Public Reason and Political Autonomy

Realizing the Ideal of a Civic People

Blain Neufeld

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781138737495
• eBook ISBN: 9781351733748
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

This book advances a novel justification for the idea of "public reason": citizens within diverse societies can realize the ideal of shared political autonomy, despite their adherence to different religious and philosophical views, by deciding fundamental political questions with "public reasons." Public reasons draw upon or are derived from ecumenical political ideas, such as toleration and equal citizenship, and mutually acceptable forms of reasoning, like those of the sciences. This book explains that if citizens share equal political autonomy—and thereby constitute "a civic people"—they will not suffer from alienation or domination and can enjoy relations of civic friendship. Moreover, it contends that the ideal of shared political autonomy cannot be realized by alternative accounts of public justification that eschew any necessary role for public reasons. In addition to explaining how the ideal of political autonomy justifies the idea of public reason, this book presents a new analysis of the relation between public reason and "ideal theory": by engaging in "public reasoning," citizens help create a just society that can secure the free compliance of all. It also explores the distinctive policy implications of the ideal of political autonomy for gender equality, families, children, and education.

Chapter 1 Political Liberalism and Public Reason The Main Elements

DOI: 10.4324/9781315185316-2

In this chapter, I outline the main elements of political liberalism and its idea of public reason.¹ My aim is to present what I take to be the most plausible and coherent account of political liberalism. In presenting this account, I introduce some new ideas, namely the conception of “civic respect” and the idea of the “political liberal well-ordered society.”² I also respond briefly to some criticisms of political liberalism. Orienting my interpretation and discussion of political liberalism is the ideal of “full political autonomy.” I take this ideal to justify the main elements of political liberalism and its idea of public reason.³ (Although I introduce the ideal of full political autonomy in this chapter, I say much more about it later, especially in Chapters 2 and 5.)

In doing so, I draw primarily on the final edition of Rawls’s Political Liberalism, especially “The Idea of Public Reason Revisited,” as well as (to a lesser extent) Justice as Fairness: A Restatement (Rawls 2001). Political Liberalism originally was published in 1993. “The Idea of Public Reason Revisited” originally was published in 1997. Both works were republished (with unchanged text) in the ‘Expanded Edition’ of Political Liberalism in 2005. References to these works will be to the 2005 edition.

Co-credit for the latter idea goes to Lori Watson (see n. 70 below).

The ideal of full political autonomy, then, is my answer to the “rationale question” for the idea of public reason (see Billingham and Taylor 2020). In earlier work (e.g., Neufeld 2005), I proposed that political liberalism is best understood as resting upon a conception of “civic respect” (I present the main elements of civic respect later in this chapter). Although this is no longer my view, civic respect is still important. This is because compliance with the requirements of civic respect is necessary for the realization of citizens’ full political autonomy. The relation between the ideas of civic respect and political autonomy is explained in Chapter 2. (My thanks to Lori Watson for pressing me to clarify this point.)

As will become clear, political liberalism makes use of many different ideas. Some of these ideas (e.g., citizens as “rational” and “reasonable”) have specific meanings in Rawls’s theory that differ from their everyday usage. Moreover, these ideas are related to each other in many different ways. It is helpful, perhaps, to imagine political liberalism as a kind of “philosophical web” with numerous interconnected and mutually supporting “threads.” I provide a list of political liberalism’s key ideas (its main “threads”) at the end of the chapter.

The Fact of Reasonable Pluralism

A central claim of political liberalism is that citizens living in societies that respect basic liberal rights, including those protecting freedom of conscience and association, invariably will subscribe to a range of incompatible philosophical, moral, and religious “comprehensive doctrines.” Comprehensive doctrines, roughly, are worldviews, systems of beliefs and values, that orient and structure most (or all) of the most important aspects of persons’ lives in virtue of their role in shaping persons’ deepest ethical commitments. Religious doctrines (e.g., the various versions of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism) obviously are comprehensive doctrines. Moral systems like utilitarianism, virtue ethics, and Kantian ethics also are treated as comprehensive doctrines by political liberalism.⁴ Many doctrines will admit some degree of “looseness” and variation—there are, for instance, Christian Kantians and Christian utilitarians. “Comprehensive doctrines,” in short, refer to the overall systems of beliefs and values (of varying degrees of coherence and plausibility) held by citizens.⁵

“A doctrine is fully comprehensive when it covers all recognized values and virtues within one rather precisely articulated scheme of thought; whereas a doctrine is only partially comprehensive when it comprises certain (but not all) non-political values and virtues and is rather loosely articulated.” (Rawls 2005, 175; see also 13.)

Rawls sometimes makes use of the idea of “reasonable” comprehensive doctrines in his presentation of political liberalism (e.g., Rawls 2005, 58–66). However, I agree with Wenar (1995) that this idea is not especially helpful for understanding political liberalism, as the important normative work within the theory is performed by the idea of “reasonable persons” (I explain the idea of “reasonable persons” later). (On this point, see also Kelly and McPherson 2001.) For the purposes of my discussion here, then, I will assume that any comprehensive doctrine that is endorsed by reasonable persons is itself “reasonable.” Nothing substantive rides on this as far as I can tell.

Rawls calls the “fact of reasonable pluralism” the fact that persons living in liberal societies invariably will come to endorse—through the free exercise of their reason over time and despite their best efforts to reason well—a plurality of different, often incompatible, comprehensive doctrines (Rawls 2005, 36f, 441).⁶ This pluralism can be eliminated only through the exercise of political oppression. Rawls refers to this as the “fact of oppression” (Rawls 2005, 37). Hence, reasonable pluralism is an inherent feature of any non-oppressive society.

Doctrinal pluralism, of course, can arise in societies that do not respect basic liberal rights, including liberty of conscience and freedom of association. Rawls mentions the Inquisition in suppressing pluralism in pre-liberal Europe (Rawls 2005, 37). In The Law of Peoples, he recognizes that non-liberal societies typically include minority communities that reject the dominant comprehensive doctrines of their societies (Rawls 1999b). The relevant point is that reasonable pluralism is inevitable within (minimally) liberal societies.

To help explain the fact of reasonable pluralism, Rawls introduces the idea of the “burdens of judgement” (Rawls 2005, 54–57). He states that we “want to know how reasonable disagreement is possible” without simply claiming that “people are often irrational” and subject to “logical errors” (Rawls 2005, 55).⁷ The burdens of judgement can help do this. Below are five of the burdens described by Rawls:⁸

Irrationality, logical errors, and the like certainly can help explain the rise and persistence of “unreasonable” pluralism. I believe that much existing pluralism in contemporary liberal democratic societies is of this sort. But at least some doctrinal pluralism is “reasonable” in nature and this is sufficient to motivate the project of political liberalism. (My thanks to Christie Hartley for discussion of this point.)

This is the list from Justice as Fairness: A Restatement. In Political Liberalism, Rawls mentions a sixth burden, concerning the “limited social space” for the realization of diverse values in any given society (Rawls 2005, 57). I leave this burden aside here for the sake of brevity and because it does not strike me as a source of deep disagreement.

1. The evidence—empirical and scientific—bearing on a case may be conflicting and complex, and thus hard to assess and evaluate.
2. Even where we agree fully about the kinds of considerations that are relevant, we may disagree about their weight, and so arrive at different judgements.
3. To some degree, all our concepts, and not only our moral and political concepts, are vague and subject to hard cases. This indeterminacy means that we must rely on judgement and interpretation (and on judgements about interpretations) within some range (not sharply specifiable) where reasonable persons may differ.
4. The way we assess evidence and weigh moral and political values is shaped (how much so we cannot tell) by our total experience, our whole course of life up to now; and our total experiences surely differ. […]
5. Often, there are different kinds of normative considerations of different force on both sides of a question and it is difficult to make an overall assessment (from Rawls 2001, 35-36; see also Rawls 2005, 56–57).

The burdens of judgement are among “the many hazards involved in the correct (and conscientious) exercise of our powers of reason and judgement” (Rawls 2005, 55–56). Because of the burdens, “many of our most important judgements are made under conditions where it is not to be expected that conscientious persons with full powers of reason […] will arrive at the same conclusion” (Rawls 2005, 58). Hence, the idea of the burdens of judgement is meant to explain (or at least help explain) why even excellent reasoners may come to different conclusions about which (if any) comprehensive doctrine is the true one. Rawls stresses, though, that in acknowledging the burdens of judgement, citizens need not become “hesitant and uncertain, much less sceptical about […] [their] own beliefs” (Rawls 2005, 63). In other words, Rawls claims that recognizing the reasonableness of others’ worldviews need not undermine citizens’ commitment to their own.⁹

For an early criticism of this claim concerning the burdens of judgement, see Callan 1996, 1997. According to Callan, acceptance of the burdens of judgement almost invariably will lead persons to question the truth of their comprehensive doctrines (or at least certain elements of them) and thereby realize a form of “ethical autonomy.” He writes: “the psychological attributes that constitute an active acceptance of the burdens […], such as the capacity and inclination to subject received ethical ideas to critical scrutiny, also constitute a recognizable ideal of ethical autonomy” (Callan 1996, 21). A more general criticism of Rawls’s account of the burdens of judgement is advanced in Wenar 1995. According to Wenar, political liberalism should not require acceptance of the idea of the burdens of judgement. This is because the idea is unnecessary, as it is citizens’ acceptance of the relevant political ideas—those of toleration and public reason, in particular—that is necessary for political liberalism (42); moreover, the idea of the burdens of judgement is incompatible with the broader religious and philosophical views of many otherwise reasonable citizens (42–48). More recently, Leland and van Wietmarschen (2012) hold that political liberalism requires that citizens display a high degree of “intellectual modesty” with respect to their comprehensive religious and philosophical convictions. (Unlike Callan...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Political Liberalism and Public Reason The Main Elements
• Chapter 2 The Idea of a Civic People Shared Political Autonomy and Public Reason
• Chapter 3 Public Reason and Ideal Theory Acceptability, Compliance, and the Pursuit of Justice
• Chapter 4 Political Liberalism and Families The Basic Structure, Gender Equality, and Children
• Chapter 5 Citizenship Education and Public Reason Political Autonomy and Non-Domination
• Conclusion
• References
• Index