar 1995, 4148).

1.1 Rationality and Morality

Some philosophers present the idea of public reason, or the public use of reason,
as an essential and central part of the nature of rational discourse about moral
norms. Habermas's in"uential account of discourse ethics (Habermas 1990;
Habermas 1996) has been presented by some as grounding a conception of public
reason in this way. On this view, the validity of moral and political norms can only
be established by an intersubjective and idealized practice of argumentation. Only
through an inclusive and noncoercive discursive process where all participants are
equally situated can genuinely intersubjectively valid norms emerge. Habermas
thus proposes a dialogical principle of universalization, (U), stating that a moral
norm is valid just in case the foreseeable consequences and side-e$ects of its
general observance for the interests and value-orientations of each individual could
be jointly accepted by all concerned without coercion (Habermas 1998, 42). For
Habermas, this principle follows from the presuppositions of rational moral
discourse, and soat least on one interpretationto engage in reasoned moral or
political argument with others is to commit oneself to something like the idea of
public reasonto commit oneself to !nding norms that could be jointly accepted
by all concerned without coercion. On this account, public reason is grounded in
the nature of reasoned moral argument: one cannot, without contradiction, avoid
the idea of public reason insofar as one wants to engage in reasoned moral or
political argument with others.

Although Habermas's account of discourse ethics has been in"uential amongst

those who favor some version of discursive or deliberative democracy (Bohman
1996; Dryzek 1990; Dryzek 2000), its capacity to serve as the basis for public reason
is the subject of a number of criticisms. Perhaps most importantly, by grounding
public reason in a broader account of truth, validity, and rational argument, public
reason becomes tied to a speci!c and controversial philosophical doctrine. But
some proponents of public reason believe its role is to serve as a mechanism of
justi!cation amongst persons who reasonably disagree about philosophical and
other issues typically embedded in what Rawls calls comprehensive doctrines (Rawls
1996, 13). If one believes the idea of public reason should stand apart from any
particular comprehensive doctrine or philosophical theory of truth and rationality,
the appeal to the presuppositions of rational discourse will be a problematic basis
for public reason (see Rawls 1996, 376381).
Others, most notably Gaus, argue that the idea of public reason follows from
certain basic features of our everyday moral practices and reactive attitudes, along
with certain claims about the nature of reasons (Gaus 2011). On this view, social
morality involves a particular kind of interpersonal relationship; one where we
claim the standing to make demands of others, and where, under the right
conditions, we acknowledge the standing of others to make demands on us (Gaus
2011, 184). But for this sort of relationship to exist, we must believe that when we
make moral demands of others, those others have su#cient reasons to comply
with our demandsif they did not have su#cient reasons to comply, then the
reactive attitudes that form an essential part of the interpersonal relationship of
social morality would cease to make sense (Gaus 2011, 205232). If, as Gaus
maintains, di$erent people have di$erent reasons depending on their di$ering
epistemic positions and sets of justi!ed beliefs, the practice of making moral
demands of others must involve public reason: the moral demands we make on
others must be justi!able to those others by appeal to reasons they have, and not
simply by appeal to the truth as we see it.

Although it di$ers from discourse ethics in important respects, this account also
promises to ground public reason in a broader account of the nature of social
morality and epistemology. It will thus also be vulnerable to similar worries about
whether public reason ought to be embedded in a comprehensive and
controversial philosophical theory of morality and epistemology.

1.2 Autonomy
On one prominent view, with both Kantian and Rousseauvian roots, freedom
requires that we obey only those laws or rules that we could rationally give to
ourselves. To be subject to the will of others, or to the arbitrary forces of nature, is
to be unfree. We thus express our nature as rational and autonomous beings by
acting in accordance with maxims that we could will to be universal laws, or we
express our political autonomy by acting in accordance with those laws that appeal
only to the common good, and thereby represent the general will of all citizens.
Insofar as one holds this conception of autonomy to be of fundamental
importance, autonomy might thus provide the basis for public reason. By ensuring
that our moral or political principles are justi!able or reasonably acceptable to all
those to whom the principles apply, public reason appears to ensure that each of
us is, in some important sense, governed only by principles that we can rationally
give to ourselves. Some leading philosophers of public reason appear to make this
connection between public reason and autonomy. Gaus, for example, appeals to
Rousseau's statement that the fundamental problem to which the social contract is
meant to be the solution is to !nd a way of imposing rules to regulate our common
life in which each, while uniting himself with all, may still obey himself alone,
and remain as free as before (Gaus 2011, 1. Also see Rawls 1996, 219).

But the extent to which the appeal to autonomy can, on its own, justify the various
features of public reason is uncertain, and many proponents of public reason do
not explicitly present the appeal to Kantian or Rousseauvian autonomy as the sole,
or even primary, basis for public reason. This may be partly explained by the fact
that this conception of our autonomy, particularly insofar as it is presented as part
of a broader account of our nature as rational beings, is controversial and the
subject of reasonable disagreement (Weithman 2002, 188191; Quong 2013).

1.3 Coercion and Respect

A widely endorsed view regarding the moral basis of public reason appeals to a
particular conception of what it means to treat others with the respect they are
due. On this view, we treat others as mere means, and not as ends, when we
coerce them on the basis of reasons or arguments that they could not reasonably
accept. Charles Larmore, for example, argues to respect another person as an end
is to require that coercive or political principles be as justi!able to that person as
they presumably are to us (Larmore 1999, 608). Conversely, if we try to bring
about conformity to a rule of conduct solely by the threat of force, we shall be
treating persons merely as means, as objects of coercion, and not also as ends,
engaging with their distinctive capacity as persons (Larmore 1999, 607. Also see
Larmore 2002 and Nagel 1987). Public reason is presented as the way of ensuring
that our coercion of others is consistent with respecting others as ends: we do this
by ensuring our coercive actions and institutions can be justi!ed to all those who
are the subjects of coercion. Some argue, more strongly, that public reason
therefore involves a presumption in favor of liberty (Gaus 2011, 34146).

By grounding public reason in an account of how coercion can be suitably

respectful, this view limits the scope of public reason in ways that may seem
troubling. Not all laws and political institutions are coercive, and yet some
noncoercive political institutions may seem appropriate topics of public reason.
For example, which forms of marriage, if any, ought to be granted legal
recognition, or how the proceeds of a state-run lottery ought to be spent, might
seem important topics of public reason, but fall outside the scope of public reason
on this basis (Bird 2012 (Other Internet Resources); Quong 2013). A related worry is
this: if coercive actions uniquely stand in need of public justi!cation, then this
may make it di#cult, or even impossible, for the state to legitimately pursue many
goals that are widely perceived to be permissible (Lister 2010).

1.4 Community or Civic Friendship

An alternative, though largely neglected, basis for public reason appeals to the
importance of a particular conception of political community or civic friendship
(Ebels-Duggan 2010; Lister 2013). On this account, the practice of public reason is a
constitutive part of a valuable relationship. This relationship might be
characterized in several ways. The relationship might have the same structure as
other communitarian relationships. In the same way relationships between co-
nationals might be intrinsically valuable, and constituted by particular social
practices (e.g. shared language and cultural traditions), membership in a pluralistic
political community might be valuable, and constituted, in part, by a practice of
public reasoning amongst citizens with regard to political rules and institutions.
Only when our political community is regulated by laws that can be justi!ed to
each of us, despite our diverse perspectives, do we stand in the appropriate sort of
valuable communal relationship with our fellow citizens (Lister 2013, ch. 5). A
related, but slightly di$erent view, appeals to a conception of reciprocity that
obtains when people are willing to propose and abide by fair principles of
cooperation acceptable to others, provided those others are likewise willing (Rawls
1996, 4950). Rawls suggests that one role for this criterion of reciprocity as
expressed in public reasonis to specify the nature of the political relationship in a
constitutional democratic regime as one of civic friendship (Rawls 1996, li). Rawls
has presented public reason as part of the idea of democracy itself, especially the
relationship in a democratic society between free and equal citizens (Rawls 1996,
213; Rawls 1999b, 573). On this view, the idea of public reason speci!es at the
deepest level the basic moral and political values that are to determine a
constitutional democratic government's relationship to its citizens and their
relation to one another. In short, it concerns how the political relation [of free and
equal citizens] is to be understood (Rawls 1999b, 574). The value of this
relationship might thus provide at least part of the moral basis for public reason.

This potential basis for public reason is currently one of the least well-developed
in the literature, and thus important features of the view remain unclear. For
example, does this view presuppose a particular and controversial conception of
the good life? And why should we believe that the value of civic friendship has
enough weight to ground a very particular conception of the type of reasons that
can be appropriately deployed in political deliberation? A full evaluation of this
alleged basis for public reason would need to consider these and other issues.

1.5 Justice
On one common view, public reason is a distinctively political idea: it
paradigmatically applies to the laws and other political institutions of our society.
One way to explain its distinctively political nature is to ground the idea of public
reason in the value of justice (Quong 2013; Rawls 1996). On this view we begin
with an ideal of society as a fair system of social cooperation between free and
equal citizens. As Rawls says, this ideal provides a publicly recognized point of
view from which all citizens can examine before one another whether their
political and social institutions are just. It enables them to do this by citing what
are publicly recognized among them as valid and su#cient reasons singled out by
that conception itselfthe aim of justice as fairness, then, is practical: it presents
itself as a conception of justice that may be shared by citizens as a basis of a
reasoned, informed, and willing political agreement. It expresses their shared and
public political reason (Rawls 1996, 9). Ensuring that the principles that regulate
our shared political life can be justi!ed to each citizen by reference to this
common point of viewshowing these principles can be the subject of public
reasonis how we can know that the terms that regulate our political institutions
are fair, and therefore just. If our political principles were instead justi!ed by
appeal to some reasonably contested moral, philosophical, or religious doctrine,
the terms of our public life would not be fair. Public reason, on this view, is the
only way to achieve justice given certain assumptions about the nature of well-
ordered liberal democratic societies. This rationale for public reason has several
advantages (Quong 2013). First, it explains the distinctively political focus of public
reason. Second, justice is widely agreed to be an important value, arguably the
!rst virtue of social institutions (Rawls 1999a, 1), and thus if public reason is
grounded in the value of justice, this would also explain what some take to be an
important feature of public reason, namely, that its conclusions ought to have a
certain deliberative priority for citizens. Finally, the value of justice can be
endorsed by people from diverse religious, moral, and philosophical backgrounds,
and so the value of justice can provide a relatively uncontentious basis for public
reason.

But this view of the basis of public reason also faces important objections. Some
will deny that political principles, even under conditions of reasonable pluralism
or disagreement, need to be justi!able to each (reasonable) citizen in order to be
fair or just. Others will object that this account does not provide the real
foundation for public reasonit merely shifts the focus to the value of justice.
Unless we can explain the basis for giving justice such practical importance, we
lack an account of the importance of public reason. Others may object, more
strongly, that justice cannot have deliberative priority or practical importance
when restricted to those principles capable of being the subject of public reason.
Some of these objections are considered in greater detail in section 7.

2. Scope
What is the scope of public reason? To which topics or domains of moral and
political life does the idea of public reason apply? On Rawls's in"uential account,
the idea of public reason applies to what he calls the constitutional essentials and
matters of basic justice within a liberal democratic society, but not in general for all
the questions for all the questions to be settled by the legislature within a
constitutional framework (Rawls 2001, 91). Rawls suggests that citizens and
legislators may properly vote their more comprehensive views when
constitutional essentials and matters of basic justice are not stake; they need not
justify by public reason why they vote as they do (Rawls 1996, 235).
Constitutional essentials, for Rawls, include: the principles that structure the
government and political process (e.g. rules determining who may vote, and
whether a system is parliamentary or presidential), and the basic rights and
liberties of citizens (Rawls 1996, 227). Matters of basic justice involve principles
regulating the distribution of important resources (e.g. income, wealth) not
covered by the list of basic rights and liberties (Rawls 1996, 228229).

This proposal about the scope of public reason has been subject to two main
challenges. First, some doubt that there is a coherent way of drawing the
distinction between constitutional essentials and matters of basic justice on the
one hand, and matters of ordinary political legislation on the other (Greenawalt
1994, 68586). Almost everything the government chooses to do (or not to do)
would seem to have an impact, even if indirect, on the basic rights and liberties of
citizens, or else on the distribution of resources in society. Second, assuming a
satisfactory answer to the !rst question is possible; we can ask why public reason
should be restricted in the way Rawls proposes? Why not extend public reason to
all instances where citizens exercise political power over one another? Rawls
o$ers no well-developed answer to this question, though a number of possible
arguments can be found in his work. These arguments appeal either to the special
importance of the basic structure of society, or to the basic interests of citizens, or to
the importance of public reason being complete, that is, of being capable of
generating at least one determinate answer to important political questions. But
some deny any of these arguments, or some conjunction of them, can in fact
justify restricting the scope of public reason to constitutional essentials and
matters of basic justice (Quong 2011, 273289).
An alternative viewderived from the account of respect and coercion discussed
in sect. 1.3expands the scope of public reason to cover all instances where some
person or group exercises coercive power over another person or group (Larmore
1996, 137; Larmore 1999, 607608; Nagel 1991, 159). On this view, the scope of
public reason extends to almost all state action and activity, since the state's actions
are backed by coercive power, but it will also extend to include the non-political
use of coercion by private actors. Although this account may seem more clearly
de!ned, it is also vulnerable to the charge of being both over and under inclusive.
It seems underinclusive, as mentioned in sect. 1.3, because some state activities are
expressive or symbolic, rather than coercive, but may still seem to stand in need of
public justi!cation. But it may also seem overinclusive because private individuals
sometimes exercise coercive power over one other in contexts (e.g. private
associations or the workplace) where the idea of public reason may seem
inappropriate.

Finally, an even broader account extends the scope of public reason to the whole
of social morality, that is, the set of social-moral rules that require or prohibit
action, and so ground moral imperatives that we direct to each other to engage in,
or refrain from, certain lines of conduct (Gaus 2011, 2). On this view, the idea of
public reason ought to apply whenever we purport to have the standing to tell
others how they ought to behave. Being the most ambitious conception of the
scope of public reason, this view is naturally vulnerable to worries that it is too
expansive, including parts of morality that are in fact governed by di$erent
standards (e.g. religious standards of conduct). As noted in sect. 1.1, it is also an
account that depends on a particular philosophical conception of epistemology
and moral psychology.

3. Constituency
To whom do the relevant rules or principles need to be justi!ed? Which persons,
that is, are to be included in the constituency of public reason? The most obvious
answer is that everyone to whom the rules are meant to apply must be included in
the constituency of public reason. But this simple answer requires clari!cation.
For example, it seems that rules prohibiting murder and rape do not need to be
justi!able to, or acceptable to everyone, including those persons who sincerely
wish to engage in these actions and would prefer that such actions be permissible.
Similarly, those who hold racist and sexist views may not !nd certain rules
prohibiting discrimination justi!ed or acceptable, but that does not seem to bear
on the normative status of those rules. For this reason, among others, virtually all
proponents of public reason favor an idealized account of the constituency of
public reason. Members of the constituency can be epistemically idealized,
normatively idealized, or both.

On Rawls's in"uential account, reasonable persons represent the constituency of

public reason. Reasonable persons are de!ned by their acceptance of two main
ideas. First, reasonable persons are, when among equals, ready to propose
principles and standards as fair terms of cooperation and to abide by them
willingly, given the assurance that others will likewise do so. Those norms they
view as reasonable for everyone to accept and therefore as justi!able to them; and
they are ready to discuss the fair terms that others propose (Rawls 1996, 49).
Second, reasonable persons accept what Rawls calls the burdens of judgment and
accept their consequences for the use of public reason in directing the legitimate
exercise of political power in a constitutional regime (Rawls 1996, 54). The
burdens of judgment are the many hazards involved in the correct (and
conscientious) exercise of our powers of reason and judgment in the ordinary
course of political life, (Rawls 1996, 5556) which explain how reasonable and
rational people will permanently disagree about many matters of value and ethics.
Rawls's list of the burdens includes the following facts: (a) empirical and scienti!c
evidence is often complex and con"icting; (b) we may reasonably disagree about
the relative weight of di$erent considerations; (c) concepts are vague and subject
to hard cases; (d) the way we assess evidence and weigh values can be shaped by
our total life experience; (e) di$erent normative considerations on di$erent sides
can make overall assessment di#cult; and (f ) the number of values any social
institution can incorporate is limited (Rawls 1996, 5657). The burdens of judgment
explain why reasonable and rational people will be permanently divided over
matters of philosophy, religion, and other aspects of the good life. Because
reasonable persons accept these two ideas, Rawls suggests they will also accept the
idea of public reasonthe only terms of social cooperation that will seem fair
given the burdens of judgment will be terms that can be justi!ed by appeal to
ideals or arguments that all reasonable persons can accept. Reasonable persons will
thus eschew appeals to religious ideas or other controversial claims over which
reasonable persons are assumed to disagree, and instead appeal only to those
public or political ideas that are part of a liberal democratic political culture and
can be assumed acceptable to all persons as reasonable and rational (Rawls 1996,
217).

This Rawlsian account of the constituency of public reason is both epistemically

and normatively idealized. We can assume the constituency of public reason
includes only those persons who are rational and so objections to proposed rules
or principles cannot fail the test of public reason simply because some people have
irrational views or have made clearly faulty inferences. But this epistemic
idealization is tempered by the fact that reasonable persons accept the burdens of
judgment; controversial claims about religion, morality, or philosophy cannot be
part of public reason. And there is also normative idealization: the constituency
includes only those who accept certain political values or ideals (e.g. the idea of
citizens as free and equal, or society as a fair system of social cooperation). Both
idealizations have been the subject of much scrutiny and criticism. Some suggest,
for example, that there is no need for reasonable persons to accept the burdens of
judgment (Lecce 2008, 162182; McKinnon 2002, 4556; Wenar 1995, 4148). Others
have argued that Rawls's conception of the reasonable person includes too much
normative content (Bohman 2003; Habermas 1995, 126129). Some further
objections will be discussed in section 7 below.

A somewhat less idealized view of the constituency of public reason is o$ered by

Gaus (2011), who suggests that we should conceptualize the members of this
constituencyhe calls them Members of the Publicas moderately idealized
counterparts of the real people to whom our moral and political rules apply. These
Members of the Public are not so idealized that their reasoning is inaccessible to
their real-world counterparts (Gaus 2011, 276), but instead are idealized in the
following sense: they hold the beliefs that their real-world counterparts would be
justi!ed in holding after engaging in a respectable amount of good reasoning
(Gaus 2011, 250)reasoning that starts from the evaluative commitments of the
real-world agents they represent and from the level of Kohlbergian moral
reasoning those agents are capable of (Gaus 2011, 277). This modest level of
idealization ensures that the constituency of public reason will be far more diverse
than the one envisaged by Rawls. This constituency will include members who
adhere to di$erent standards of rationality and have widely divergent sets of
normative beliefs, including very divergent beliefs about basic matters of justice.
This conception of the constituency of public reason thus purchases inclusivity,
and greater approximation to real people's moral judgments. But this may come
with a substantial cost, since it is less clear how such a diverse constituency may
agree on any rules at all, let alone rules that we can be con!dent would re"ect our
considered judgments about morality and justice.

On yet a di$erent view, the constituency of public reason should be even more
inclusive with very few, if any, standards that need to be met before one quali!es
as someone to whom rules or principles must be justi!ed. For example, some
suggest that everyone a$ected by some proposed norm should be a participant in
the public use of reason regarding the validity of that norm, provided they are
willing to engage in a respectful justi!catory dialogue with others (e.g. Bohman
2003). Support for this more inclusive conception can be provided by Habermas's
account of discourse ethics (see sect. 1.1 above), since on this account norms can
only be valid when they can be the appropriate object of a suitable intersubjective
agreement amongst all a$ected parties. The same worries about indeterminacy and
normative content that apply to Gaus's moderately idealized Members of the
Public would appear apply with even greater force to this view.

4. Content
The debate over the constituency of public reason has direct implications
regarding public reason's content. The greater the degree to which the
constituency of public reason is idealized, the more we are restricting the content
of public reason, that is, the pool of ideas or arguments that could be reasonably
endorsed by the members of the relevant constituency. And if the content of
public reason is restricted in this way, it may be possible to determine which rules
or principles are conclusively publicly justi!ed via philosophical analysis, without
recourse to any actual deliberations amongst citizens. Conversely, the less
idealized our account of public reason's constituency, the more the content of
public reason will be determined by some actual process of deliberation between
agents in the real world, or at least more realistic idealizations of such agents.

On Rawls's view, the content of public reason has two parts (Rawls 1996, 224). The
!rst part consists of the principles of a political conception of justice. Although
Rawls accepts that citizens can and will reasonably disagree about the speci!c
content of this conception, he claims that this disagreement will be limited to a
family of liberal political conceptions, all of which share the following features:
(1) a list of basic rights, liberties, and opportunities; (2) an assignment of special
priority to these rights, liberties, and opportunities, especially when compared
with policies aimed at the general good or perfectionist values; and (3) measures
ensuring all citizens have adequate all-purpose means to make use of their
freedoms (Rawls 1996, 223; Rawls 1999b, 581582). Conceptions of justice, to be
political, must apply to society's basic social and political institutions, must be able
to be presented independently of any particular view of the good life, and must be
worked out by appeal to ideas implicit in the public political culture of a
constitutional democracy (Rawls 1999b, 584). Thus, for Rawls, some of the
paradigmatic examples of the political values of justice and public reason would
include: the idea of equal basic liberties; the idea of equality of opportunity; and
principles concerning a just distribution of income and wealth (Rawls 1999b, 584).
The second part of public reason, at least as presented by Rawls in Political
Liberalism, are guidelines of inquiry which include principles of reasoning and
rules of evidence to determine how substantive principles are to be applied, as well
as important civic virtues such as reasonableness and civility (Rawls 1996, 224).
Together, these two components provide both the normative content and the
guidelines for citizens when engaged in public reason with one another about
fundamental political matters.

Those who adopt a more inclusive view of the constituency of public reason
object that the normative content of public reason cannot be as determinate as
Rawls suggests (e.g. Benhabib 2002, 108112; Gaus 2011, 3646; Habermas 1995, 126
131). On Habermas's view, for example, the normative content of public reason is
not something that is determined via philosophical analysis or argument. Rather,
philosophy provides a set of ideal rules or guidelines for the conduct of public
reasoning. The ideal guidelines for public reasoning would ensure that the
discussion is inclusive, public, and free from any internal or external coercion, that
anyone may raise a point that they believe is relevant to the topic at hand, that any
participant is allowed to challenge the rules for agenda setting, and that discussion
continues until a consensus is reached (Habermas 1996, 304305). But on this
account, the philosopher leaves substantial questions that must be answered here
and now to the more or less enlightened engagement of participants, which does
not mean that philosophers may not also participate in the public debate, though
in the role of intellectuals, not of experts (Habermas 1995, 131). In a similar vein,
Gaus suggests that without making controversial assumptions, or else idealizing
the constituency of public reason in a way that excludes too much of the diversity
to which public reason is meant to be the solution, the normative content of
public reason is largely indeterminate, that is, many di$erent possible rules can be
justi!ed as better than anarchy, but no philosophical argument or analysis can
establish a determinate set of rules as being uniquely capable of meeting the test of
public reason (Gaus 2011, 4344). On his account, the content of public reason is
given determinate content not by philosophical argument, nor necessarily by
deliberation amongst real citizens, but rather via a path-dependent evolutionary
process, whereby stable norms evolve and are selected by virtue of their capacity
to make cooperative life possible.

Although much of the debate regarding public reason's content has focused on the
question of normative content, there are also important questions about the other
aspect of public reason's contentwhat Rawls describes as the guidelines of
inquiry. Rawls suggests that these guidelines of inquiry direct citizens to abstain
from appealing to comprehensive religious or philosophical doctrinesto what
we as individuals or members of associations see as the whole truthnor to
elaborate economic theories of general equilibrium, say, if these are in dispute.
Instead he suggests citizens must rely on plain truths now widely accepted, or
available, to citizens generally, which include the conclusions of science when not
controversial (Rawls 1996, 224225). There is at least one puzzling aspect of this
proposal. As Rawls concedes, one of the things that reasonable people disagree
about is the nature of truth itself. There are competing philosophical theories of
truth, and public reason is meant to abstain from appealing to particular
philosophical doctrines. Rawls thus famously suggests that his account of political
liberalism, of which the idea of public reason is a central part, does without the
concept of truth (Rawls 1996, 94). But without a concept of truth, how can we
make sense of what Rawls says about the guidelines of inquiry, in particular his
claim that citizens should rely on plain truths now widely accepted? Some argue
that Rawls is mistaken, and political philosophy cannot abstain from at least some
controversial claims about the nature of truth (Estlund 1998; Raz 1990). Others
accept that political philosophy must abstain from controversial philosophical
theories of truth, but insist that public reason requires a political (as opposed to
philosophical) account of the truth (Cohen 2008). This is discussed further in
section 7.

5. Structure
In order for some proposed principle or rule, X, to meet the test of public reason,
do the reasons or arguments that justify X need to be shared by all members of the
constituency of justi!cation, or can X meet the test of public reason by being
justi!ed to di$erent people by appeal to di$erent arguments? This is a question
about the structure of public reason, in particular, about whether that structure
must involve a kind of consensus, or whether it can allow di$erent people to
converge on the same rule or principle for entirely di$erent reasons (D'Agostino
1996, 3031; Nagel 1987, 218219).

One possible view would require strong consensus in order for X to meet the test of
public reason. On this account, each member of the constituency of public reason
would have to be justi!ed in accepting X for the very same reason or set of
reasons. If members of the constituency do not share the same justi!cation for X,
then X would not pass the test of public reason. Habermas might be endorsing the
strong consensus view when he says the consensus brought about through
argument must rest on identical reasons able to convince the parties in the same
way (Habermas 1996, 339).
A second view requires only weak consensus. On this view, it is not necessary that
each person shares the very same justi!cation for accepting X, but it is necessary
that each person's justi!cation for accepting X should depend only on shared or
public reasons, that is, reasons that all other members of the justi!catory
constituency could accept as valid considerations that provide a plausible basis for
accepting X, even if there is disagreement among the members as to which set of
shared reasons in fact provides the appropriate justi!cation for endorsing X. To
illustrate, Albert might believe X is justi!ed because it follows from a commitment
to equality of opportunity, whereas Betty might believe X is justi!ed because it is a
necessary means of protecting individuals' rights to freedom of religion, but so
long as both these considerationsequality of opportunity and the right to
freedom of religionare accepted as valid normative considerations by all
members of the constituency and provide a plausible or reasonable basis of
support for X, then X can meet the test of public reason despite the fact that
di$erent members believe X to be justi!ed for di$erent reasons. The weak
consensus view of public reason's structure seems to re"ect Rawls's position, and
has been explicitly defended by others (Macedo 2010 (Other Internet Resources);
Quong 2011, 261273).

It may be helpful to connect this view regarding the structure of public reason to
Rawls's discussion of the related concepts of public justi!cation and the idea of an
overlapping consensus. For Rawls, public justi!cation is achieved when all the
reasonable members of political society carry out a justi!cation of the shared
political conception by embedding it in their several reasonable comprehensive
views (Rawls 1996, 387). When each reasonable person has found a su#cient
comprehensive or non-shared justi!cation of a political liberal conception of
justice, then we can say that an overlapping consensus on a political conception of
justice exists, and as a result of this consensus, there is a public justi!cation of our
shared political conception of justice. But Rawls is clear that while the public
justi!cation of the political conceptiondepends on reasonable comprehensive
doctrines, it does so only in an indirect way. That is, the express contents of the
doctrines have no normative role in public justi!cation; citizens do not look into
the content of others' doctrinesRather, they take into account and give some
weight only to the factto the existenceof the reasonable overlapping
consensus itself (Rawls 1996, 387). For Rawls, public justi!cation thus depends on
the fact that all reasonable persons can endorse a political conception of justice
from within their non-public or comprehensive doctrines, but public reason itself
makes no reference to the content of those nonpublic doctrinesit depends only
on the shared political ideas found within the political conception of justice.

By contrast, convergence accounts of public reason's structure allow for the

possibility that a principle or rule may meet the test of public reason even in the
absence of any shared or public reasons. Here is an illustration of the convergence
view. X is justi!ed for Albert by appeal to reason Ra, but this reason is drawn from
Albert's religious doctrine. Ra is, we can temporarily assume, only normative for
Albert and others who adhere to this religious doctrine. For Betty, on the other
hand, X can be justi!ed by appeal to Rb, a reason drawn from her di$erent
religious doctrine. Suppose Albert and Betty are the only members of the
justi!catory constituency and suppose there are no shared reasons that would
justify accepting X. Under these conditions, the convergence account holds that X
meets the test of public reason because Albert and Betty each have a su#cient
justi!cation for X, even though the reasons supporting their convergent
justi!cations are not shared. Note that proponents of the convergence view need
not (and typically do not) deny that shared justi!cations of the sort described in
the preceding paragraphs are also a successful way for a proposed rule to meet the
test of public reasonthey simply insist, contra proponents of consensus views,
that convergent justi!cations are also an acceptable structure for public reason
(Gaus 2009; Gaus 2011, 276292; Gaus and Vallier 2009, Stout 2004, 7272).

The convergence view appears to depend on the assumption that justi!cations and
reasons can be relative to particular persons, that is, what constitutes a valid
justi!cation for Albert may not succeed as a justi!cation for Betty, and vice versa.
But some have argued that this means the convergence view depends on a
controversial philosophical position that is the subject of reasonable disagreement.
Unless this controversial view is assumed, the convergence view cannot assure us
that Albert and Betty can each sincerely believe that the other is justi!ed in
accepting X. The convergence view, according to this critique, thus either depends
on a reasonably disputed philosophical thesis, or else it fails to show that all
parties to a convergent justi!cation are indeed justi!ed in endorsing the rule in
question (Quong 2011, 261273). Other critics of the convergence view argue that it
has unwelcome institutional implications regarding the interpretation and
application of laws, and that unlike consensus approaches, it fails to provide
citizens with the type of mutual assurance that others are committed to the project
of public reasoning about fundamental political matters (Macedo 2010, Other
Internet Resources).

For their part, proponents of the convergence view argue that what matters for
public reason is that rules or laws be justi!ed to each individual person to whom
the rules or laws apply. If, as proponents of the convergence model insist, di$erent
people can be justi!ed in endorsing the same rule for entirely di$erent reasons,
then proponents of public reason have no principled basis to oppose convergent
forms of justi!cation. Defenders of the view also insist that the requirement for
consensus or shared reasons is overly demanding, and fails to be consistent with
the pluralistic forms of reasoning that are possible amongst the relevant members
of the constituency of public reason. Part of the point of public reason, on this
view, is to accommodate the diverse forms of reasoning that are bound to exist
among any reasonably competent group of reasoners (Gaus 2011, 288292).

6. Site and Duties

What duties, if any, does the idea of public reason impose on individuals? And in
what domains or parts of our life do the requirements of public reason apply?

Rawls argues that public reason imposes a moral duty of civility on all citizens to
explain to one another how, at least with regard to constitutional essentials and
matters of basic justice, the political positions they advocate and vote for can be
supported by the political values of public reason (Rawls 1996, 217). Citizens,
Rawls suggests, should think of themselves as if they were legislators, supporting
only those political positions that they believe could be justi!ed by appeal to
reasons that all reasonable persons could endorse, and holding government
o#cials to this standard (Rawls 1999b, 576577). But Rawls appears to believe that
public reason imposes greater duties on public o#cials: elected o#cials and those
who run for o#ce, their sta$, and judges. This is because, in these roles, these
people work at what Rawls considers the main site of public reason, namely, the
public political forum. This forum has three parts: (1) the discourse of judges, (2) the
discourse of government o#cials, and (3) the discourse of candidates for public
o#ce and their campaign managers (Rawls 1999b, 575). The public political forum
is the arena where our fundamental political principles and institutions are shaped
and debatedit is where collective political power is most directly exercisedand
thus it is the most appropriate site for the application of individual duties of public
reason. When engaged in discourse in this arena, o#cials are to refrain from
appealing to religious or other comprehensive doctrines over which reasonable
persons are assumed to disagree, and instead make arguments that appeal to our
shared political values. Rawls does, however, qualify this duty by appeal to what
he refers to as the wide view of public political culture, which permits o#cials
and citizens to introduce their religious or otherwise comprehensive views into
political discussion at any point, provided appropriate public reasons are provided
in due course (Rawls 1999b, 591). It is also important to note that the duty of
civility is, on Rawls's view, a moral but not a legal dutyit cannot be coercively
imposedand it does not apply to the discussions citizens may have outside the
public political forum, for example, the discussions individuals have qua members
of private associations, or family members, or discussions within universities,
religious institutions, or other parts of what Rawls calls the background culture
(Rawls 1996, 220).

Rawls's account of the duty of civility and the site of public reason has been
subject to a number of criticisms, some of which will be discussed in section 7
below. But even setting these objections aside, not all proponents of public reason
believe that it ought to directly regulate the behavior of individual citizens in the
manner suggested by Rawls. Some argue that the aims of public reason are best
served by permitting ordinary citizens, and perhaps even elected o#cials, to
debate and deliberate unconstrained by the duty of civility (e.g. Benhabib 2002,
108112; Bohman 2003; Gaus 2009; Gaus and Vallier 2009). Some argue for this less
restrictive view because they hold di$erent conceptions of the constituency and
content of public reason; the more philosophically indeterminate those
conceptions are, the less plausible it is to impose a restrictive duty of civility on
individual citizens, since only by allowing citizens to engage in a fairly
unconstrained discourse can the content of public reason emerge (Benhabib 2002;
Bohman 2003). Others reject the duty of civility because they endorse a di$erent
account of the structure of public reason. If, for example, the convergence view of
public reason's structure is correct, then citizens and o#cials need not refrain
from appealing to religious or otherwise comprehensive arguments in political
deliberations, since those reasons might succeed in justifying a proposed law to
some members of the public, even if others cannot reasonably accept those
reasons (Gaus 2009; Gaus and Vallier 2009). Those who endorse consensus
conceptions of public reason's structure, however, are likely to protest that
abandoning the duty of civility in this way is to e$ectively abandon the idea of
public reason, since there would no longer be any requirement that public policies
be justi!ed by appeal to shared or common reasons.

Di$erent accounts of public reason thus yield sharply di$erent views regarding
the duties of citizens and public o#cials. On Rawls's view, and other similar views,
citizens and public o#cials should generally refrain from relying on ideas or
reasons that other reasonable citizens reject, and must always show how the
political positions they support can be justi!ed by appeal to shared political values.
On other accounts, the idea public reason may regulate the way we design our
democratic institutions, and may be a standard by which particular principles and
laws can be assessed, but it imposes few, if any, moral restrictions on the behavior
of citizens and perhaps even elected o#cials.

7. Objections
This section considers some of the most prominent objections to the idea of public
reason. The list below is not exhaustive, and some of the objections below apply
to some conceptions of public reason, but not others.

7.1 Self-Defeating
The idea of public reason tells us that, for some set of moral or political rules, the
rules in question are not legitimate, or lack normative authority, unless the rules in
question can be justi!ed, or are reasonably acceptable, to all those to whom the
rules apply. Some critics argue that the idea of public reason is self-defeating
because the idea itself cannot be justi!ed to all those to whom the idea applies
(Wall 2002). Public reason, the critic points out, is a moral or political rule like any
other, and so surely it ought to be subject to the same test of moral and political
rules which proponents of public reason advocate. But, the critic continues, the
idea of public reason will be unable to pass this test.

There are, broadly, two ways one might defend the idea of public reason from this
objection. First, one might deny that the idea of public reason does indeed apply to
itself. On some formulations, the idea of public reason is a constraint on the
exercise of political power, or a constraint on the exercise of coercion, but not
itself an exercise of political power, nor an exercise of coercion. When the
proponent of public reason states that political or moral rules must be publicly
justi!ably to be legitimate, she does not exert power or coercion over anyone, she
merely states a condition that any purportedly legitimate exercises of power or
coercion must meet to be legitimate. The success of this reply, however, may
depend on a controversial presumption in favor of states of a$airs where political
power or coercion is not exercised. It seems to assume, for example, that refusals
to aid others, and other non-coercive choices, need not meet the test of public
reason. Proponents of public reason might also argue that the principle of public
reason does not apply to itself because it is a meta claim about the appropriate
conditions for moral or political justi!cation, and not a !rst order normative claim
within that discourse (Gaus 2011, 227228). But this line of reply is also open to
challenge, since the idea of public reason does sometimes appear to operate as a
!rst order normative claim, for example, it can be deployed to justify why one
person cannot permissibly coerce another, or why the latter person is justi!ed in
forcefully resisting that coercion.

The second way to defend public reason from the objection is to concede that the
idea ought to apply to itself (Estlund 1998) and argue that it does so successfully.
This strategy might be pursued in several ways. The proponent of public reason
may point to some allegedly public or shared idealmoral autonomy or respect
for personsand argue that this ideal both justi!es a commitment to public reason
and is publicly justi!able by virtue of being a suitably public or shared ideal. This
strategy, however, faces two related challenges. If the ideal in question is
formulated in a su#ciently detailed or rich way, such that a commitment to public
reason is plausibly entailed by the ideal, then the ideal runs the risk of being one
that is no longer suitably public or shared. This defense thus runs the risk of
grounding public reason in some reasonably contested moral ideal or claim about
philosophical truth, though some argue this is the only appropriate way to defend
the idea (Estlund 1998). On the other hand, if the alleged ideal is pitched at a level
of abstraction that ensures it does remain suitably public, it may no longer be
obvious that the ideal does in fact entail a commitment to public reason (Wall 2002,
390391). Alternatively, a proponent might argue that public reason can
successfully meet its own test by appeal to a convergence form of justi!cation. On
this view, the idea of public reason is justi!able or acceptable to all the relevant
members of the constituency because each member has his or her own nonpublic
reasons to accept the idea. For example, all reasonable people might converge on
the importance of the value of justice for nonpublic reasons, and then the advocate
of public reason need only establish that justice, at least under conditions of
reasonable pluralism, requires a commitment to public reason (see sect. 1.5 above).
But this line of response may be vulnerable to the charge that it can only succeed
by stipulationby de!ning the relevant members of the constituency as those
who converge on the importance of public reason.

7.2 Truth
Many accounts of public reason, most notably Rawls's, recommend that we assess
moral and political rules while abstaining, in several ways, from claims about
truth. On Rawls's account, for example, philosophical theories of the truth are the
sort of thing over which reasonable people are assumed to disagree, and so an
account of public reason cannot purport to deliver moral or political principles
that are true according to some particular philosophical conception of truth;
rather it can only deliver principles that are reasonable (Rawls 1996, 94). Many
accounts of public reason also tell citizens that they must refrain, when engaged in
public reasoning with others, from appealing to the whole truth as they see it.
Regardless of what you may believe is true about religion or the good life, citizens
must abstain from appeals to such truths, and instead appeal only to those public
or political considerations that can be endorsed by other reasonable members of
the moral or political community.

These two ways in which public reason limits appeals to truth generate several
distinct objections. First, some worry that if a system of moral or political
justi!cation ignores the whole truth, the resulting moral or political principles may
be false. For example, if it is true that all sinners will go to hell when they die, but
we are precluded from appealing to this truth in developing our political
principles, we may endorse a political principle that permits people to engage in
various sinful activities. If we could appeal to the whole truth about hell, however,
we would see that this political principle is false. A related worrythat precluding
the appeal to certain truths will render us unable to solve certain problemsis
considered in section 7.3 below.

Second, we might worry that if an account of moral or political justi!cation seeks

to validate conclusions without contradicting anything that a diverse group of
people believe to be truefor example, without contradicting anyone's reasonable
religious viewssuch an account will be committed to the view that it is desirable
to propagate false beliefs or unsound inferences (Raz 1998, 42).

Third, some critics focus on Rawls's claim that the content of public reasonthe
principles of a political conception of justicecan be presented as merely
reasonable, but not true. If these principles are merely reasonable, but not
presented as true, then why should individuals accord these principles priority in
their decisions about how to behave, particularly when these principles come into
con"ict with religious or other requirements that individuals believe to be true,
and not merely reasonable (Raz 1990, 23)?

Fourth, it might seem that public reason cannot successfully abstain from some
claims about moral or political truth. In order to explain why we ought to accept a
principle of public reason or public justi!cation, we cannot simply say it ought to
be accepted because the principle itself can be publicly justi!ed. Such a claim
might be trivially trueits truth established by restricting the constituency of
public reason to those who endorse the idea of public reasonbut this does not
vindicate the principle, nor does it distinguish a principle of public reason from
similarly insular principles that appear clearly dubious, for example, a principle
mandating that moral principles are valid only when endorsed by Albert, who also
happens to endorse this principle granting him exclusive moral authority (Estlund
1998).

Fifth, other critics have suggested that the idea of public reason entails that
individuals must doubt, or be skeptical about, their religious or otherwise
nonpublic beliefs (Barry 1995, 901914; McCabe 2000, 316324; Wall 1998, 9194;
Wenar 1995, 4148). Some argue this is entailed by the Rawlsian appeal to the
burdens of judgment or the fact of reasonable pluralism (see sect. 3). Others claim
that only if we were skeptical about the truth of our nonpublic beliefs would it
make sense to bracket those beliefs when deliberating about moral and political
matters. If skepticism is entailed for either of these reasons, this poses two
potential problems. One is that this looks to be the sort of controversial
epistemological view that Rawls and others want to avoid in constructing an
account of public reason. The other is that many otherwise apparently reasonable
and well-motivated people are not skeptical about their religious or nonpublic
beliefs, but then does this mean such people cannot endorse the idea of public
reason?

Proponents of public reason have o$ered various responses to the objections

described above. First, and most generally, not all conceptions of public reason
purport to do without the concept of truth entirely, in the way that Rawls's
particular account aims to do. Second, even those who endorse Rawls's account, or
one similar to it, argue that it can meet the objections pressed against it. According
to some, this is because it is a mistake to suppose that a theory of public reason or
political justi!cation must also justify the deliberative priority of its conclusions.
On this view, it is up to individuals to decide whether, and why, to accord to
deliberative priority to the conclusions of public reason. If deliberative priority is
not something a theory of public reason should be expected to supply, the third,
fourth, and !fth objections above can be defused (Quong 2011, 221242). Third,
proponents of public reason point out that when methods of justi!cation require
participants to refrain from appealing to the whole truth, this does not entail the
conclusions reached will not be true, or that the method is somehow indi$erent
with regard to the truth of the conclusions reached (Mendus 2002, 2628; Rawls
1996, 150). Certain appeals to truthfor example, hearsayare not permitted in a
courtroom, but this does not show that we are unconcerned with the truth of the
conclusions we reach in criminal trials. Fourth, and relatedly, in contexts when we
aim at truth or justi!cation, we also recognize the importance of other
considerations and allow these considerations to constrain the means by which
truth is pursued, for example, spouses cannot be required to testify against one
another (Freeman 2007, 233235; Rawls 1996, 218). Finally, some might argue,
following Rawls, that we do not need to a#rm any given political principle or rule
as true, only as the most reasonable one available in light of our commitment to
certain public political values; this is su#cient to show why we ought to endorse
the principle or rule in question, at least insofar as we see ourselves as reasonable
citizens.

7.3 Incompleteness
One of the most important objections pressed against the idea of public reason
concerns its capacity to provide solutions to all, or almost all, of the important
moral and political questions we face, that is, the question of whether public
reason is complete (Rawls 1996, 244246; Rawls 1999b, 585586). A number of critics
argue that public reason lacks the resources to o$er solutions to many important
moral or political questions because the answers to these questions depend on
appeal to controversial moral, religious, or metaphysical claims of the sort over
which reasonable people disagree and that are excluded from many conceptions of
public reason, particularly those conceptions that adopt a consensus approach to
the structure of public reason (Horton 2003: de Marne$e 1994; Reidy 2000: Sandel
1998).
There are two ways in which public reason might be incomplete (Gaus 1996, 151
158: Schwartzman 2004). First, public reason might be indeterminate, that is, it may
be unable to deliver any clear conclusions about a particular question. In these
cases, it is sometimes said that public reason runs out: its content simply proves
insu#cient to yield an answer to the question posed. Second, public reason might
be inconclusive with regard to some question, that is, a plurality of di$erent
answers might be apparently justi!ed by appeal to public reason, and public
reason alone cannot clearly tell us which answer is correct or the most reasonable
alternative.

Indeterminacy is the more serious charge, but critics maintain that even if public
reason was only inconclusive with regard to many questions, this would also be a
serious, perhaps fatal, objection to public reason. Some of the topics with regard to
which critics allege public reason is either inconclusive or indeterminate include:
abortion, stem-cell research, gay marriage, prostitution, justice for future
generations, the treatment of animals, and other issues where critics allege getting
the right moral or political answer depends upon religious or metaphysical claims
about personhood, or else on controversial claims about human "ourishing or the
good life. Some critics believe that virtually all moral or political questions depend,
to a certain extent, on truths about personhood, metaphysics, or human
"ourishing, and so these critics are likely to see the charge of incompleteness as a
deep and pervasive problem for public reason.

What responses are available to the proponent of public reason? With regard to
the charge of inconclusiveness, most advocates of public reason are inclined to
accept the charge, but deny that it represents an objection (Freeman 2007, 242243;
Gaus 2011, 303333; Quong 2011, 204212, 285287; Rawls 1996, 240241;
Schwartzman 2004; Williams 2000). If, for a given moral or political question,
public reason seems to yield a number of equally reasonable answers, we should
!nd an appropriate way to choose between these competing answers. If we do so,
the idea of public reason is upheld, rather than undermined. On this view, the
critics wrongly suppose that the point of public reason is to deliver a unique
answer to each question we face; the point is rather to ensure that the rules or
principles that we adopt can be reasonably justi!ed to all. Showing that some rule
we currently apply is not the only rule that can meet the test of public reason is no
objection, provided the mechanism by which di$erent public justi!able rules are
selected can itself be reasonably justi!ed. The charge of indeterminacy seems
more serious: if public reason can provide no answer to a given moral or political
question, we are apparently left with no alternative but to rely on nonpublic forms
of reasoning. In response to this objection, there are two main strategies. One is to
insist that public reason is unlikely to be indeterminate in many cases, or at least to
rebut speci!c attempts by critics to show that public reason is indeterminate with
regard to a particular question (Bell 2002; Freeman 2007, 241251; Schwartzman
2004, 205208; Williams 2000, 205208). The second strategy is to insist that, even
if public reason is indeterminate with regard to a given question, this does not
su#ce to establish that it is permissible to resort to nonpublic forms of reasoning.
Alternative solutionsdeferring decisions if possible, !nding forms of mutual
accommodation, or random decision-making proceduresmay be preferable to
resorting to nonpublic reasoning (Schwartzman 2004, 209214; Williams 2000, 209
211).

7.4 Exclusion
Some critics argue that the idea of public reasonagain particularly Rawls's
conceptionis in some way unfair or unduly exclusionary. This complaint is most
often made on behalf of those who would rely on religious arguments when
deliberating about important moral and political questions (Eberle 2002;
Greenawalt 1995; Smith 2010; Stout 2004; Weithman 2002), though the objection is
also sometimes made more generally on behalf of those who are excluded from
the constituency of public reason on normative grounds (Bohman 2003; Friedman
2000). There are many di$erent versions of this objection, and the list that follows
is not exhaustive. Put most forcefully, public reason is a sham: it purports to be an
impartial or neutral method of moral or political justi!cation, but it is, in fact, a
form of sectarian secularism or modern liberalism masquerading as something
more inclusive. A second, less strident, version of this objection points out that
even those theories of public reason that are not explicitly secular will
nevertheless make it more di#cult, on balance, for religious citizens to justify their
favored views. Public reason cannot help but tilt in a secular direction given its
requirement that principles or rules be reasonably justi!able to all members of the
community. Everyone can understand and endorse a variety of secular
considerations, but there is no religious idea or argument that all reasonable
people can accept, and thus public reason has an in-built bias against religious
doctrines and those who believe such doctrines are relevant to moral and political
argument. A third version of the objection queries why controversial religious
arguments, claims about the good life, or metaphysical arguments, are excluded
from playing a role in public reason, but controversial arguments about justice or
individual rights are not similarly excluded. If, as the critic alleges, nothing can
justify this asymmetric treatment of controversial arguments from di$erent
domains of inquiry, then the idea of public reason is unjusti!ably biased against
those who rely on religious, metaphysical, or perfectionist arguments. This
objection is sometimes called the asymmetry objection (Brower 1994, 2122; Caney
1995, 258; Sandel 1998, 202210; Waldron 1999, ch. 7). A variant of this objection
focuses on the claim that reasons must be accessible in order to qualify as public.
The critics allege that, however the notion of accessibility is de!ned, there will be
no clear grounds for declaring that many religious arguments are not accessible
and thus nonpublic when compared to various apparently public non-religious
arguments (Eberle 2002, 255-260). Fourth, some critics worry that Rawls's moral
duty of civility (see sect. 6 above) will either discourage some citizens from
engaging in legitimate acts of religious expression and association, or at least will
create a political atmosphere where religious arguments and those who espouse
them are treated as less valuable when compared with purely public reasons and
those who restrict themselves to such arguments. Finally, some critics argue that
public reason is not the only way, and perhaps not the best way, to show respect
for others, or show civility, when engaged in moral and political dialogue. There
are equally plausible conceptions of respect and civility which favor presenting
others with the whole truth as we see it when engaged in moral or political debate,
rather than restricting ourselves to shared or common reasons. If this is true, then
those who ground their moral or political arguments only in religious or
otherwise nonpublic reasons are not being unreasonable or disrespectful: they are
simply following a di$erent, but equally plausible, interpretation of what respect
or civility requires (Eberle 2002; Stout 2004, 6785; Weithman 2002).
A variety of di$erent replies are available for the proponent of public reason. In
response to the !rst charge, defenders of public reason can point out that it is not
only religious doctrines that are deemed nonpublic by leading theories of public
reason such as Rawls's. Secular doctrines such as utilitarianism or controversial
secular claims about the good life are also deemed nonpublic. Thus it seems unfair
to allege that public reason is simply a !g leaf for a secular agenda. In response to
the second objection, theorists of public reason may concede that there is a sense
in which public reason tilts in a secular direction, but insist this is not an arbitrary
bias, but rather the justi!able result of the requirement that certain principles or
rules be justi!able to all those who are bound by them. The charge of bias thus in
fact depends on a much deeper objection to the public reason project, and so the
critic who presses the charge of bias must be prepared to rebut the more
fundamental arguments o$ered in favor of public reason.

Several di$erent responses have been o$ered in reply to the third objection: the
asymmetry objection. Some argue the objection can be defused by constructing an
account of public reason (or the closely related idea of a political liberalism)
without appeal to what Rawls calls the burdens of judgment, or other apparently
epistemological premises (see sect. 1 above) (Lecce 2008, ch. 6). Others deny that
public reason should include an accessibility requirement (Vallier 2011). Finally,
others argue that it is a mistake to suppose that religious arguments are excluded
from public reason because they are controversial or the subject or reasonable
disagreement amongst citizens, since the same can be said for many non-religious
arguments. Rather, on this view, they are excluded because the disagreements or
controversies over religious and other comprehensive doctrines are deeper or
more foundational and lack the normative common ground that characterize
reasonable disagreements over matters of justice and individual rights (Quong
2011, 192220).

In response to the fourth chargethat an ideal of public reason will directly or

indirectly discourage religious expression, or create the perception that those who
invoke religious arguments are, in some sense, second class citizensthe
proponent of public reason can o$er at least two replies. First, not all theories of
public reason share Rawls's view regarding the moral duty of civility. As we saw in
section 6, some accounts of public reason entail fewer, if any, direct restrictions on
the behavior of individual citizens. Second, Rawls's own view does not prohibit
citizens from o$ering religious or nonpublic arguments for their favored
positions; it only requires that individuals who do so eventually supplement these
arguments with public reasons (again see sect. 6). Finally, proponents of public
reason are likely to deny that there are plausible alternative conceptions of civility
or respect that would allow religious and other non-shared arguments to play a
more central role in moral or political justi!cation (Quong 2013), or else they may
deny that the grounds of public reason are in fact best explicated by appeal to
notions of civility or respect (see sect. 1).

7.5 Antidemocratic
A further objection to the idea of public reasonagain particularly Rawls's account
is that it is antidemocratic. On Rawls's account, the content of public reason is
partly !xed via philosophical argument, prior to any actual democratic
deliberation amongst citizens (see sect. 5). Seyla Benhabib thus complains that
public reason in Rawls's theory is best viewed not as a process of reasoning among
citizens, but more as a regulative principle, imposing certain standards upon how
individuals, institutions, and agencies ought to reason about public matters. The
standards of public reason are set by a political conception of liberalism (Benhabib
2002, 108). Similarly, Habermas argues that Rawls's theory does not take seriously
enough the importance of democratic or political autonomy, and by giving public
reason determinate content in the shape of certain liberal principles generates a
priority of liberal rights which demotes the democratic process to an inferior
status (Habermas 1995, 128). Although these complaints are made about Rawls's
account, the objection obviously applies, with greater or lesser force, to any
conception of public reason that !xes the content of public reason, to some extent,
prior to any actual democratic debate.

The response on behalf of Rawls's account and similar views is likely to take the
following form. First, Rawls does not purport to o$er a determinate account of
public reason's content; rather he suggests that the content of public reason is
given by a family of political conceptions of justice. His theory thus does not try
to !x public reason once and for all in the form of one favored political conception
of justice (Rawls 1999b, 582). Second, insofar as the content of public reason is
partly determinatefor example, Rawls claims it must include certain basic rights
and liberties for all personsthis does not appear particularly objectionable, nor
does it seem a problematic restriction of the democratic process, unless one
believes that democratic majorities can permissibly vote to deny the basic rights of
certain individuals (Quong 2013). Finally, since all conceptions of public reason
aim at the public justi!cation of moral or political rules, it is not strange to suppose
that the content of public reason might be partly determinate prior to any actual
discussion and deliberation. It is plausible to believe that certain basic rules
prohibiting non-consensual harming of innocent persons, or protecting certain
minimal rights of bodily integrity, must be justi!able to all members of the
constituency of public reason, provided we assume those members are committed
to certain minimal ideals of freedom and equality (Cohen 2010, 272277). To
assume otherwiseas those who press the antidemocratic objection appear to do
would be to concede that we cannot be certain, in advance of actual deliberation
amongst real persons, that our most basic moral and political commitments are
publicly justi!able. If this assumption were true, it seems more likely to count
against the very idea of public reason, as opposed to something that counts against
Rawls's particular conception of public reason.

8. Further Issues
This section brie"y lists some further topics that have received relatively little
attention in the literature to date, but seem promising subjects for future analysis.
Again, the list is not exhaustive; it only aims to identify some important but
relatively neglected questions about public reason.

8.1 Non-ideal Conditions

The idea of public reason is often presented as a normative ideal, as the way our
moral or political rules ought, ideally, to be justi!ed, and also as the way
individuals ought, ideally, to engage in deliberation and discussion. Rawls, for
example, stipulates that his account of public reason belongs to a conception of a
well-ordered constitutional democratic society (Rawls 1999b, 573), by which he
means a society where: (a) everyone accepts, and knows that others accept, the
same conception of justice (or at least everyone accepts some member from the
family of liberal conceptions); (b) the basic structure of society is publicly known
to satisfy this conception and; (c) citizens have a normally e$ective sense of justice
(Rawls 1996, 35).

But what does public reason entail in non-ideal circumstances, such as our own,
where arguably none of the three conditions listed above are met (Boettcher 2012,
174175)? Some proponents of public reason encourage us to observe the moral
duty of civility in our political life, but if the duty of civility has been designed for
ideal conditions, it is unclear whether or how it might apply under less than ideal
conditions. For example, many accounts of public reason include a sincerity
principle that directs individuals to only support those principles or rules they
sincerely believe meet the test of public reason (Gaus 1996, 139140; Rawls 1996,
241242; Schwartzman 2011). But does this requirement still apply in conditions
where many of those with whom we are debating do not embrace the idea of
public reason, and may behave only strategically or cynically? Similarly, if we
believe our existing political institutions are not publicly justi!able or do not meet
certain minimal requirements of justice, do the requirements of public reason
nevertheless apply to our political deliberations and discourse, or do those
requirements only apply once reasonably just institutions have been secured
(Rawls 1996, 247252)?

8.2 Problems of Extension

As we saw in section 7.3, an important objection to the idea of public reason is that
it will prove incomplete; that it lacks the theoretical resources necessary to provide
answers to many of the important moral or political questions we face. Although
this objection is often voiced by critics of public reason, the existing literature
provides relatively little in the way of detailed case-by-case analysis of the
plausibility of the charge (an exception is Greenawalt 1988). In particular, the
charge of incompleteness seems most plausible when we consider certain
problems of extension, that is, topics where it is unclear whether public reason
can be extended to provide reasonable answers (Rawls 1996, 244246). Some
examples of these problems include: What principles should regulate our
treatment of future generations? What principles should regulate our treatment of
animals and nature? What principles should apply to decisions about the provision
of health care? For each of these questions, there is a plausible prima facie case that
our deliberations must be informed by considerations that go beyond the limits of
public reason and appeal to controversial claims about the moral status of animals,
or future persons, or particular claims about what constitutes human "ourishing.
But whether this is indeed the case with regard to these issues, among others, is
something that awaits more sustained analysis.

8.3 Global Public Reason

Another issue that Rawls lists as a problem of extension is the topic of
international relations. But the topic of international relations may not simply be a
problem of extension, that is, it may not simply be a question of whether some
existing account of public reason can be extended to provide the necessary
answers to questions about international relations or global justice. There is also
the further question as to whether the principles that regulate international or
global justice require an independent or separate conception of global public
reason. The case in favor of a distinct account of global public reason might appeal
to at least three facts. First, if the fundamental ideas that form the basis of
domestic public reason draw on the shared public or political culture of a
constitutional democracy (Rawls 1999b, 584), global public reason appears to
require a di$erent basis, since either there is no shared political culture spanning
the globe, or else that shared culture looks very di$erent to that of a constitutional
democracy. Second, if the relevant agents in the global or international arena are
not primarily individual persons, but are rather states or other collective entities,
then global public reason may require a very di$erent conception of the
constituency of public reason. Third, and relatedly, if we assume that a global
society regulated by a conception of global public reason is comprised of di$erent
states, which are each internally regulated by their own domestic forms of public
reason, we face several questions regarding the relationship between these
domestic and global principles, for example, can these principles come into
con"ict, and if so, how do we adjudicate such con"icts? Each of these
assumptions, however, is open to dispute, and thus some might plausibly insist
that there is no need for a distinct account of global public reason.

Although the topic of global justice has been the subject of much recent
philosophical attention, comparatively little recent work has focused on the idea of
a global public reason, with some notable exceptions (Cohen 2010, 319372; Porter
2012; Rawls 1999b, 529564; Smith 2011; Wenar 2008).

8.4 Assurance, Stability, and Publicity

Although the idea of public reason is primarily a view about the justi!cation of
moral or political rules, it may have other important social functions. Paul
Weithman suggests that public reason also plays an essential roleat least in
Rawls's Political Liberalismin establishing mutual assurance with regard to a
commitment to a public conception of justice amongst citizens who are deeply
divided about religious, moral, and philosophical matters (Weithman 2010, 326
335). On this view, citizens need to be assured that others are committed to justice
in order to know that acting from their own sense of justice is not something to
regret. Without this assurance, citizens might reasonably worry that acting justly
con"icts too deeply with their narrow conception of the good, in which case
society would not be stable and well-ordered in Rawls's senses (see also Macedo
2010, Other Internet Resources).

The extent to which the idea of public reason does or can perform this social
function depends on the answers to several further questions. In particular, the
potential of public reason to function as a mechanism of mutual assurance
depends on how we interpret the duties that public reason imposes on ordinary
citizens. How can ordinary citizens provide satisfactory assurance to one another
that they are, in fact, sincerely committed to a conception of public reason? Is
there an answer to this latter question that also meets the criterion of publicity,
that is one where the speci!c duties of public reason are something each person
can know, and where the conformity of each with those requirements can be
common knowledge (for this construal of publicity, see Rawls 1999a, 4849)?
Bibliography

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