Public Reason in Political Philosophy

Classic Sources and Contemporary Commentaries

Piers Norris Turner, Gerald Gaus, Piers Norris Turner, Gerald Gaus

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9780367867911
• eBook ISBN: 9781351617321
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

When people of good faith and sound mind disagree deeply about moral, religious, and other philosophical matters, how can we justify political institutions to all of them? The idea of public reason—of a shared public standard, despite disagreement—arose in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in the work of Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Kant. At a time when John Rawls' influential theory of public reason has come under fire but its core idea remains attractive to many, it is important not to lose sight of earlier philosophers' answers to the problem of private conflict through public reason.

The distinctive selections from the great social contract theorists in this volume emphasize the pervasive theme of intractable disagreement and the need for public justification. New essays by leading scholars then put the historical work in context and provide a focus of debate and discussion. They also explore how the search for public reason has informed a wider body of modern political theory—in the work of Hume, Hegel, Bentham, and Mill—sometimes in surprising ways. The idea of public reason is revealed as an overarching theme in modern political philosophy—one very much needed today.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Note on the Text
• Introduction Piers Norris Turner and Gerald Gaus
• PART 1 Public Reason in Social Contract Theory
• Hobbes from Leviathan (1651),
• Critical Essay: S. A. Lloyd, Public Reason in Hobbes
• Locke from Second Treatise of Government (1690),
• A Letter Concerning Toleration (1689),
• Critical Essay: Gerald Gaus, Locke’s Liberal Theory of Public Reason
• Rousseau from A Discourse on Political Economy (1755),
• The Social Contract (1762),
• Critical Essay: Christopher Bertram, Rousseau on Public Reason
• Kant from The Science of Right (1796),
• The Principles of Political Right Considered in Connection with the Relation of Theory to Practice in the Right of the State (1793),
• Perpetual Peace (1795),
• What is Enlightenment? (1784),
• Critical Essay: Oliver Sensen, Kant on Public Reason
• PART 2 Public Reason in Broader Historical Context
• Hume Critical Essay: Geoffrey Sayre-McCord, Hume’s Theory of Public Reason
• Hegel Critical Essay: Kenneth R. Westphal, The Centrality of Public Reason in Hegel’s Moral Philosophy
• Bentham Critical Essay: Gerald J. Postema, Jeremy Bentham: Theorist of Publicity
• Mill Critical Essay: Piers Norris Turner, Social Morality in Mill
• Index