Reasonableness in Liberal Political Philosophy

Shaun Young

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780415371780
• eBook ISBN: 9781317983743
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Filosofía
• Subtopic: Filosofía política

Previously published as a special issue of the Critical Review of Social and Political Philosophy, this collection offers a thought-provoking critique of the role of the concept of reasonableness in liberal political theory, focusing on the proposed relationship between reasonableness and the establishment and preservation of a just and stable liberal polity.

The essays explore the explicit and implicit use of the idea of reasonableness, presenting an analysis that incorporates normative and empirical observations and employs a number of different analytical approaches, including liberalism, feminism, environmentalism, Marxism, and communitarianism. This unique book provides in a single volume a critique that engages not only a vast array of issues but also a diversity of critical perspectives. It not only rectifies a deficiency in the existing scholarship, but also addresses the issues of socio-political justice and stability, offering new, insightful critiques that respond to the increasingly complex circumstances and conflicts that confront life in contemporary pluralistic societies.

Reasonableness in Liberal Political Philosophy will be a valuable resource for those interested in liberal political theory and its potential usefulness in helping to secure a just and stable polity.

Introduction

Shaun P. Young

 

What does it mean to act ‘reasonably’ and why is it important (or necessary) to behave in such a manner? Though such questions have for centuries captured the attention and exercised the energies of philosophers, they have possessed particular importance for liberal philosophers. Indeed, it has been argued that the idea of ‘public reasonableness is at the centre of liberalism’ (Moore 1996, p. 167; see also, for example, Macedo 2000). Liberals' fascination with reasonableness is a consequence of their desire to establish and sustain the socio-political conditions essential to a just and stable society. Liberalism was originally developed as a means by which to secure political stability in societies in which the presence of religious pluralism had produced years of repression, persecution, and civil war. The violent, deadly, and destabilising conflict that arose in sixteenth-and seventeenth-century Europe as a result of the public intolerance of religious diversity brought with it the realisation that a new approach to responding to doctrinal disagreement was necessary if one wished to avoid such conflict in the future and provide for the type of peaceful coexistence needed to ensure political stability in pluralistic societies.

Early liberal philosophers recognised that the ability of liberalism to achieve its goals was itself a function of its capacity to provide a just governance framework. If liberalism was to reduce to an unproblematic or manageable level the likelihood of divisive, destabilising conflict among the members of pluralistic societies, then it would need to offer a governance framework that was perceived to treat all competing interests ‘justly’. In other words, liberalism would need to secure justice in order to achieve the desired (and necessary) political stability. In turn, realising justice would require that all citizens be treated ‘fairly’, which they are to the extent that the governance framework places only ‘reasonable’ demands upon them. Consequently, for early liberals, there was a fundamental interdependency between reasonableness, justice, political stability, liberalism, and the achievement of what John Rawls labelled a ‘well-ordered’ society: reasonableness was understood to be a critical component of the project of liberalism.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, liberal philosophers' understanding of the specific character of ‘reasonableness’ has evolved with the passage of time. As the sociopolitical circumstances confronting the inhabitants of ‘liberal’ societies have changed, so too has philosophers' understanding of the precise demands that a liberal governance framework must satisfy if it is to secure and sustain justice and, by extension, political stability. Thus, for example, the criteria for satisfying Hobbesian reasonableness differ drastically from those generated by Humboldt's definition of reasonableness, which, in turn, is significantly different from that of Rawls. However, despite such periodic metamorphoses, liberal theories of justice have continued to embrace the belief that the realisation of a well-ordered polity (however that might be defined) requires that reason(ableness) guide – indeed, regulate – behaviour in the public realm. Given that liberalism is a child of the ‘age of reason’, such a fact should not be surprising.

Purpose of book

The purpose of this book is to offer a critical examination of the role of the concept of reasonableness in liberal political philosophy, with a particular focus on the proposed relationship between reasonableness and the opportunity for individuals to pursue and realise a plurality of competing, conflicting and often irreconcilable interests and ends. Even within the sphere of liberal political philosophy, reasonableness is an essentially contested concept, a quality the specifics of which have been understood in a number of different and, at times, competing ways. Of course, despite the heterogeneous manner in which it has been represented and assessed, all understandings of reasonableness possess certain fundamental similarities. For example, reasonableness is typically understood to demand toleration and reciprocity (though the degree to which it does so has certainly varied).

A prominent feature of many of the chapters contained in this book is a reference to the work of Rawls: for many of the contributions, Rawls's arguments serve as the principal focus of analysis and critique. Though some may believe such a situation regrettable, arguably, it is quite understandable given Rawls's indisputable role in bringing the issue of ‘reasonableness’ to the fore of contemporary political philosophy.¹ That is not to suggest (nor do any of the contributors claim) either that Rawls is the only philosopher with anything noteworthy to say on the matter or even that he has developed a conception of reasonableness that is in some sense(s) superior to all others. Rather, the prominence of Rawls's arguments should be understood only as a reflection of his significant contribution to recent scholarship that engages the topic of socio-political ‘reasonableness’.

In turn, it is possible to identify in the contributions responses to a number of the prominent and persistent questions that have been generated by Rawls's arguments (and, more generally, liberals' use of the notion of reasonableness). In particular, each of the chapters addresses one or more of the following questions: Is liberal reasonableness problematically exclusionary? Is it suitably democratic in character? And is it a practical and sufficient guide for public behaviour? The first question has been a prominent component of not only the lengthy (and ongoing) debate between Marxists and liberals, but also the more newly emergent critiques of liberalism offered by feminists and multiculturalists. The second question has been an animating source of the continually increasing volume of contemporary discourse surrounding the idea of deliberative democracy. Finally, the third question is one that has occupied (in particular) those who have analyzed the significance of the modifications that Rawls has made to his arguments between the publication of A theory of justice (1971) and the appearance of Political liberalism (1993).

Using Marxism, religion, and jurisprudence (respectively), Terrell Carver, Patrick Neal, and Susan Dimock engage a number of concerns surrounding the question of the exclusionary character of liberal reasonableness, and essentially conclude that, though it is certainly not unproblematic, reasonableness need not necessarily be as exclusionary as many have suggested. In ‘Liberalism, reason(ableness), and the politicization of truth: Marx's critique and the ironies of Marxism’, Carver argues that there is notably less hostility and, subsequently, incompatibility, between (genuine) Marxism and liberal reason(ableness) than is typically conceded either by Marxists or liberals. He suggests that while Marx rejected a number of liberal propositions, such as the superiority of a selfregulating market or the inescapability or ‘good’ of the ‘outrageous but predictable inequalities of outcome’ (p. 123), he was certainly not ‘illiberal’. Indeed, in certain respects – for example, his support for equality of outcome and universal (male) suffrage – Marx was ‘more liberal than most’ (p. 122). Similarly, in ‘Is public reason innocuous?’, Neal contends that the apparent and commonly accepted antagonism between the consistent and meaningful observance of religious beliefs/values and the demands of liberal public reason is more a matter of an exaggerated understanding of the latter than an actual conflict. Once one considers the numerous qualifications that accompany Rawls' conception of public reason, its prima facie daunting character proves to be more chimera than reality, and the actual constraints it imposes do not render it irresolvably incompatible with the personal obligations that typically accompany the affirmation of any of the established religions. In ‘Reasonable women in the law’, Dimock notes that, as manifested in the ‘reasonable (wo)man’ standard that has emerged in the US and other countries that practice a common law approach to jurisprudence, the liberal understanding of reasonableness has often functioned to the detriment of women, failing to recognize crucial differences between men and women. Nevertheless, it has been and can continue to be a progressive concept if properly understood and employed.

Related to the question of exclusion is that of the democratic character of liberal reasonableness, the degree to which it supports and enables (or frustrates) the realization of democratic practices as such are generally understood. In ‘Environmentalism, fairness, and public reasons’, Mathew Humphrey suggests that liberal public reason legitimises a problematically limited understanding of what constitutes a valid public justification for activities whose goal is to alter the political landscape; in so doing, liberal public reason leaves environmentalists (among others) lacking the political means required to challenge the entrenched political morality effectively. If it is to offer the necessary ‘transformative’ opportunity, liberal public reason must, Humphrey contends, embrace ‘a more contextual understanding of political justification’ that differentiates between ‘various levels and forms of coercion in political life and appl[ies] different standards of justification between them’ (p. 188). In ‘Democratic reasonableness’, Thomas Spragens, Jr argues that liberal public reason(ableness) is an essential component of a democratic system of governance. It is the liberal notion of political reasonableness that rendered illegitimate the elitist, aristocratic understanding of political reason that initially reigned supreme, and, instead, required a belief both in human equality and the capacity of the demos to be reasonable in its attitudes, conduct, and judgment (p. 195) – i.e., an affirmation of the notion of democratic reasonableness. However, Spragens cautions that, even when such reasonableness prevails, there remain ‘irremovable impediments to the power of democratic reasonableness to produce determinate substantive convergence – a rational consensus – on social policy or principles of justice’ (p. 211).

The chapters by Gerald Gaus, Ed Andrew and Peter Lindsay, and Shaun Young confront in different ways the question of the sufficiency and practicality of reasonableness as a guide for public behaviour. In ‘Reasonable utility functions and playing the cooperative way’, Gaus uses game theory (in particular, the prisoners' dilemma scenario) in order to demonstrate that, contrary to popular belief, considerations of reasonableness – understood as ‘a desire to engage in fair cooperation as such’ – can be effectively and productively incorporated into theories of rational decision-making concerning the collective good. He suggests, however, that it would be mistake to conclude, as some have, that reasonableness can essentially eliminate the challenges associated with cooperative decisionmaking. Though reasonable people would be ‘more successful’ at avoiding situations such as a prisoners' dilemma, all people – whether purely rational or also reasonable – would behave similarly if entangled in such a situation. In ‘Are the judgments of conscience unreasonable?’, Andrew and Lindsay also argue that reasonableness alone cannot prevent irrational or unreasonable behaviour. In particular, despite the contemporary inclination to believe otherwise, reasonableness is unable to ‘mediate the conflicts that exist between the individual and society’ (p. 237) and, consequently, by itself reasonableness is an inadequate guide for public behaviour. A possible source of assistance, it is suggested, is the notion of conscience. Though essentially dismissed as an unacceptably private and subjective mechanism for guiding public behaviour, Andrew and Lindsay contend that conscience, too, can offer a means for resolving difficult moral questions that concern public affairs. Finally, in ‘Exercising political power reasonably’, Young questions the ability of the notion of reasonableness to protect adequately against the abuse of political power. In particular, in demanding that the governance framework assign primacy to reasonableness, Young suggests that political liberalism generates what he labels the ‘paradox of reasonableness’: making reasonableness the ‘final court of appeal’ with respect to ‘public’ matters ‘facilitates the emergence of unreasonableness (i.e., abusive behaviour) to a degree that critically enfeebles the former's capacity to sustain the political justice and stability deemed necessary to establish and preserve a well-ordered polity’ (p. 257).

Though the above description associates each of the contributions with a particular question related to the validity and acceptability of the liberal understanding and use of reasonableness, such a categorization is incomplete, especially insofar as it neglects to examine the possible overlap among the identified categories. For example, in important respects, a concern with the democratic character of liberal reasonableness seems unavoidably to also involve a broader concern with its exclusionary qualities. Similarly, any assessment of the sufficiency and practicality of liberal reasonableness as a guide for public behaviour would also seem to encompass the issue of democratic character, at least insofar as one's focus is liberal-democratic polities. Thus, a number of the chapters actually respond (directly or indirectly) to all of the abovementioned concerns. In confronting such concerns, the contributions also engage and contribute to debates that have long occupied political philosophers and, more immediately, have served as the focus for a significant work of provocative and influential scholarship.

Some parting observations

As both a philosophical approach to life and a practical political project, liberalism has achieved a global ascendancy in the marketplace of ideas; so much so, that toward the end of the twentieth century at least one celebrated commentator (Fukuyama 1992, p. xi) heralded the ‘end of history’, insofar as liberalism had, it was suggested, ‘conquered’ all of its notable ideological rivals and in so doing had achieved an unquestionable and irrevocable legitimacy as the appropriate framework for personal and political relations. Somewhat paradoxically, however, liberalism's ascendancy has been accompanied by an ever greater scepticism concerning its continued capacity to respond effectively to the problems of tolerance and accommodation confronting increasingly complex and diverse contemporary societies. Indeed, perhaps more so than ever before, political philosophers have been questioning the ability of liberalism to offer a viable solution to the dilemmas of justice and stability posed by pluralism. Arguably, liberals' ability to rebut the arguments of their critics persuasively will to a significant degree be determined by the manner in which they define and employ the concept of reasonableness.

The chapters that occupy the proceeding pages survey some of the prominent ways in which the notion of ‘reason(ableness)’ has been understood and employed by liberal political philosophers and note various criticisms that have been levelled against those understandings. It is hoped that the analyses offered therein will not only prove interesting, but also meaningfully expand the discourse surrounding the notion of reasonableness and help to identify some of the difficulties that continue to impede the realisation of an ideally reasonable liberal polity.

Notes

1. Whether one agrees or disagrees with Rawls's conclusions, it is difficult to deny his influence. To a degree that is relatively unique among individual philosophers, he helped define the theoretical framework and vernacular in which his contemporaries theorized.

References

Fukuyama, F., 1992. The end of history and the last man. New York: Avon Books.

Macedo, S., 2000. In defense of liberal public reason: are slavery and abortion hard cases? In: R. George and C. Wolfe, eds. Natural law and public reason. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 11–49.

Moore, M., 1996. On reasonableness. Journal of applied philosophy, 13(2), 167–178.

Rawls, J., 1971. A theory of justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Rawls, J., 1993. Political liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press.

Liberalism, reason(ableness) and the politicization of truth: Marx's critique and the ironies of Marxism

Terrell Carver

Liberalism was self-identified with reason from the outset. However, it is also worth reviewing what exactly in the liberal view was reason's ‘other’ – the intellectual and practical targets of the liberal critique – in order to assess how reasonable or unreasonable liberal reason really is (Hampsher-Monk 1992, pp. 153–154; Eccleshall et al. 1994, p. 32). Marx self-identified as a critic of liberalism, but also as a proponent and associate, both in theory and in practice (Carver 1998, pp. 119–145). The latter aspect of his thought and practice has been distinctly undervalued in all traditions of commentary, and he has been categorized much too readily as non-liberal. This sometimes happens because he was a revolutionary and advocated violence, both of which are erroneously...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Dedication
• Preface
• Notes on Contributors
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Liberalism, reason(ableness) and the politicization of truth: Marx's critique and the ironies of Marxism
• 3 Is public reason innocuous?
• 4 Reasonable women in the law
• 5 Environmentalism, fairness, and public reasons
• 6 Democratic reasonableness
• 7 Reasonable utility functions and playing the cooperative way
• 8 Are the judgments of conscience unreasonable?
• 9 Exercising political power reasonably
• Index