2,678 results on '"public reason"'
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2. Educating citizens to public reason: what can we learn from interfaith dialogue?
- Author
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Bardon, Aurélia, Bonotti, Matteo, and Zech, Steven T.
- Subjects
INTERFAITH dialogue ,SINCERITY ,COURTESY ,LOGICAL prediction ,LIBERALISM - Abstract
John Rawls's political liberalism demands that reasonable citizens comply with the duty of civility, which limits the justification of state action to public reasons. However, many religious citizens in liberal democratic societies reject the exclusion of religious reasons from public debate. What can be done to encourage these citizens to endorse public reason? Rawls proposes the idea of reasoning from conjecture (RC), i.e. directly engaging with someone's comprehensive doctrine and showing them that such a doctrine actually supports public reason. In this article, we argue that reasoning from conjecture faces serious objections and that interfaith dialogue (ID) provides a better and more effective tool to encourage religious citizens to endorse public reason. More specifically, ID provides support to public reason by (i) relying on the principles of equality, sincerity and self-criticism, which are also central to public reason; (ii) leading participants to de-parochialize religion; and (iii) promoting tolerance. Moreover, ID avoids the main objections faced by RC, which undermine the latter's morality and effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2024
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3. Learning from diversity: Public reason and the benefits of pluralism.
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Siscoe, Laura
- Subjects
POLARIZATION (Social sciences) ,PLURALISM ,VIRTUES ,VIRTUE epistemology ,LIBERALISM ,VIRTUE - Abstract
The New Diversity Theory (NDT) represents a novel approach to public reason liberalism, providing an alternative to the traditional, Rawlsian public reason paradigm. One of the NDT's distinctive features is its emphasis on the potential advantages of a diverse society, with a particularly strong focus on the epistemic benefits of diversity. In this paper, I call into question whether societal diversity has the epistemic benefits that New Diversity theorists claim. I highlight a number of pernicious epistemic phenomena that tend to arise in diverse contexts, ultimately arguing that the only feasible way around these epistemic pitfalls is through widespread convergence on certain intellectual virtues. If these virtues are indeed necessary, then the benefits highlighted by the NDT should only be expected in societies that reflect certain kinds of diversity. More precisely, only the kinds of diversity that can still persist despite homogenization along the lines of certain intellectual virtues are compatible with the NDT's claims. Building upon this insight, I then highlight features of the NDT that require further development in order for it to serve as a compelling alternative to its Rawlsian counterpart. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2024
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4. Bridging science communication and open science--Working inclusively toward the common good.
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Oliveira, Monique, Barata, Germana, Fleerackers, Alice, Alperin, Juan Pablo, Falade, Bankole, and Bauer, Martin W.
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COVID-19 pandemic ,OPEN scholarship ,SCIENTIFIC communication ,SCIENTIFIC knowledge ,COMPLEXITY (Philosophy) - Abstract
The 2020--2022 pandemic highlighted concerns about "information disorders", pressing for approaches capable of guiding the science-society alliance toward a mutually beneficial direction. This essay advocates for and presents a framework proposing the combination of Open Science (OS) and Science Communication (SciComm) practices. OS encourages public access to scientific material, while SciComm has historically enabled public understanding of scientific knowledge. Despite their similar goals, these two communities are disconnected. We draw on the concepts of "boundary object" and "epistemic trust" to demonstrate how this framework could foster a bond between scientific expertise and public reason toward an informed and inclusive common good. The OS-SciComm framework is based on the notion that ensuring transparency in science also requires "bridging tools" that deal with the complexity of scientific lexicon and processes. It values scientific expertise, but does not undermine citizens' capabilities in information processing and their interest in accessing scientific outputs. Our proposal also acknowledges controversies involving open scientific materials during the COVID-19 pandemic and advises caution when drawing conclusions from cases that are often context-specific. The OS-SciComm framework requires innovative ideas, platforms and actions. We invite both communities to join us in this endeavor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2024
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5. A Less Perfect Perfectionism.
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Garofalo, Paul
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STATE power , *PERFECTIONISM (Personality trait) , *LIBERALISM , *PHILOSOPHERS , *LIBERALS - Abstract
Two central questions concerning the role that persistent disagreements about philosophical, ethical, and religious issues in liberal societies are raised in this paper: (i) whether the state's authority may be justified on the basis of controversial views and (ii) whether the state may rely on controversial views when exercising authority. Many assume whatever motivates philosophers to respect disagreement in justifying the state--answering "no" to (i)--seems to also require the state to respect disagreement when it acts--answering "no" to (ii). Here I defend the consistency of answering "no" to (i) and "yes" to (ii), a position I call "political perfectionism." I argue, first, that one prominent reason for answering "no" to (i)--that citizens should be able to endorse the authority of the state--is consistent with answering "yes" to (ii) and, second, that the intuitions underlying why political liberals want citizens to be able to endorse the authority of the state can motivate answering "yes" to (ii). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2024
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6. Debunking practices and topics: Fact-checking agencies from the United Kingdom, France and Spain.
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Hidalgo-Cobo, Pablo, López-Marcos, Casandra, and Puebla-Martínez, Belén
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This study focuses on debunking social media hoaxes as a critical issue for both fact checkers and democracies, as it is partially linked to the international and geopolitical scope of disinformation. The objective is to compare the debunking practices of seven fact-checking agencies from United Kingdom, France and Spain classified by its international, national or regional scope: Les Observateurs (France), Logically (United Kingdom), Les Vérificateurs (France), Full Fact (United Kingdom), Newtral (Spain), Ferret Fact (United Kingdom) and Verificat (Spain). Explorative, descriptive and inferential statistical quantitative research based on the analysis of content over eight hundred posts between July and August 2023 was conducted. The results partly confirm the objective of debunking as preventing the spread of a story, since the public health approach based on verification (labelling as 'false' rather offering in-depth explanation) is the prevailing trend, irrespective of the section. Nevertheless, the public health or public reason approach depends on the agency, as some agencies – including the two French – provide more detailed explanations with clear public reason approach, even in the treatment of international conflicts. Results also show significant homogeneity in terms of the major issues covered (inclusion and migration, environment, health and science, international conflicts, etc.), although the relative weight of each section varies significantly in each agency, including those of the same scope. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2024
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7. The political value of letting hopes die.
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Howard, Dana
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GOVERNMENT policy on climate change ,CLIMATE change ,GOVERNMENT policy ,ENVIRONMENTAL engineering ,INTERNATIONAL agencies - Abstract
Much recent philosophical discussion has explored the political value of holding onto certain hopes for shared ends. This paper considers whether there is correlative political value of letting go of certain hopes or at least of refraining from publicly affirming particular hopes for our collective future. For instance, recently a coalition of scientists and governance scholars have called on governments, international agencies, and other actors to agree to a moratorium on a controversial climate-change mitigation strategy known as solar geoengineering. They argue that there is no place for hope for a successful global solar geoengineering strategy in a just and inclusive climate policy portfolio. This paper asks: (i) what sort of demand are these coalitions making? (ii) Is giving up hopes the sort of thing that is warranted for people to do on the basis of these calls? And (iii) is this the sort of thing that can be legitimately demanded of others? Ultimately, I defend both the political value of our own letting go of certain hopes as well as the legitimacy of making such demands on others (at least in certain cases). This is because what I take people to be doing when they make such demands of others is not necessarily to get others to create new desires or to be more or less optimistic about a certain course of action; rather they are making such demands to outline the terms of continued political engagement as they work towards a shared future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2024
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8. Political liberalism, public reason and the Goldilocks problem: On Michelman's Constitutional Essentials.
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Baynes, Kenneth
- Subjects
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JUDICIAL review , *RECIPROCITY (Psychology) , *LIBERALISM , *FRIENDSHIP - Abstract
Michelman's Constitutional Essentials raises important questions about the idea of political liberalism and related idea of public reason. This essay offers a sympathetic commentary while also exploring the importance of the idea of reciprocity for both Rawls and Michelman. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2024
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9. Political legitimacy in Rawls' early and late political liberalism – Two diverging interpretations.
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Langvatn, Silje A
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POWER (Social sciences) , *LEGITIMACY of governments , *POLITICAL science , *CITIZENS , *JUSTICE - Abstract
This article assesses Frank I. Michelman's constitution-centered and proceduralist interpretation of Rawls' conception of political legitimacy and argues that it merits attention because it highlights the institutional aspects of Rawls' understanding of political legitimacy for constitutional democracies. However, the article also questions Michelman's interpretation of Rawls' 'liberal principle of legitimacy' (LPL) and the later 'idea of political legitimacy based on the criterion of reciprocity' (ILBR). As Michelman rightly points out, for the exercise of political power to be legitimate in a constitutional democracy, it must be in accordance with a constitution that is itself legitimate or reasonably acceptable to free and equal citizens. Yet, the article argues that Rawls' two legitimacy formulations are attempts to make an additional point: Namely that when democratic citizens exercise political power in 'the fundamental political issues', or in issues that shape the basic justice of society or the essentials of the constitution itself, they must respect the ideal of public reason – or ensure themselves and other citizens that their exercise of political power is in accordance with the underlying basic political-moral ideas of persons and society that make the constitution itself acceptable to them. The LPL and the ILBR are conceptions of political legitimacy, not in the sense of setting up a criterion for when a specific law is legitimate, but in the sense of outlining civic or "office-specific" constraints that citizens and public officials must put on their reasoning and exercise of political power in the fundamental political issues for the practice of a constitutional democracy to be legitimate, or well-ordered, reasonably just, and stable for the right reasons – in the long run. The article also discusses why Rawls saw the need to reformulate the LPL, and how the later ILBR assigns a new significance to citizens' actual use of public reason and their intersubjective deliberation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2024
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10. Public reason, democracy, and the ideal two-tier social choice model of politics.
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Hédoin, Cyril
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SOCIAL choice ,LEGITIMACY of governments ,POLITICAL knowledge ,LEGAL judgments ,ELITISM - Abstract
This article develops an account of political legitimacy based on the articulation of a social choice theoretic framework with the idea of public reason. I pursue two related goals. First, I characterize in detail what I call the Ideal Two-Tier Social Choice Model of Politics in conjunction with the idea of public reason. Second, I explore the implications of this model, when it is assumed that decision rules are among the constitutive features of the social alternatives on which individuals have preferences. The choice of the decision rule cannot be made independently of considerations regarding the likelihood that individuals will vote based on political judgments that are not publicly justified. The result is an account of political legitimacy according to which only "elitist" decision rules are amenable to public justification. Some of them are plainly compatible with liberal democracies as they currently exist. Others are however more naturally associated with the concept of epistocracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2024
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11. Education for Robust Self‐Respect in an Unjust World†.
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Li, Shiying
- Subjects
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EQUALITY , *SOCIAL injustice , *INSTITUTIONAL racism , *POLITICAL science , *SOCIAL stigma , *SEXISM - Abstract
Philosophical work on self‐respect has distinguished between various kinds of self‐respect. In this paper, Shiying Li begins by introducing important kinds of self‐respect and exploring the conceptual and empirical relations among them. She then discusses the value and political significance of social bases of self‐respect for both individuals and society. While political theory on this topic, especially from the Rawlsian tradition, has focused on the social bases of self‐respect in a well‐ordered society, Li takes on the task of uncovering the social bases of self‐respect in an unjust society marked by structural injustices such as racism, sexism, social stigmas, and economic and other social inequalities. She provides arguments, including public reason arguments, for the political priority and urgency of securing robust self‐respect for all in an unjust society, and thus paves the way for a discussion of the role that education, especially schooling, can and should play in securing robust self‐respect. Li concludes by offering reasons to direct special attention to specific aspects of schooling and by making suggestions regarding a curriculum and pedagogy aimed at securing robust self‐respect for all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2024
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12. Education for Robust Self‐Respect in an Unjust World†.
- Author
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Li, Shiying
- Subjects
EQUALITY ,SOCIAL injustice ,INSTITUTIONAL racism ,POLITICAL science ,SOCIAL stigma ,SEXISM - Abstract
Philosophical work on self‐respect has distinguished between various kinds of self‐respect. In this paper, Shiying Li begins by introducing important kinds of self‐respect and exploring the conceptual and empirical relations among them. She then discusses the value and political significance of social bases of self‐respect for both individuals and society. While political theory on this topic, especially from the Rawlsian tradition, has focused on the social bases of self‐respect in a well‐ordered society, Li takes on the task of uncovering the social bases of self‐respect in an unjust society marked by structural injustices such as racism, sexism, social stigmas, and economic and other social inequalities. She provides arguments, including public reason arguments, for the political priority and urgency of securing robust self‐respect for all in an unjust society, and thus paves the way for a discussion of the role that education, especially schooling, can and should play in securing robust self‐respect. Li concludes by offering reasons to direct special attention to specific aspects of schooling and by making suggestions regarding a curriculum and pedagogy aimed at securing robust self‐respect for all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2024
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13. How not to argue for the presumption of liberty.
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Brennan, Jason and Freiman, Christopher
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LIBERTY , *MORAL agent (Philosophy) , *PUBLIC spaces , *PUBLIC works , *THOUGHT experiments - Abstract
Many liberal philosophers claim that people are free to do as they will by default; any interference must be justified. This supposed presumption of liberty does a significant amount of theoretical work for public reason liberals such as Gerald Gaus and John Rawls. This paper shows that Gaus’s explicit defense of a presumption of liberty fails. Gausa and his many followers repeatedly appeal to a particular thought experiment from Stanley Benn. We argue that this thought experiment fails to show that there is a presumption of liberty, but instead shows, at best, the trivial point that when any particular moral concern is specified to be the only relevant concern, then there is a presumption in favor of that concern. Further, Gaus, along with Shaun Nichols, has tried to demonstrate empirically that the intuitions and conclusions he draws from this example are fairly uniform and universal among other moral agents, but we explain why their experimental results do not vindicate any such conclusion. We conclude that undermining the alleged presumption of liberty places public reason liberalism in serious jeopardy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2024
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14. The Dark Knowledge Problem: Why Public Justifications are Not Arguments.
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Donahue, Sean
- Subjects
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METHODOLOGY , *CITIZENSHIP , *CONSTITUTIONAL law , *POLITICAL science , *VIRTUES - Abstract
According to the Public Justification Principle, legitimate laws must be justifiable to all reasonable citizens. Proponents of this principle assume that its satisfaction requires speakers to offer justifications that are representable as arguments that feature premises which reasonable listeners would accept. I develop the concept of dark knowledge to show that this assumption is false. Laws are often justified on the basis of premises that many reasonable listeners know, even though they would reject these premises on the basis of the further considerations that speakers implicitly rely on for their support. Accommodating the fact of dark knowledge requires us to consider the civic virtue of speakers to be more important for public justification than the acceptability of their arguments to reasonable citizens. I sketch an alternative conception of public justification that incorporates these results and argue that it provides a rationale for ignoring the otherwise sound contributions of some participants in political deliberation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2024
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15. An epistemic alternative to the public justification requirement.
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Friberg-Fernros, Henrik and Karlsson Schaffer, Johan
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LIBERALISM - Abstract
How should the state justify its coercive rules? Public reason liberalism endorses a public justification requirement: Justifications offered for authoritative regulations must be acceptable to all members of the relevant public. However, as a criterion of legitimacy, the public justification requirement is epistemically unreliable: It prioritizes neither the exclusion of false beliefs nor the inclusion of true beliefs in justifications of political rules. This article presents an epistemic alternative to the public justification requirement. Employing epistemological theories of argumentation, we demonstrate how this approach enables assessing the epistemic quality of justifications of political rules, even when the truth is difficult to establish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2024
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16. Should Liberal Communities Respect Bad Believers? On Empirical Disagreement over Climate Change and Public Reason.
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Nielsen, Morten Ebbe Juul
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CLIMATOLOGY ,GOVERNMENT policy on climate change ,CLIMATE change ,CITIZENS ,LIBERALISM ,CLIMATE change denial - Abstract
Public reason liberalism strives to accommodate as broad an array of viewpoints as possible. Some people are selective science skeptics, meaning that they disagree with parts of mainstream science. Of special interest for this paper are climate deniers, who disagree with the mainstream consensus views of climate science. This creates a problem for public reason: on the one hand, public reason wants to avoid basing rules and policies on controversial principles, values, and so on. On the other hand, there are citizens whom we cannot outright call irrational who are skeptical about central tenets of climate science. This seems to imply that public reason cannot base policies on the robust findings of climate science because these findings are controversial among the citizenry. But we have strong reasons to base our policies vis-à-vis climate change on the robust findings of climate science. How should we proceed? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2024
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17. The ‘Good Murderer’ Gary Gilmore: The Re-sacralization of the Scapegoat in the Age of Public Reason
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Wilson, Eric M. and Wilson, Eric M.
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- 2024
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18. On the scope of the right to explanation
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Fritz, James
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- 2024
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19. Recovering the Democratic Value of Public Discourse.
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Ivie, Robert L.
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DEMOCRACY , *DELIBERATION , *UNITED States presidential election, 2024 , *DELIBERATIVE democracy , *AUTHORITARIANISM , *DISCOURSE - Abstract
The decline of democracy in the US entails the surge of authoritarianism, ascendency of demagoguery, dispersal of the democratic majority, and weakening of public reason. Dissent, envisioned as a rhetorical practice of democratic deliberation, resists authoritarianism by advancing democratic values. Accordingly, this paper examines democracy as a minority voice, explores the deliberative capacity of dissent, and identifies the rhetorical properties of deliberation. The paper argues that dissent, in its fugitive aspect, is dispersed across an array of modest sites, guided by a deliberative ideal partially realised, and framed by democratic values. Dissent functions in this capacity as an itinerant, recurring source of democratic renewal on occasions of political crisis. It is an adaptation to structural constraints that provides a nurturing aspiration to prompt political agency, establish realistic expectations, and sustain vigilance. While the immediacy of the authoritarian threat and corresponding questions about the role of democratic communication are addressed in terms of the 2024 general election in the US, the democratic challenge in the US is indicative of the abiding immediacy of the authoritarian threat to other democracies and suggestive of deliberative adaptations for restoring the vitality of democratic communication and culture. Complacency in democratic theory and practice is counter-indicated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2024
- Full Text
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20. Political liberalism today.
- Author
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Moon, J. Donald
- Subjects
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SKEPTICISM , *DIGNITY , *LIBERALISM , *THEORY of knowledge , *INTUITION , *CASTE , *EQUALITY - Abstract
This text provides an overview of John Rawls's concept of political liberalism and its implications for pluralist societies. Rawls argues that in societies with diverse and reasonable comprehensive views, a political conception of justice is necessary to address conflicts over fundamental issues. He emphasizes the importance of social cooperation, well-ordered societies, and the acceptance of diverse conceptions of the common good. The text also discusses the distinction between comprehensive and political conceptions of justice, the need for a political conception in pluralist societies, and the challenges of maintaining a distinction between essentials and ordinary policy. It concludes by suggesting that political liberalism represents a realistic utopia. [Extracted from the article]
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- 2024
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21. Irracionalidad, populismo y polarización: ¿crisis de la democracia?
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MILLÁN, RENÉ
- Published
- 2024
22. Collectivizing Public Reason.
- Author
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Moen, Lars J. K.
- Subjects
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JUDGMENT (Psychology) , *LEGAL judgments , *POLITICAL science , *INFORMATION sharing , *DELIBERATION - Abstract
Public reason liberals expect individuals to have justificatory reasons for their views of certain political issues. This paper considers how groups can, and whether they should, give collective public reasons for their political decisions. A problem is that aggregating individuals' consistent judgments on reasons and a decision can produce inconsistent collective judgments. The group will then fail to give a reason for its decision. The paper considers various solutions to this problem and defends a deliberative procedure by showing how it incentivizes information sharing and leads to outcomes most acceptable to the group members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2024
- Full Text
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23. 'Obligatory Relegation', 'Willing Translation', or 'Unreserved Declaration'? The Place of Religious Ideas in Public Square Deliberation.
- Author
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Fong, Edmung
- Subjects
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PUBLIC theology , *DEMOCRACY , *SECULARIZATION (Theology) , *SOCIETIES - Abstract
This paper describes three basic positions that have been held in relation to the place of religious ideas and reasons in public square deliberation by outlining the arguments of major representatives of each position. The three positions are: 'obligatory relegation' (Robert Audi); 'willing translation' (John Rawls and Jürgen Habermas), and 'unreserved declaration' (Nicholas Wolterstorff and Charles Taylor). I conclude by offering an observation from the survey. Even as the question of the place of religious ideas in public square deliberation can be approached from either broader domains of the secularisation/post-secularisation of societies or the essence of liberal democracy, it is not the domain itself but rather specific conceptions of key ideas or notions within each domain that push the representatives to take the position that they do. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2024
- Full Text
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24. Political Meritocracy Based on Public Reason
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Zhiwei, Wang and Bell, Daniel A.
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- 2024
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25. Global Constitutionalism and Legitimate International Authority
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Çapar, Gürkan
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- 2024
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26. Public reason, Kant, and kantians: comments on Lu-Adler’s Kant on public reason and the linguistic other
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Yuan, Yuan
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- 2024
- Full Text
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27. Intelligibility, Anarchy, and Healthy Eating.
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Schultz-Bergin, Marcus and Vallier, Kevin
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FOOD habits ,NUTRITION policy ,ANARCHISM ,CORN ,SUGAR - Abstract
Barnhill and Bonotti argue that we should reject the intelligibility criterion of public reason because it would fail to justify any healthy eating policies. Their argument is a species of a wider objection to the intelligibility criterion, which we have called the 'anarchy objection'. According to this objection, if our set of justificatory reasons is too great, then someone will always have defeater reasons for every, or nearly every, policy. The result is anarchy: the use of government power is always unjustified. The intelligibility criterion permits a larger set of reasons than all other competitors, including Barnhill and Bonotti's preferred 'accessibility criterion'. Whilst admitting that intelligibility sets a high bar for the justification of coercion, we argue that it is the best criterion for a public reason view. Thus, if use of the criterion fails to vindicate healthy eating policies, so much the worse for such policies. But we also argue that the anarchy objection fails and so it could be possible to justify healthy eating policies using the intelligibility criterion. Finally, we develop an alternative way of applying public reason views to policy analysis. By emphasizing the high bar for justification, we argue that it is preferable to focus on identifying existing unjustified policies that create barriers to healthy eating. This includes the subsidization of corn and sugar. This 'reform by repeal' approach can promote healthy eating while also reducing unjustified coercion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2024
- Full Text
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28. Political Liberalism and Cognitive Disability: an Inclusive Account.
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Theofilopoulou, Areti
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INCLUSION (Disability rights) ,LIBERALISM ,EPISTEMIC uncertainty ,DISABILITIES ,PEOPLE with disabilities ,CIVIL rights - Abstract
In this paper, I argue that, contrary to what some critics suggest, political liberalism is not exclusionary with regards to the rights and interests of individuals with cognitive disabilities. I begin by defending four publicly justifiable reasons that are collectively sufficient for the inclusion of members of this group. Briefly, these are the epistemic uncertainty that inevitably exists about individuals' actual capacities, the political liberal duty to treat parents fairly, the social framework that is required for the fulfilment of parental duties, and the necessity of cultivating certain emotions that are strongly associated with reasonableness. These reasons show why a more inclusive reading of political liberalism is plausible, and how this can be achieved without abandoning or revising the theory's commitment to public reason, the political conception of the person, and the role of social cooperation. I then turn to the question of what a more inclusive political liberalism would look like. More specifically, I argue that, although it would not require the participation of individuals with cognitive disabilities in the practice of legitimation, it would require their full inclusion in the realm of justice as equal rights-bearers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024
- Full Text
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29. Civic equality as a democratic basis for public reason.
- Author
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Kugelberg, Henrik D.
- Subjects
ACCOUNTING standards ,EQUALITY ,CITIZENS ,GOVERNMENT accounting - Abstract
Many democratic theorists hold that when a decision is collectively made in the right kind of way, in accordance with the right procedure, it is permissible to enforce it. They deny that there are further requirements on the type of reasons that can permissibly be used to justify laws and policies. In this paper, I argue that democratic theorists are mistaken about this. So-called public reason requirements follow from commitments that most of them already hold. Drawing on the democratic ideal of civic equality, I show that it can successfully explain why political decision-making must have the right sort of procedure-independent justification. However, contra standard accounts of public reason, I argue that laws and policies need to be justified with convergence accessible, not shared, reasons. Public reasons are those that are accessible in light of evaluative standards shared by all, or in light of every citizen's private evaluative standards. Since this will make the set of public reasons wider, it makes the theory more palatable to sceptics while retaining the framework's justificatory potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2024
- Full Text
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30. Public reason under the tree: Rawls and the African palaver.
- Author
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Ingiyimbere, Fidèle
- Subjects
- *
DELIBERATIVE democracy , *POLITICAL community , *TREES , *PLURALISM - Abstract
Public reason is central to John Rawls's political liberalism, as a mechanism for citizens to discuss about matters of common interest. Although free and equal, reasonable and rational, citizens of a democratic society disagree on their understanding of truth and right, giving rise to the fact of reasonable pluralism. Thus, Rawls works out an idea of public reason which allows citizens to argue about political matters and yet remaining divided in their comprehensive doctrines. On the other hand, African culture has developed the practice of palaver as way of dealing with social and political questions of the community. Usually held under a tree, scholars believe that the palaver is the African version of deliberative democracy. In this article, I elaborate the two ideas and compare them in order to see whether they are completely opposite or whether they can enrich each other. Thus, the first section focuses on Rawls's idea of public reason, the second explores the palaver practice and the last section compares them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2024
- Full Text
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31. Precision Medicine and Rough Justice: Wicked Problems.
- Author
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Fleck, Leonard M.
- Subjects
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MEDICAL care use , *SOCIAL justice , *MEDICAL care , *IMMUNOTHERAPY , *PROBLEM solving , *PUBLIC opinion , *INDIVIDUALIZED medicine , *HEALTH facilities , *SOCIAL problems , *MEDICAL care costs - Abstract
What exactly is a "wicked problem"? It is a social or economic problem that is so complex and so interconnected with other issues that it is extraordinarily difficult or impossible to resolve. This is because all proposed resolutions generate equally complex, equally wicked problems. In this essay, I argue that precision medicine, especially in the context of the U.S. healthcare system, generates numerous wicked problems related to distributive justice. Further, I argue that there are no easy solutions to these wicked problems. The need for trade-offs is inescapable. Rough justice is the best outcome we can hope for, and that outcome requires a commitment to processes of public reason that are fair and inclusive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2024
- Full Text
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32. Can Civic Friendship Ground Public Reason?
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Billingham, Paul and Taylor, Anthony
- Subjects
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POWER (Social sciences) , *PHILOSOPHERS , *POLITICAL community , *PLURALISM , *THEORY of knowledge - Abstract
Public reason views hold that the exercise of political power must be acceptable to all reasonable citizens. A growing number of philosophers argue that this reasonable acceptability principle (RAP) can be justified by appealing to the value of civic friendship. They claim that a valuable form of political community can only be achieved among the citizens of pluralistic societies if they refrain from appealing to controversial ideals and values when justifying the exercise of political power to one another. This paper argues against such accounts. In order to justify RAP, one must explain and defend a conception of reasonableness. Civic friendship is unfit to perform this task, rendering it unable to ground public reason alone. Meanwhile, pluralist views that combine civic friendship with other considerations in order to specify RAP either fail or make civic friendship a spare wheel in the argument for public reason. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2024
- Full Text
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33. Liberalism, polarization, and the aggregation problem.
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Gjesdal, Adam
- Abstract
Successful public justification of coercive policy in liberal societies relies on a solution to what I call the aggregation problem. Without a method of weighing and balancing shared reasons that is acceptable to all, no genuine consensus on the acceptability of a political principle or policy is possible. This is a serious problem for theories of liberalism that rely on public justification or public reason that has largely been ignored. I show the seriousness of this problem by using an example from contemporary politics, abortion policy. Within the context of abortion policy, I consider three approaches to the aggregation problem and argue that none of them offers a promising solution. This result, I argue, generalizes beyond abortion policy and poses a problem for the entire project of public reason liberalism. Even in an idealized society where all deliberate from a shared standpoint, it may not always be possible to find a policy all citizens regard as acceptable: not because there is a diversity of reasons, but because there is no uncontroversial method of weighing and aggregating reasons. This doesn’t mean public reason is useless, though. Instead of being a standard for justifying coercive policy, I argue public reason should be seen as a procedural tool for managing and mitigating the inescapable political conflicts that will inevitably arise in a pluralistic democratic society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
34. Contract Law and Public Justification
- Author
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Leandro Martins Zanitelli
- Subjects
contracts ,public justification ,public reason ,benson ,interpretation ,Law - Abstract
In Justice in Transactions and elsewhere, Peter Benson presents his theory of contract law, “contract as a transfer of ownership”, as being capable of providing a public basis of justification for court decisions on contracts. In this article, I argue that Benson’s theory of public justification of judicial decisions is a sort of consensus theory according to which public justification requires reasons shared by the justificatory constituency or members of the public. In Benson’s case, certain reasons are taken as shared because they are constitutive of the practice of contract law. One of the main theses of the article is that, for Benson’s theory of public justification to hold, the public justification must be composed only of those citizens for whom the practice of contract law as a whole is legitimate. The exclusion of other citizens (that is, those who regard contract law as illegitimate), however, does no greater damage to Benson’s theory. In addition, I also argue that considerations about the public justification of judicial decisions do little to defend the thesis that contract as a transfer of ownership is the best interpretive theory of contract law.
- Published
- 2023
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
35. The Ideal of Public Justification Revisited
- Author
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Liveriero, Federica, Rasmussen, David M., Series Editor, Ferrara, Alessandro, Series Editor, An-Na'im, Abdullah, Editorial Board Member, Ackerman, Bruce, Editorial Board Member, Audi, Robert, Editorial Board Member, Benhabib, Seyla, Editorial Board Member, Freeman, Samuel, Editorial Board Member, Habermas, Jürgen, Editorial Board Member, Honneth, Axel, Editorial Board Member, Kelly, Erin, Editorial Board Member, Larmore, Charles, Editorial Board Member, Michelman, Frank, Editorial Board Member, Shijun, Tong, Editorial Board Member, Taylor, Charles, Editorial Board Member, Walzer, Michael, Editorial Board Member, and Liveriero, Federica
- Published
- 2023
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
36. Public Reason Naturalism.
- Author
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Rooney, James Dominic
- Subjects
- *
NATURAL law , *JUSTICE , *ETHICS , *LIBERALISM , *COMMON good , *GOVERNMENT policy - Abstract
I will argue that the natural law theory of morality, when extended into a political theory of justice, results in a picture of political justice much like that of public reason liberalism. However, natural law political theory, I argue, need not entail a natural law theory of morality. While facts about what societies ought to do supervene upon facts about what is good for human beings, there are distinct goods involved and distinct reasons for action. Rather, considerations taken from the common good as guiding public policy results in a two-layer approach to public reasonability, resembling features of both consensus and convergence accounts of public reason. Consequently, the differences between natural law and classical public reason liberalism are significant but are not as significant as might have otherwise appeared. In fact, natural law political theory might be a more consistent development of the idea of a public reason than those of classical liberalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2023
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
37. Responding Well to Spiritual Worldviews: A Taxonomy for Clinical Ethicists.
- Author
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Bibler, Trevor M.
- Abstract
Every clinical ethics consultant, no matter their own spirituality, will meet patients, families, and healthcare professionals whose spiritualities anchor their moral worldviews. How might ethicists respond to those who rely on spirituality when making medical decisions? And further, should ethicists incorporate their own spiritual commitments into their clinical analyses and recommendations? These questions prompt reflection on foundational issues in the philosophy of medicine, political and moral theory, and methods of proper clinical ethics consultation. Rather than attempting to offer definitive answers to these questions, this essay prompts readers to consider their own answers to these questions. Specifically, it offers a taxonomic analysis of six (6) distinct responses: assessment, delegation, examination, translation, incorporation, and assertion. Furthermore, this essay describes the role of the ethicist's own spiritual commitments during the responses. Each section also names several strengths and weaknesses that ethicists ought to consider when evaluating the purpose and scope of each response. This paper prompts readers to consider circumstances under which they might promote, critique, or incorporate spiritual worldviews—their own and those of their patients—when offering clinical analyses and recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2023
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
38. Explainability, Public Reason, and Medical Artificial Intelligence.
- Author
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Da Silva, Michael
- Subjects
- *
ARTIFICIAL intelligence in medicine , *MEDICAL technology , *MEDICAL research , *MEDICAL decision making , *MEDICINE & politics - Abstract
The contention that medical artificial intelligence (AI) should be 'explainable' is widespread in contemporary philosophy and in legal and best practice documents. Yet critics argue that 'explainability' is not a stable concept; non-explainable AI is often more accurate; mechanisms intended to improve explainability do not improve understanding and introduce new epistemic concerns; and explainability requirements are ad hoc where human medical decision-making is often opaque. A recent 'political response' to these issues contends that AI used in high-stakes scenarios, including medical AI, must be explainable to meet basic standards of legitimacy: People are owed reasons for decisions that impact their vital interests, and this requires explainable AI. This article demonstrates why the political response fails. Attending to systemic considerations, as its proponents desire, suggests that the political response is subject to the same criticisms as other arguments for explainable AI and presents new issues. It also suggests that decision-making about non-explainable medical AI can meet public reason standards. The most plausible version of the response amounts to a simple claim that public reason demands reasons why AI is permitted. But that does not actually support explainable AI or respond to criticisms of strong requirements for explainable medical AI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2023
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
39. Vaccine Passports and Political Legitimacy: A Public Reason Framework for Policymakers.
- Author
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Barnhill, Anne, Bonotti, Matteo, and Susser, Daniel
- Subjects
- *
VACCINE passports , *COVID-19 vaccines , *GOVERNMENT policy , *LIBERALISM , *DECISION making - Abstract
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to evolve, taking its toll on people's lives around the world, vaccine passports remain a contentious topic of debate in most liberal democracies. While a small literature on vaccine passports has sprung up over the past few years that considers their ethical pros and cons, in this paper we focus on the question of when vaccine passports are politically legitimate. Specifically, we put forward a 'public reason ethics framework' for resolving ethical disputes and use the case of vaccine passports to demonstrate how it works. The framework walks users through a structured analysis of a vaccine passport proposal to determine whether the proposal can be publicly justified and is therefore legitimate. Use of this framework may also help policymakers to design more effective vaccine passports, by incorporating structured input from the public, and thereby better taking the public's interests and values into account. In short, a public reason ethics framework is meant to encourage better, more legitimate decision-making, resulting in policies that are ethically justifiable, legitimate and effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2023
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
40. Animals in the order of public reason.
- Author
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Magaña, Pablo
- Subjects
- *
ANIMAL rights , *JUSTIFICATION (Ethics) , *ANIMAL welfare , *POLITICAL philosophy , *REASON - Abstract
On a prominent family of views about the justification of legitimate policy-making (public justification views), considerations about the rights and well-being of nonhuman animals can only play a derivative role at best. On these views, these considerations matter only if they can figure in the content of the public reasons that citizens can offer each other. This thesis I call the Indirect View. Some authors have argued that this constitutes a reason to reject the ideal of public justification, or at least to qualify it. It is unclear, however, whether public justification theorists will be persuaded by this. In this paper, I argue that they should. In order to do so, I focus on three justifications of the ideal of public justification that have been offered in the literature (justice, our reactive attitudes, and civic friendship), and contend that none of them supports the Indirect View. In some cases, this is because the value in question (e.g. justice) might indeed be extended to animals. In other cases, this is because there is often a trade-off between the values in play and considerations about the rights and well-being of animals in which the former do not always outweigh the latter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2023
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
41. Public Justification, Evaluative Standards, and Different Perspectives in the Attribution of Disability.
- Author
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Baccarini, Elvio and Lekić Barunčić, Kristina
- Subjects
- *
INTELLECTUAL disabilities , *DISABILITIES , *CAPABILITIES approach (Social sciences) - Abstract
This paper proposes a novel method for identifying the public evaluative standards that contribute to the classification of certain conditions as mental disabilities. Public evaluative standards could contribute to ascertaining disabilities by outlining characteristics whose presence beyond a threshold is fundamentally important for the life of a person and whose absence or reduced occurrence constitutes a disability. Additionally, they can participate in determining disabilities by delineating particularly grave difficulties, impairments, or incapacities. Our method relies on a model of public justification of evaluative standards that is inspired by Gerald Gaus's theory of public reason. Thus, our approach recommends the justification of evaluative standards through sound deliberative routes from reasons accessible to all persons who participate in the process of justification and the convergence of what is justified in this way to each of them. We deem that disabilities could be caused both by problems in the internal characteristics of a person as well as by unfairness or a lack of hospitality in external circumstances. This is why the method of justification is applied to the assessment of those circumstances as well. If social or environmental circumstances cannot be justified through the convergence of reasons accessible to all persons involved in the process of justification, we have reasons to exclude the presence of a disability and ascertain the presence of inadequate external conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2023
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
42. The Social Philosophy of Gerald Gaus: Moral Relations Amid Control, Contestation, and Complexity.
- Author
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VALLIER, KEVIN
- Subjects
SOCIAL theory ,PLURALISM - Abstract
Gerald Gaus was one of the leading liberal theorists of the early twenty-first century. He defended liberal order based on its unique capacity to handle deep disagreement and pressed liberals toward a principled openness to pluralism and diversity. Yet, almost everything written about Gaus's work is evaluative: determining whether his arguments succeed or fail. This essay breaks from the pack by outlining underlying themes in his work. I argue that Gaus explored how to sustain moral relations between persons in light of the institutional threats of social control, evaluative pluralism, and institutional complexity, and the psychological threat of acting solely from what I shall call the mere first-personal point of view. The idea of public justification is the key to sustaining moral relations in the face of such challenges. When a society's moral and political rules are justified to each person, moral relations survive the threats they face. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2023
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
43. The Goal of Sexual Activism: Toleration, Recognition, or Both?
- Author
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Nielsen, Morten Ebbe Juul
- Subjects
- *
ACTIVISM , *CIVIL society , *TOLERATION , *RECOGNITION (Philosophy) , *BDSM - Abstract
Sexual activism (for, e.g., participants in the LGBT+ or BDSM communities) is prima facie commendable, at least for the liberal. However, it is unclear whether the end goal of such activism is toleration or recognition. The argument of this paper is that, on the level of authoritative political and social-moral rules, toleration is the only justifiable goal, while recognition may be pursued as an ideal outside the sphere of political and social-moral rules, that is, in civil society. The argument builds on a Gausian public reason understanding of justifiability, emphasizing reasonable disagreement and a diversity of viewpoints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2023
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
44. Discursive optimism defended.
- Author
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Lepoutre, Maxime
- Subjects
HATE speech ,OPTIMISM ,HATE ,MISINFORMATION - Abstract
This article defends the democratic ideal of inclusive public discourse, as articulated in Democratic Speech in Divided Times, against the critiques offered by Billingham, Fraser, and Hannon. Specifically, it considers and responds to three core challenges. The first challenge argues, notably, that the "shared reasons" constraint should either apply everywhere or not at all, and that, if this constraint is to apply in divided circumstances, its justificatory constituency must be idealized. The second challenge contends that the resistance of hate speech and misinformation to counterspeech cannot adequately be explained by considerations of salience, and therefore cannot adequately by countered (as I suggest) by "positive" forms of counterspeech. Finally, the last challenge objects that the ideal of inclusive public discourse I defend remains, as pessimists allege, excessively idealistic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2023
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
45. Sharing reasons and emotions in a non-ideal discursive system.
- Author
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Billingham, Paul
- Subjects
DILEMMA ,EMOTIONS ,PUBLIC spaces ,SHARING ,COGNITION ,DELIBERATION - Abstract
This paper critically evaluates two aspects of Maxime Lepoutre's important book, Democratic Speech in Divided Times. First, I examine Lepoutre's approach to the shared reasons constraint—the requirement to offer shared reasons within public deliberation—and the place of emotions in public discourse. I argue that he, and indeed all who adopt such a highly inclusivist approach, face a dilemma that pushes him either to apply the shared reasons constraint more widely than he desires or to abandon it completely. I chart a course through this dilemma, but one that involves significant revisions to Lepoutre's position, particularly regarding the need for idealization. Second, I consider Lepoutre's use of the systemic approach to public discourse, which is central to many of his arguments, including his responses to critics of the discursive democratic ideal. Using his arguments regarding angry speech and dogmatic group cognition as illustrative, I highlight the somewhat speculative nature of these systemic arguments, which often rely on conjectures about how the system might operate, how its parts fit together, and how the system as a whole might attenuate seemingly problematic features of its component parts. This limits the ultimate persuasiveness of Lepoutre's responses to skepticism about democratic speech in our divided times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2023
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
46. The Dobbs Decision: Can It Be Justified by Public Reason?
- Author
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Fleck, Leonard M.
- Subjects
- *
ABORTION laws , *ABORTION in the United States , *JUDGMENT (Psychology) , *CRITICISM , *LIBERTY , *WOMEN'S rights , *DEBATE , *PRACTICAL politics , *COURTS , *REPRODUCTIVE rights - Abstract
John Rawls has held up as a model of public reason the U.S. Supreme Court. I argue that the Dobbs Court is justifiably criticized for failing to respect public reason. First, the entire opinion is governed by an originalist ideological logic almost entirely incongruent with public reason in a liberal, pluralistic, democratic society. Second, Alito's emphasis on "ordered liberty" seems completely at odds with the "disordered liberty" regarding abortion already evident among the states. Third, describing the embryo/fetus from conception until birth as an "unborn human being" begs the question of the legal status of the embryo/fetus, as if an obiter dictum settled the matter. Fourth, Alito accuses the Roe court of failing to exercise judicial restraint, although Alito argued to overturn Roe in its entirety. In brief, the Dobbs opinion is an illiberal, disingenuous, ideological swamp that swallows up public reason and the reproductive rights of women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2023
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
47. An Ethical Court of the Constitutional Court's Decisions on Abortion.
- Author
-
Sang Deuk Kim
- Subjects
- *
CONSTITUTIONAL courts , *LEGAL judgments , *JUSTICE , *PRO-choice activists , *REPRODUCTIVE rights - Abstract
This paper aims to establish an "ethics court" that critically reviews the Constitutional Court's ruling on abortion from an ethical point of view. In other words, what is the ethical argument of the Constitutional Court's decision that women's rights to abortion should be respected as constitutional rights? Since the fundamental idea of the Constitution is justice, we have no choice but to philosophically adhere to this question based on the idea of justice. Among the various conceptions of justice, I would like to accept John Rawls' theory of justice as the theoretical premise of the ethical court and ask whether the right to abortion is consistent with his political conception of justice. To this end, I will first express his position on the right to abortion, and then critically discuss it in light of the idea of public reason and justice as fairness. In particular, since political values that exclude moral values such as the right to life of the fetus alone cannot advocate the right to abortion, public reason has limitations, and if the fetus is accepted as a party to the original position, justice as a fairness will inevitably accept the right to life. Therefore, in the conclusion, I would like to argue that unlike Rawls' own argument, the right to abortion is not derived based on the idea of constitutional justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2023
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
48. Organized Immaturity in a Post-Kantian Perspective: Toward a critical theory of surveillance capitalism.
- Author
-
Scherer, Andreas Georg and Neesham, Cristina
- Subjects
CRITICAL theory ,CAPITALISM ,DEMOCRACY ,DIGITAL technology ,COMMERCE - Abstract
Organized immaturity has been defined as the erosion of the individual's capacity for the public use of reason, pressured by control patterns of socio-technological systems built on obscure operating principles, ideologies, or regimes. Recent studies of surveillance capitalism explore the technological advancements of digitalization and analyse their negative impacts on information integrity and user autonomy. We identify organized immaturity as a deeper cause of these impacts and develop elements of a critical theory to explain the maturity-eroding effects of surveillance capitalism and to theorize an agenda for countermeasures. We first identify, describe and analyse infantilization, reductionism and totalization as emerging patterns of surveillance capitalism, which organize immaturity in human individuals and collectives. We then define the individual abilities and public deliberation principles needed to exercise maturity in private and public life, using Habermas's theory of communicative action, as applied to human moral development, and Kant's mentalist approach to individual maturity. Finally, we use these principles as a critical foundation and guide for citizens to nurture and protect individual maturity and democratic society from the infantilization, reductionism and totalization induced by surveillance capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2023
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
49. Rawls’sche Bildung: Vorbemerkungen
- Author
-
Podschwadek, Frodo and Podschwadek, Frodo
- Published
- 2022
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
50. Fazit
- Author
-
Podschwadek, Frodo and Podschwadek, Frodo
- Published
- 2022
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
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