Public Reason in Political Philosophy

Public Reason in Political Philosophy
Author: Piers Norris Turner
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 625
Release: 2017-08-10
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 135161732X

When people of good faith and sound mind disagree deeply about moral, religious, and other philosophical matters, how can we justify political institutions to all of them? The idea of public reason—of a shared public standard, despite disagreement—arose in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in the work of Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Kant. At a time when John Rawls’ influential theory of public reason has come under fire but its core idea remains attractive to many, it is important not to lose sight of earlier philosophers’ answers to the problem of private conflict through public reason. The distinctive selections from the great social contract theorists in this volume emphasize the pervasive theme of intractable disagreement and the need for public justification. New essays by leading scholars then put the historical work in context and provide a focus of debate and discussion. They also explore how the search for public reason has informed a wider body of modern political theory—in the work of Hume, Hegel, Bentham, and Mill—sometimes in surprising ways. The idea of public reason is revealed as an overarching theme in modern political philosophy—one very much needed today.

Public Reason and Political Community

Public Reason and Political Community
Author: Andrew Lister
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 243
Release: 2013-10-24
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1780938012

Public Reason and Political Community defends the liberal ideal of public reason against its critics, but as a form of moral compromise for the sake of civic friendship rather than as a consequence of respect for persons as moral agents. At the heart of the principle of public justification is an idealized unanimity requirement, which can be framed in at least two different ways. Is it our reasons for political decisions that have to be unanimously acceptable to qualified points of view, otherwise we exclude them from deliberation, or is it coercive state action that must be unanimously acceptable, otherwise we default to not having a common rule or policy, on the issue at hand? Andrew Lister explores the 'anti-perfectionist dilemma' that results from this ambiguity. He defends the reasons model on grounds of the value of political community, and applies it to recent debates about marriage.

Natural Law and Public Reason

Natural Law and Public Reason
Author: Robert P. George
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
Total Pages: 220
Release: 2000
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9780878407668

"Public reason" is one of the central concepts in modern liberal political theory. As articulated by John Rawls, it presents a way to overcome the difficulties created by intractable differences among citizens' religious and moral beliefs by strictly confining the place of such convictions in the public sphere. Identifying this conception as a key point of conflict, this book presents a debate among contemporary natural law and liberal political theorists on the definition and validity of the idea of public reason. Its distinguished contributors examine the consequences of interpreting public reason more broadly as "right reason," according to natural law theory, versus understanding it in the narrower sense in which Rawls intended. They test public reason by examining its implications for current issues, confronting the questions of abortion and slavery and matters relating to citizenship. This energetic exchange advances our understanding of both Rawls's contribution to political philosophy and the lasting relevance of natural law. It provides new insights into crucial issues facing society today as it points to new ways of thinking about political theory and practice.

Understanding Liberal Democracy

Understanding Liberal Democracy
Author: Nicholas Wolterstorff
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 398
Release: 2012-09-27
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0199558957

Understanding Liberal Democracy collects Nicholas Wolterstorff's papers in political philosophy. The book includes some of Wolterstorff's earlier and influential work on the intersection between political philosophy and religion, and contains nine new essays in which Wolterstorff develops new lines of argument and stakes out novel positions regarding the nature of liberal democracy, human rights, and political authority. Taken together, these positionsare an attractive alternative to the so-called public reason liberalism defended by thinkers such as John Rawls. Of interest to philosophers, political theorists, and theologians, Understanding Liberal Democracyengages a wide audience of those interested in how best to understand the nature of liberal democracy and its relation to religion.

Public Reason

Public Reason
Author: Fred D'Agostino
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing
Total Pages: 502
Release: 1998
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN:

The essays that make up this volume, explore the idea of public reason. The task of identifying a distinctively public reason has become pressing in our deeply pluralistic society, just because doubt has arisen whether what is good reasoning for one must be good reasoning for all. Examining the theories of Hobbes and Kant, and also using more recent work such as the comments and theories of John Rawls and David Gauthier, this book explores aspects of the idea of public reason. It explains public reason, and discusses areas such as pluralism, reasonable disagreement, moral conflict, political legitimacy, public justification and post-modernism.

Political Liberalism

Political Liberalism
Author: John Rawls
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 588
Release: 2005-03-24
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0231527535

This book continues and revises the ideas of justice as fairness that John Rawls presented in A Theory of Justice but changes its philosophical interpretation in a fundamental way. That previous work assumed what Rawls calls a "well-ordered society," one that is stable and relatively homogenous in its basic moral beliefs and in which there is broad agreement about what constitutes the good life. Yet in modern democratic society a plurality of incompatible and irreconcilable doctrines—religious, philosophical, and moral—coexist within the framework of democratic institutions. Recognizing this as a permanent condition of democracy, Rawls asks how a stable and just society of free and equal citizens can live in concord when divided by reasonable but incompatible doctrines? This edition includes the essay "The Idea of Public Reason Revisited," which outlines Rawls' plans to revise Political Liberalism, which were cut short by his death. "An extraordinary well-reasoned commentary on A Theory of Justice...a decisive turn towards political philosophy." —Times Literary Supplement

Public Reason and Courts

Public Reason and Courts
Author: Silje A. Langvatn
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 397
Release: 2020-06-04
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1108487351

A comprehensive study of public reason for courts, with contributions from leading scholars in philosophy, political science and law.

The Order of Public Reason

The Order of Public Reason
Author: Gerald Gaus
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 642
Release: 2010-12-13
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780521868563

In this innovative and important work, Gerald Gaus advances a revised, and more realistic, account of public reason liberalism, showing how, in the midst of fundamental disagreement about values and moral beliefs, we can achieve a moral and political order that treats all as free and equal moral persons. The first part of this work analyzes social morality as a system of authoritative moral rules. Drawing on an earlier generation of moral philosophers such as Kurt Baier and Peter Strawson as well as current work in the social sciences, Gaus argues that our social morality is an evolved social fact, which is the necessary foundation of a mutually beneficial social order. The second part considers how this system of social moral authority can be justified to all moral persons. Drawing on the tools of game theory, social choice theory, experimental psychology, and evolutionary theory, Gaus shows how a free society can secure a moral equilibrium that is endorsed by all, and how a just state respects, and develops, such an equilibrium.

Contemporary Political Philosophy and Religion

Contemporary Political Philosophy and Religion
Author: Camil Ungureanu
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2018
Genre: Democracy
ISBN: 9780415552189

Should democratic politics and religion, political reason and faith be completely separated from each other, or should they be seen in a relationship of discursive interaction? The continuous presence of religion in the public sphere has undermined state-induced attempts to privatise faith, and it has raised anew normative and practical issues related to the place of religion in a democratic polity, generating spirited political debates. This textbook: Provides an introduction to, and a critical appraisal of the major schools of political thought with a focus on the relationship between democracy and religion. Contains an analysis of different schools: political liberalism, postmodernism, and Christian thought, analytical and continental political theory. Discusses religion from the perspective of the emerging field of international political theory. Features reflections on the question of Islam and Islamism. Include an analysis and appraisal of the issue of religion in contemporary republican thinking. Deals with the relationship between democracy and religion from the perspective of two opposing theologians, representing important theological trends. Teases out the political implications of post-modern thought in a jargon-free manner. This important text will be of great to use to students of religion and politics in the fields of political and legal theory, and religious and theological studies.

Free Public Reason

Free Public Reason
Author: Fred D'Agostino
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 216
Release: 1996
Genre: Justification (Theory of knowledge)
ISBN: 0195097610

Free Public Reason examines the idea of public justification, stressing its importance but also questioning the coherence of the concept itself. Although public justification is employed in the work of theorists such as John Rawls, Jeremy Waldron, Thomas Nagel, and others, it has received little attention on its own as a philosophical concept. D'Agostino shows that the ideal behind this concept is constituted by many, sometimes competing, demands and that no formal way of weighing these demands can be identified. The notion of public justification itself is thus shown to be contestable. In demonstrating this, D'Agostino questions many current political theories that rely on this concept. Having broken down the foundations of public justification, D'Agostino then draws on the ideas of Dworkin and Kuhn as well as insights from feminism and post-modernism to offer an alternative model of how a workable consensus on its meaning might be reached through the interactions of a community of interpreters or delegates at a constitutional convention.