Reasonable Comprehensive Doctrines Research Articles

Ethics commissions provide expert advice to governments on what policies to implement regarding pressing ethical issues, most often in bioethics. These commissions distinguish themselves by having members from the professions we are most likely to think of as moral experts, if we believe that these exist. The relationship between moral experts and the composition of ethics commissions is worthy of further exploration, especially because of the highly controversial nature of whether moral expertise exists and, if so, how, and whether, we can identify moral experts. Moreover, it has been argued that the emergence of ethics commissions and how they have been composed have led to a "thinner" debate. In the first part of the article, the problem regarding checks for identifying moral experts is discussed. I argue that one way to handle this difficulty is through the application of Rawls' concept of comprehensive doctrines. These doctrines have inherent standards that function similarly to independent checks, making it possible to identify moral experts from within such different doctrines. Using this approach makes it manageable to appoint moral experts to ethics commissions. In the second part, I consider the implications of seeing moral expertise through the prism of comprehensive doctrines for the composition of ethics commissions. One natural conclusion is that we should select moral experts representing different reasonable comprehensive doctrines to serve as members of ethics commissions. I consider six challenges to my proposal and demonstrate why these lack merit, and I pointout some practical concerns that need further inquiry.

The paper offers a critical examination of the term ‘reasonable comprehensive doctrines’, which is a key term in Rawls’s Political Liberalism. It is argued that this term is not accurate anymore to catch the current shape of religious and secular worldviews and the nature of their truth claims, because it focuses too much on the doctrinal character of religious truth, which plays a central role in Christianity but not in many other religions and secular worldviews. However, sociologists of religion and philosopher Charles Taylor have pointed out that a shift in people’s attitude towards religion has been taking place since the last decades of the twentieth century, resulting in a more existential and less doctrinal approach to religious truth. This focus on ‘lived religion’, inspiring the faithful put their lives in the sign of (the truth of) these doctrines, explains why Rawls’s doctrinal approach falls short of expectations in finding a response to the challenge of religious pluralism. Yet, in the conclusion of this paper it is shown that Rawls also values witnessing as an alternative, more existential approach to religious truth, although it plays a rather marginal role in his work.

The ideas of later Rawls (after 1993) and particularly his early period of work (before the 70s of the 20th century), often become the subject of serious attention. In the author’s view, this situation establishes stereotypical and one-sided interpretations. However, objective attention to Rawls’ ideas of the early period (the project of naturalist ethics based on the protestant basis, objective morality, which constitutes itself through the fact of perception of others as human beings, robust definition of human nature) and later («political conception», «background culture», «public reason») period of work let us substantively enrich the field of interpretation in contemporary political philosophy. The aim of this article is triple: to prove (1) that Martha Nussbaum’s critique of later John Rawls, proposed within capabilities approach, is not exhaustive; (2) that this critique will arise as more fruitful if it will use several early ideas of Rawls, which he later stopped using; (3) that such an overlap of arguments creates a new version of political liberalism, more consistent than later Rawls’ version and Nussbaum’s. The author proposes to name this version with the term «expansive (the one, which can expand) political liberalism» (hereafter EPL). The important components of EPL are the idea of Henry Richardson about the complementarity of «good» and «right», a thesis about the necessity of civic education, and also the interpretation of capabilities approach within «reasonable comprehensive doctrines». Based on these components, the author describes the mechanism of impact on the «background culture», from which the «public reason» emerges, which will define Rawls’ «political conception». Accordingly, the «political conception» can expand within EPL. Because of the complementarity of «good» and «right», it gains the ability to respond better to the political challenges, while maintaining the inviolability of fundamental political principles of society.

In “Justice as Fairness: Political not Metaphysical,” John Rawls suggests an approach to a public conception of justice that eschews any dependence on metaphysical conceptions of justice in favor of a political conception of justice. This means that if there is a metaphysical conception of justice that actually obtains, then Rawls’ theory would not (and could not) be sensitive to it. Rawls himself admitted in Political Liberalism that “the political conception does without the truth.” Similarly, in Law of Peoples, Rawls endorses a political conception of justice to govern the society of peoples that is not concerned with truth, but instead concerned with being sufficiently neutral so as to avoid conflict with any reasonable comprehensive doctrines. The odd result is that this neutrality excludes any conception of truth at all. Therefore, in times of crisis that demand incisive decision making based on scientific, economic or moral considerations, public reason will stall because it can contain no coherent conception of truth.

Moving beyond the debate between Confucian democrats and Confucian meritocrats, Sungmoon Kim’s new book tries to make a normative case for what he refers to as “pragmatic Confucian democracy,” which establishes a mutually strengthening relationship between Confucianism and democracy in the context of East Asia. At its core, Kim’s overall argument is a simple yet significant one: it requires a paradigm shift to better understand the relationship between Confucianism and democracy in East Asia. In Kim’s view, neither Confucian democrats nor Confucian meritocrats really get democracy, which is manifested mostly clearly in their failure to justify the need to incorporate democratic components in their respective theories. In the case of Confucian democrats, reinterpretation and reconstruction of classical Confucianism are too theoretically precarious to support key democratic institutions like political participation. In the case of Confucian meritocrats, the inclusion of democratic elements in otherwise comprehensively perfectionist theories seems unnecessary and even self-defeating. As Kim impressively argues in his book, it is high time that we move beyond the internalist approach that draws support for democracy from within (classical) Confucianism and the externalist approach that juxtaposes democratic and nondemocratic elements with the hope of achieving theoretical coherence. To do that, we need to be pragmatic not only in terms of our underlying assumptions about modern East Asian societies but also in terms of recognizing how citizens may come to terms with democratic ideals and institutions. Pragmatic Confucian democracy, a product of the pragmatic turn in Confucian political theory, represents a fresh approach that takes both Confucianism and democracy truly seriously. There is much in the book that is highly persuasive. In this commentary, I focus on the first and more theoretical part of the book by pointing out what I see as a fundamental tension within Kim’s overall project. In my view, there are two senses of pragmatism, which lead to two narratives that are supposed to together strengthen the case for pragmatic Confucian democracy. I argue that there is a strong disconnect between the two narratives, which eventually undermines the strength of Kim’s argument. Specifically, I first demonstrate what I mean by the two senses of pragmatism and how they lead to two narratives that are key in Kim’s approach. Then, I divide my critique into two parts. In the first part, I examine the disconnect between the two narratives and how it presents serious challenges to Kim’s project. In the second part, I focus on pragmatic Confucian democracy. I argue that the model presents a relationship between Confucianism and democracy that oscillates between two interpretations, which make pragmatic Confucian democracy vulnerable to objections usually reserved for Confucian meritocrats and Confucian democrats. Despite my criticisms, I conclude by highlighting the significance of Kim’s book in breaking free from the paradigm that has for too long constrained theories of Confucian democracy.In my view, Kim’s pragmatism is reflected on two levels. First and on the level of theory building, one ought to be pragmatic about the sociocultural assumptions one may have about East Asian societies. According to Kim, serious engagement with democracy requires us to move beyond the monistic focus on Confucianism and recognize what Jeremy Waldron calls “the circumstances of modern politics,” which “are marked by entrenched value pluralism and pervasive moral disagreement in the absence of antecedent moral authority to resolve social conflict pre-politically.”1 Similarly, what inspired the later John Rawls to break from his early work is also the recognition that the diversity of reasonable comprehensive religious, philosophical, and moral doctrines found in modern democratic societies is “not a mere historical condition that may soon pass away; it is a permanent feature of the public culture of democracy.”2 Rawls refers to this phenomenon as “reasonable pluralism,” which is distinguished from pluralism as such because reasonable pluralism in modern democratic societies is the necessary outcome of human reason under burdens of judgment and enduring free institutions. Taking reasonable pluralism seriously means that a workable conception of justice “must allow for a diversity of general and comprehensive doctrines, and for the plurality of conflicting, and indeed incommensurable, conceptions of the meaning, value, and purpose of human life [i.e., conceptions of the good] affirmed by the citizens of democratic societies.”3 Although drawing from theories that primarily address Western and mature liberal democracies, Kim correctly assumes that the circumstances of modern politics are largely driven by the existence of reasonableness pluralism, which varies only in degree between societies.4 Relative to alternative political arrangements, democracy is “more effective in coordinating complex social interactions among citizens under the circumstances of politics,” despite its shortcomings.5 Kim identifies this as the “second-order value” of democracy, which is to be distinguished from the first-order value that often leads to democratic absolutism. Although Confucian democrats and Confucian meritocrats generally recognize the intrinsic and instrumental values of democracy, neither takes the circumstances of modern politics truly seriously, which makes them overlook the second-order value of democracy. Fully recognizing the circumstances of modern politics and the second-order value of democracy in addressing the former thus amounts to a reorientation of Confucian political theory to a pragmatic point of reference that gives the term “Confucian democracy” a new meaning.Second and on the level of justification, one ought to be pragmatic about how citizens in East Asian societies come to terms with democratic ideals and institutions. According to Kim, democracy’s second-order value in more effectively coordinating complex social interactions among citizens under the circumstances of modern politics points to a pragmatic model of democracy “whose political institutions and social practices, which together make democracy a way of life, are justified on pragmatic grounds under the circumstances of modern politics.”6 Specifically, Kim proposes a two-stage approach that juxtaposes the Schumpeterian model of democracy that emphasizes its instrumental value at the initial stage of democratization with the Deweyan model that emphasizes the intrinsic value of democracy at the later stage of democratic consolidation and maintenance. Pragmatic Confucian democracy, according to Kim, is first and foremost a form of democracy that “derives its value initially from its institutional and instrumental ability to effectively and legitimately coordinate complex social interactions among citizens with diverse moral and material interest,” and only then does it justify “values accrued in the course of living the democratic way of life, which make democracy intrinsically valuable.”7 In an East Asian context, a pragmatic Confucian democrat is essentially “a moderate political consequentialist,” in the sense that her political support for democracy is not primarily to realize moral ends held by classical Confucianism but to advocate a political structure under which coercive political power is exercised legitimately.8 During the early phase of democratic transition, many citizens will likely to be motivated by instrumental reasons to endorse democracy. As democracy gains its footing, citizens will need to go beyond the instrumental view of democracy and develop the capacity to appreciate its intrinsic value. This is achieved with the guidance of the “mutual accommodation thesis,” according to which “a newly introduced democratic way of life should dialectically interact with the local Confucian civic culture, thereby generating the Confucian democratic culture, a new civic culture distinct from both liberal civic culture and traditional undemocratic Confucian civic culture.”9 This mutually accommodating relationship “not only enables us to engage with various forms of local Confucianism that actually exist in modern East Asia with continuing social evolution, but more importantly in the present context, helps us make sense of the significance of Confucianism as a civic culture in the process of democratic consolidation and further maturation of the democracy afterward.”10 Pragmatic Confucian democracy thus realizes both the instrumental and the intrinsic value of democracy without compromising Confucian civic culture in East Asian societies.These two senses of pragmatism effectively create two connected narratives. On the one hand, being pragmatic about the circumstances of modern politics dictates that any meaningful attempt to build a theory of democracy must take pluralism seriously. On the other hand, being pragmatic about democratization in East Asia means that any successful theory of democracy must take into consideration both the instrumental and the intrinsic appeal of democracy. The two narratives are connected by a proper recognition of the second-order and institutionally consequentialist value of democracy. The structural setup is quite impressive at first glance. If pluralism is truly taken seriously, then the necessity for democracy becomes rather obvious from a pragmatic point of view, which then translates to a pragmatic strategy to initialize democratization by being open to instrumental justifications for democratic ideals and institutions. Once democracy becomes “the only game in town,” its intrinsic value can be fused with existing Confucian public culture to create a Confucian civic culture that nurtures and strengthens both democracy and Confucianism. However, as I argue in the next section, there are theoretical gaps between the two narratives that lead to problematic implications.According to Kim, what differentiates pragmatic Confucian democracy from alternative theories of Confucian democracy is that the former is only partially and civically perfectionist.11 Although Confucian democrats and Confucian meritocrats both wish to incorporate democratic elements, albeit to different extent, they are fully and monistically perfectionist in that both regard citizens’ individual moral growth as the ultimate goal of political Confucianism. In contrast, pragmatic Confucian democracy is “not directly committed to Confucian ethical perfectionism,” and it values Confucianism “primarily as the regime’s public/civic culture that citizens, who otherwise subscribe to diverse moral values and philosophical doctrines as private individuals, broadly share as an important resource of their shared meaning and effective social interactions.”12 Consequently, the ultimate goal of pragmatic Confucian democracy is a kind of democratic citizenship inspired by and sensitive to Confucianism. Kim refers to this special kind of Confucian perfectionism oriented toward democratic citizenship “Confucian democratic perfectionism,” which is a variant of the more general category of democratic perfectionism.13However, this (partially) perfectionist focus creates a sense of disconnect between the two narratives mentioned in the previous section. It will be recalled that the circumstances of modern politics are defined by entrenched value pluralism and pervasive moral disagreement without the presence of antecedent moral authority. If these circumstances are taken seriously, then it is reasonable to assume that any substantive approach that tackles modern politics by addressing value pluralism and deep moral disagreement from within a specific comprehensive doctrine is doomed from the start because any specific comprehensive doctrine is by itself only part of rather than the solution to the circumstances. This is also why Kim correctly criticizes Confucian democrats and Confucian meritocrats for being fully perfectionist at the outset of theory building and hence losing their justificatory force when their respective theories wish to incorporate democratic elements. Instead, Kim resorts to the second-order value of democracy as a pragmatic justification for the necessity of democracy. So far so good. But when the first narrative transitions to the second narrative, Kim’s democratic theory takes not only a second pragmatic turn but also a Confucian turn. Given the broad reach of Confucianism in East Asian societies, it is reasonable to assume that Confucianism can and should play a significant role in facilitating the process of democratization. Nevertheless, the whole point of the first narrative is to make clear that value pluralism and moral disagreement are the defining features of modern politics. In addition, empirical evidence affirms the impression that East Asian societies have become increasingly pluralistic and that East Asian citizens are more divided on fundamental social and political issues than ever before. With these considerations in mind, it is unclear if Confucianism is uniquely suited for creating and strengthening democratic citizenship in East Asia. Kim might object by arguing that “there is no way to decouple the Confucian (democratic) goods that it is committed to achieving from the procedures that are predisposed to produce them,” and that the best we can do is to remain partially perfectionist.14 First of all, this response still dodges the question of “why Confucianism?” Given the number of active Christians in South Korea, would it not be more reasonable to create a Confucian-Christian hybrid civic culture to better strengthen democratic citizenship? Furthermore, even if one submit that a neutral model of democracy is impossible from an antiperfectionist perspective, there is still the moderately perfectionist model that focuses on the overlap among a wide variety of comprehensive doctrines. Instead of turning to Confucianism in the second stage of democratization where citizens realize the intrinsic value of democracy, why not focus on moral values that citizens cannot reasonable reject regardless of their preferred comprehensive doctrine?15 Kim does not adequately address these concerns. Unlike Confucian democrats and Confucian meritocrats who take Confucianism for granted from the very beginning, Kim eventually does the same in the second narrative, which offsets the promise created by the first narrative where the necessity for democracy is defended rather convincingly.Another way to look at the same problem is through Kim’s treatment of the fact of pluralism. What Kim has in mind throughout the book is not radical pluralism but what the later Rawls calls “reasonable pluralism,” which refers to pluralism among reasonable comprehensive doctrines.16 Since the second-order value of democracy, which critically connects the two narratives, is justified consequentially by appealing to the efficacy of democracy in addressing the circumstances of modern politics, it logically follows that comprehensive doctrines that undermine such efficacy will be deemed unreasonable. But Kim goes further to assert that “in a Confucian democracy, the moral standard, according to which one’s conception of a right is judged to be reasonable or not, is primarily Confucianism that is only partially comprehensive.”17 We have already demonstrated that maintaining partial perfectionism and comprehensiveness does not necessarily steer pragmatic Confucian democracy away from the problem of justification shared by Confucian democrats and Confucian meritocrats. What is more surprising is Kim’s claim that “the ultimate aim of Confucian democracy, understood in the perfectionist sense, is to produce a Confucian democratic citizenship,” which hinge upon “Confucian democratic rights as well as laws and policies that promote particular Confucian goods or values within the constraints of democratic principles.”18 In other words, pragmatic Confucian democracy, which avoids the problem of necessitating democracy in the first narrative by appealing to a consequentialist view of democracy’s second-order value, falls back to a different kind of consequentialism that prioritizes the promotion of certain Confucian goods or values. Are non-Confucian comprehensive doctrines that do not support certain Confucian goods or values considered unreasonable? If the answer is yes, then it seems that Confucianism, however partially perfectionist it might be, ultimately regulates the reasonableness of pluralism.19 This might not be a problem for Confucian meritocrats who adopt a monistic point of view, but it poses significant risk for pragmatic Confucian democracy because the first narrative, which launches pragmatic Confucian democracy in the second narrative, wants to acknowledge value pluralism and moral disagreement without subscribing to any specific comprehensive doctrine. If the answer is no, then these non-Confucian comprehensive doctrines are reasonable only because of their contribution to the efficacy of democracy, which begs the question of why they cannot be subject to the mutual accommodation thesis and become (at least partially) the source of civic culture during the process of democratization.Pragmatic Confucian democracy runs into problems however it responds to the question. This dilemma, together with our previous analyses, further highlight the disconnect between the two narratives that puts the theory in an awkward position. On the one hand, if we take seriously the first narrative where the circumstances of modern politics necessitate democracy because of the latter’s second-order value, then the second narrative seems to compromise the promise of the first narrative. On the other hand, if we submit that in the second narrative the reasonableness of pluralism is regulated by Confucianism (albeit in a partially perfectionist sense), then pragmatic Confucian democracy is subject to similar objections against Confucian democrats and Confucian meritocrats because the necessity for democracy in the first narrative hinges upon how effectively and legitimately democracy coordinates complex social interactions among citizens who subscribe to diverse and reasonable comprehensive doctrines. Kim’s pragmatism fragments into two narratives that each serves its own purpose. But connecting them reveals a deeper disconnect that casts doubt upon the project. In the next section, I focus on the second narrative and argue that pragmatic Confucian democracy mixes Confucianism and democracy in two distinct ways that compete with each other. Whichever way wins will define the nature of pragmatic Confucian democracy, but both are subject to familiar objections against Confucian democrats and Confucian meritocrats that Kim fully acknowledges.In the previous section, I focused on demonstrating a sense of disconnect between the two narratives created by the two senses of pragmatism, and how the disconnect casts doubt upon Kim’s project. In this section, I focus on the theory of pragmatic Confucian democracy itself, which is developed in the second narrative. Depending on how the theory is interpreted, it can be understood as either an attempt to Confucianize democracy or an attempt to democratize Confucianism. I argue that where the theory actually stands is somewhere in between, and that the oscillation between the two sides makes pragmatic Confucian democracy vulnerable to Kim’s own objections against Confucian meritocrats and Confucian democrats.It will be recalled that pragmatic Confucian democracy juxtaposes the Schumpeterian model of democracy that emphasizes its instrumental value at the initial stage of democratization with the Deweyan model that emphasizes the intrinsic value of democracy at the later stage of democratic consolidation and maintenance. The pragmatism is most evident in the first and transitional stage where citizens come to terms with democracy in their own ways. At this stage, a pragmatic Confucian democrat is essentially “a moderate political consequentialist,” in the sense that her political support for democracy is “not primarily to best realize certain moral ends cherished by ancient Confucianism” but to advocate “an overarching and authoritative political institutional framework under which coercive political power is exercised legitimately, in the people’s name.”20 As democracy gains its footing, citizens will begin to appreciate the intrinsic value of democracy. At this later stage, Kim argues that the “mutual accommodation thesis” will guide democratic consolidation and maintenance where “a newly introduced democratic way of life should dialectically interact with the local Confucian civic culture, thereby generating the Confucian democratic culture, a new civic culture distinct from both liberal civic culture and traditional undemocratic Confucian civic culture.”21 Call this the Confucianization of democracy. If our analyses in the previous section are reasonable, then the transition from the instrumental to the intrinsic stage of democratization requires further justification. Specifically, if citizens are encouraged to come to terms with democracy in their own ways, it must mean that their reasons to endorse democracy can come from both instrumental and non-instrumental perspectives. As I argue elsewhere, it is more pragmatic to think that at least some citizens can support democracy by appealing to their own comprehensive doctrines, Confucianism included, in addition to instrumental reasons available to them as Kim suggests.22 If so, the Confucianization of democracy at the intrinsic stage becomes unnecessary and counterproductive. It is unnecessary because some citizens are already able to render democracy intelligible with the help of Confucian culture. It is counterproductive because trying to achieve the Confucian democratic culture actually risks alienating citizens who endorse reasonable non-Confucian comprehensive doctrines, which share the accommodating capacity of Confucianism.23 Despite Kim’s sophisticated attempt to distance himself from Confucian meritocrats by designing pragmatic Confucian democracy to reflect the pluralistic condition of modern politics, the question of “why Confucianism?,” which is often directed at Confucian meritocrats because of their monistic focus, applies to pragmatic Confucian democracy.The mutually accommodating relationship between Confucianism and democracy also goes the other way where “new Democratic institutions and social practices simultaneously influence the way that certain values and/or ideas have been understood and practiced traditionally.”24 Call this the democratization of Confucianism. Here Kim gives the example of gender equality. In the postdemocratic constitutional and societal context, Kim argues that the value of gender equality will be publicly recognized and that all sorts of gender inequalities present in classical Confucian doctrines will be rectified to promote the equal democratic citizenship.25 One might object that the democratization of Confucianism is equivalent to the dilution and even dissolution of Confucianism, since the authenticity of Confucianism includes its many outdated values that are at odds with democratic values. This is a less challenging objection because Kim already acknowledges that the kind of public Confucian culture is only partially perfectionist. What is more challenging is the objection that the democratization of Confucianism creates a type of public reasoning that is too reliant upon Confucian moral sentiments and too limited by the Confucian concern with a good personal, conjugal-familial, and social-political life.26 As a matter of fact, Kim’s previous book, Public Reason Confucianism, defends precisely this type of Confucianized version of Rawlsian public reason.27 According to Kim, the central goal of public reason Confucian constitutionalism is “to produce a coherent public identity of Confucian and democratic citizens by weaving two perfectionist commitments—liberal and Confucian—into a single coherent constitutionalism.”28 In order to achieve this goal, cultural negotiations will take place between Confucian values and practice, and liberal democratic values and rights. But this sort of cultural negotiation cannot be reserved exclusively for Confucianism and liberalism, since there is an undeniable plurality of other comprehensive doctrines, even if Confucianism is still the most influential one. Kim is fully aware of this fact when he says that “public reason Confucianism allows citizens to negotiate their comprehensive moral values with Confucian public reason, then with particular rights, duties, and liberties.”29 However, it is highly problematic to say that citizens who adopt reasonable non-Confucian doctrines will have to negotiate with Confucian public reason first, and only then can they negotiate with particular rights, duties, and liberties. The Confucian democratic rights and citizenship, which pragmatic Confucian democracy strives to produce, becomes almost a barrier that citizens must cross in order to qualify for equal political participation. This observation pushes pragmatic Confucian democracy dangerously close to participatory theories of Confucian democracy that Kim criticizes early in the book, where the main critique is that it is difficult for Confucian democrats to justify equal democratic participation by appealing to Confucianism alone.Pragmatic Confucian democracy now faces another dilemma. The mutually accommodating relationship between Confucianism and democracy goes both ways and is open to two interpretations. If the relationship ultimately leads to the Confucianization of democracy, then it is open to the objection usually reserved for Confucian meritocrats. If the relationship ultimately leads to the democratization of Confucianism, then it is open to the objection shared by Confucian democrats. Trying to walk a narrow path and oscillating in between, pragmatic Confucian democracy is vulnerable to both objections.The relationship between Confucianism and democracy has been widely debated among political theorists. But in many ways the discourse on Confucianism and democracy has stalled in that the attention has so far been mostly devoted to the theoretical compatibility between the two and the practical implications of models born out of the debate. A common mistake shared by many theories of Confucian democracy has to do with the tendency to put Confucianism categorically above or below democracy. On one end of the spectrum, Confucianism is understood to be the savior to democracy, which ought to be reformed according to the former. On the other end of the spectrum, Confucianism is understood to be the enemy of democracy, which ought to banish the former to or even beyond background culture. Kim’s book is a resounding rejection of this outdated view, which is laudable in itself. But Kim goes much further than a mere rejection by proposing a paradigm shift to take both Confucianism and democracy seriously. In this commentary, I identified two narratives based on two senses of pragmatism present in Kim’s theory. Although I find the relationship between the two narratives as well as pragmatic Confucian democracy developed in the second narrative somewhat problematic and leaving something to be desired, I am in full agreement with Kim regarding the first narrative where the circumstances of modern politics, with emphasis on reasonable pluralism and moral disagreement, are properly acknowledged. The direction forward for Confucian political theory ought to be a pragmatic one. We have Kim to thank for that.

In this paper, we argue that solutions to normative challenges associated with autonomous driving, such as real-world trolley cases or distributions of risk in mundane driving situations, face the problem of reasonable pluralism: Reasonable pluralism refers to the fact that there exists a plurality of reasonable yet incompatible comprehensive moral doctrines (religions, philosophies, worldviews) within liberal democracies. The corresponding problem is that a politically acceptable solution cannot refer to only one of these comprehensive doctrines. Yet a politically adequate solution to the normative challenges of autonomous driving need not come at the expense of an ethical solution, if it is based on moral beliefs that are (1) shared in an overlapping consensus and (2) systematized through public reason. Therefore, we argue that a Rawlsian justificatory framework is able to adequately address the normative challenges of autonomous driving and elaborate on how such a framework might be employed for this purpose.

The paper is an attempt to revisit Rawls’ idea of a self, which elicits the concept of justice in the liberal tradition. Justice, as understood in the social and political context, is the basic feature of a well-ordered and rationally developed society and it is considered to be a virtue of the social institution. The liberal theory believes in the basic principle that right is prior to the good, and what is most fundamental to our personhood are not the ends we choose but our capacity to choose them. Hence, in Rawls’ account of the self, absoluteness of the metaphysical priority has an edge over the absoluteness of the moral priority. The idea of an unencumbered self, in the social and historical sense, is at the core of the Kantian-Rawlsian theory of justice, which is under attack by the communitarians. Communitarians like Sandel, however, questions Rawls’ claim for the priority of right over good and maintains that liberals fail to recognize the self is ‘embedded,’ in and partly constituted by communal commitments and values which are objects of choice. In this paper, I examine communitarian critiques of Rawls’ liberal self. Further, I also refer to Rawls’ turn to the ‘political,’ which works as a ‘module’ that fits into and can be supported by a variety of reasonable comprehensive doctrines.

This essay provides an internal critique of John Rawls’s case for liberal socialism. A liberal socialist regime combines liberal rights with public ownership of the means of production. The state deliberately manages capital to promote both economic and moral ends. I argue that liberal socialism cannot satisfy Rawls’s own criterion for a well-ordered and legitimate regime: stability for the right reasons. Liberal socialism cannot be stable much as reasonable comprehensive doctrines cannot. Reasonable comprehensive doctrines impose detailed patterns of conduct on citizens in ways they can reasonably reject. Liberal socialism imposes similarly invasive and complex directives through what I shall call reasonable economic plans: multifaceted directives for the ownership and operation of capital that satisfy Rawls’s justice as fairness. Consequently, imposing any reasonable economic plan will destabilize the regime. For this reason, liberal socialism cannot serve as an ideal regime type for Rawlsian egalitarians.

Previous articleNext article FreeBook ReviewsVallier, Kevin. Liberal Politics and Public Faith: Beyond Separation.New York: Routledge, 2014. Pp. 286. $145.00 (cloth).Christie HartleyChristie HartleyGeorgia State University Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreIn the United States, liberalism’s commitment to neutrality has been increasingly associated with secularism and the exclusion of religion from public life; as a result, some persons of faith have embraced conservative political views. In his thoughtful and impressive book, Kevin Vallier aims to dispel the view that liberalism’s core tenets demand the “privatization” of religion and are incompatible with religion in the public sphere. He argues that a form of liberalism, which he calls convergence liberalism, should appeal to religious and secular citizens alike. Vallier’s development and defense of convergence liberalism is a significant contribution to the literature, and his aim to demonstrate liberalism’s ability to be inclusive of persons of faith in public life is of great importance for liberal theory and practice. His book is a must read for anyone who works in political philosophy.Vallier’s convergence liberalism is a type of public reason liberalism. Like other liberal theories, accounts of public reason liberalism begin from the claims that (1) all persons are free and equal and (2) state coercion needs justification; however, these views include the additional stipulation that coercive laws must be publicly justified for those subject to the state’s power (9). Hence, it is the commitment to public justification for coercive laws that distinguishes these theories as a family of views within liberal theory. Vallier characterizes the “master principle” of these views, the Public Justification Principle, as follows: “A coercive law L is justified only if each member I of the public P has some sufficient reason(s) Ri to endorse L” (24). Importantly, he divides public reason liberalisms into two types—those with a consensus conception of justificatory reasons and those with a convergence conception. Liberal theories with a consensus conception of public reason only permit into the justificatory domain either those reasons that are accessible to all members of the public according to common evaluative standards (108) or those reasons that are shared by all members of the public (110). By contrast, he says, on a convergence view of public reason, “the set of justificatory reasons includes all reasons that citizens can see as justified for some member of the public according to her own evaluative standards, even if other members of the public do not accept those evaluative standards” (29). Convergence views, then, have an intelligibility requirement for justificatory reasons such that public reasons are those that members of the public regard as intelligible for some member of the public in the sense of being justified for a member given her evaluative standards (106).Most public reason liberals hold a consensus conception of public reason. Rawls and other political liberals endorse a version of the view that public reasons are shared reasons (John Rawls, “The Idea of Public Reason Revisited,” in John Rawls: Collected Papers, ed. Samuel Freeman [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999], 573–615). However, at least in academic philosophy, it is precisely the claim that public reasons must be accessible given common evaluative standards or shared in some sense by all members of the public that leads to the complaint that public reason liberalism excludes or marginalizes persons of faith from public political life. In liberal democratic states, reasonable persons accept diverse and conflicting reasonable worldviews about morality, religion, and much else; this is known as reasonable pluralism. Insofar as religious beliefs are neither shared nor accessible in the relevant sense, it follows that, given a consensus conception of justificatory reasons, religious beliefs cannot serve as public reasons. Furthermore, on these views, if certain reasons cannot serve as justificatory reasons for laws and policies, then some claim it follows that citizens should accept a Principle of Restraint for public deliberation in which they refrain from publicly offering others such reasons in certain contexts (34–35). Thus, we see how the concern that certain public reason liberalisms marginalize persons of faith arises.The structure of Vallier’s book can now be appreciated. In chapter 1, Vallier discusses the central features of public reason liberalisms and how such liberalisms treat religion in public life. In chapter 2, he explains three religiously oriented objections to public reason liberalisms, all of which target Principles of Restraint for public deliberation and, too, the Public Justification Principle as the source of Principles of Restraint. In chapters 3, 4, and 5, Vallier makes his case for convergence. He argues that there are, in fact, different ways to understand the requirements of the Public Justification Principle and that respect for integrity and reasonable pluralism support those understandings that do not imply the restrictive Principles of Restraint found in consensus views. In brief, he claims that while consensus conceptions of justificatory reasons require unacceptable exclusion of certain reasons from the justificatory domain and unacceptable restraint in public deliberation, his convergence conception does not. In chapters 6 and 7, Vallier illustrates the implications of his convergence liberalism for religious accommodation and public education.Consider, now, the chief argument of Vallier’s book. Again, he aims to defend a kind of public reason liberalism, convergence liberalism, against objections from religious critics. To do this, he must show that the Master Argument for Restraint fails. On Vallier’s construction of the Master Argument, (1) the Public Justification Principle entails that justificatory reasons for coercive laws must be either accessible for all members of the public according to common evaluative standards or shared in some sense by all members of the public (50). And, (2) if justificatory reasons for coercive laws must be either accessible for all members of the public according to common evaluative standards or shared in some sense by all members of the public, then reasons that are not accessible or shared are excluded as “justifiers” (50–51). Vallier calls this a Principle of Exclusion. The last step in the argument is (3) the claim that a Principle of Restraint follows from a Principle of Exclusion. Vallier notes that there are two ways to link these principles: respect-based arguments and stability-based arguments. According to respect-based arguments, “respect for persons requires the justification of coercion via public reasons,” and public deliberation with respect to the justification of laws should employ only public reasons (51). According to stability-based arguments, “practicing restraint will aid the process of excluding private reasons from the process of public justification, in turn promoting social stability or stability for the right reasons” (51).In his rejection of the Master Argument, Vallier denies both the first and last steps. That is, he denies that the Public Justification Principle entails a consensus conception of public justification, and he denies that a Principle of Exclusion entails a Principle of Restraint (52). He is primarily concerned with showing that the first step is false. Ultimately, he endorses a modified version of the last step once he argues that the Public Justification Principle entails a convergence conception of justificatory reasons (182). Hence, I will limit my discussion to his rejection of the claim that the Public Justification Principle entails a consensus conception of public justification.In brief, Vallier claims that two foundational values ground the Public Justification Principle and influence “the structure of law” that the principle sanctions. These values are respect for integrity and respect for reasonable pluralism (87). They serve as desiderata for selecting among views of justificatory reasons: “a conception of justificatory reasons is superior to another if it imposes less on integrity and diversity vis-à-vis the alternative” (111–12). Consider, first, accessibility conceptions of justificatory reasons according to which public justifications for laws are only those that are accessible to all members of the public given common evaluative standards. Religious reasons seem like paradigmatic examples of reasons that do not meet the accessibility standard, and they are just the sort of reason that defenders of these views mean to exclude. Yet Vallier argues that both natural theological reasons and reasons based on religious testimony meet the accessibility standard (112–20). Furthermore, Vallier claims that these views do not do well in consideration of the desiderata for justificatory reasons: they do poorly when it comes to respecting integrity insofar as an accessibility standard “denies some rational and reasonable private judgments justificatory force” (120), and such views do poorly when it comes to respecting reasonable pluralism insofar as an accessibility standard “denies justificatory force to reasons deriving from citizens’ diverse, intelligible commitments” (121). Next consider conceptions of justificatory reasons according to which public justifications for laws are only those that are shared in some sense by all members of the public. With regard to respecting integrity and reasonable pluralism, Vallier claims such views are even worse than accessibility views. They exclude as justifiers for laws many intelligible, including accessible, reasons and, thereby, preclude individuals from leading “integrated lives according to their individual ideals” (122). And, they undercut respect for reasonable pluralism by blocking objections to laws and blocking considerations supporting laws that are not shared (122).Convergence views, Vallier claims, do much better when it comes to respecting integrity and reasonable pluralism. All intelligible private judgments are included in the domain of justificatory reasons for coercive laws. As the Public Justification Principle requires that coercive laws are justified for each member of the public in the sense that each member has sufficient reason to accept the law, this means that convergence views permit persons to live “integrated lives according to their individual ideals” and respect the plurality of reasonable views of members of the public. Vallier asserts that given the desiderata for selecting among views of justificatory reasons, convergence conceptions are better than consensus conceptions. So, the first step of the Master Argument is false: the Public Justification Principle does not entail a consensus conception of justificatory reasons but, rather, a convergence conception. With this argument, Vallier lays the essential groundwork for developing his convergence liberalism and for showing that it is faith friendly in the rest of the book.Although I appreciate Vallier’s attempt to make the case for convergence liberalism, I think his view is problematic from the start. Indeed, his characterization of the purpose of public justification for coercive laws is deeply lacking, as he simply ties the purpose of public justification to the need to publicly justify the coercive restriction of freedom by the state (9). Arguably, there is more to the need for the public justification of coercive laws than this. Elizabeth Anderson claims the positive aim of egalitarianism is a democratic community in which persons stand in a relation of equality with fellow citizens (“What Is the Point of Equality?” Ethics 109 [1999]: 287–337, 313). A liberal democracy, on this view, is a collective enterprise, a shared project of citizens who engage in democratic discussion to find shared terms for social cooperation in order to live on terms of mutual respect with fellow citizens. Such shared terms are those that free and equal citizens collectively will, and the terms and the reasons for them must recognize, respect, or be consistent with the status of all persons as free and equal citizens. Vallier’s convergence liberalism misses this. Suppose that there is convergence on a law in the sense that each member of the public has sufficient reason to accept it given her own evaluative standards. Each person has sufficient reason to endorse the law. Yet, there is no collective will in the sense that the law is justified to persons with a common project. And, the sufficient reasons that particular members of the public have for endorsing a law do not have to be respectful of or consistent with other persons’ status as free and equal citizens. For example, it is one thing to support the legalization of polygamy on the grounds that, if the state is going to recognize legal marriage, it should not discriminate against those who would like to exchange legal marital rights and obligations with more than one partner, and it is quite another to support polygamy on the grounds that women, by God’s law or nature’s, are inferior to men and meant to service men’s needs and care for their children and that some men may need multiple wives. Hence, Vallier’s rejection of the Master Argument rests on an impoverished conception of the fundamental values that ground the Public Justification Principle, and with the proper desiderata for selecting among views of justificatory reasons, his convergence liberalism will prove to be an inferior view (Christie Hartley and Lori Watson, “The Moral Foundation of Public Justification and Public Reason,” in Feminist Political Liberalism [unpublished manuscript, Georgia State University, 2016]).Furthermore, convergence liberalism does not offer a satisfactory kind of stability for a social order. Each law is publicly justified only insofar as each member of the public has a sufficient reason to endorse it given her own evaluative standard. The problem is that people change or revise their views all the time. Sometimes when they change their views, it is because they come to see they were reasoning poorly; this is not a problem for convergence liberalism. However, sometimes people change their views because they change their evaluative standards. When they do, a law once publicly justified may no longer be. On any given day, a law may be publicly justified at one time and not at another. A social order in which the public justification of laws can so easily fluctuate is not stable. Moreover, with a convergence account of justificatory reasons, the public justification of a law is a fortunate matter of fact and not, for example, the result of values central to a shared understanding of equal citizenship. That is, it just so happens that members of the public with their particular evaluative standards have sufficient reason to endorse a law. This seems weak, such that it would make for problematic instability (Hartley and Watson, “Moral Foundation of Public Justification and Public Reason”).Alternative forms of public reason liberalism promise more stability and stability of a different sort. Consider Rawls’s account of political liberalism. Again, Rawls has a consensus conception of justificatory reasons in which matters of basic justice and constitutional essentials must be justified on the basis of reasons that are shared by persons as free and equal citizens. Certain principles and laws must be justified from the standpoint of free and equal citizenship, which is constructed from the “public political culture of a democratic society” (John Rawls, Political Liberalism, expanded edition [New York: Columbia University Press, 2005], 13). And, stability requires that the political conception of justice that orders the basic structure not only must be one that is shared by persons from the standpoint of free and equal citizenship but, also, must be one that is the object of an overlapping consensus of reasonable worldviews (Rawls, Political Liberalism, 141). Importantly, given Rawls’s view, when a member of society revises her particular evaluative standard, this will not affect whether a political conception of justice is justified on the basis of reasons that are shared by persons as free and equal citizens, and it also will not undermine an overlapping consensus of reasonable comprehensive doctrines on a particular political conception of justice. Hence, when it comes to stability, Rawls’s political liberalism seems to have much to recommend over convergence liberalism.Despite my concerns about Vallier’s view, Liberal Politics and Public Faith is a great advancement in work on public reason liberalism. Vallier’s development of and defense of convergence liberalism merits considerable attention and discussion. And, there are many important parts of his book that I could not address here, including his timely discussion of religious exemptions from generally applicable laws, which I am sure will receive treatment elsewhere. 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Jason Stanley's book, How Propaganda Works, is a welcome and needed work in social and political philosophy. It creatively weaves political philosophy, social theory, analytic epistemology, feminism, philosophy of language, philosophy of education, formal semantics, and social psychology. The central goal of the book is to explain how propaganda works in a liberal democratic society. Propaganda exists in totalitarian regimes through the mechanisms of social control like the mass media. That is not surprising. But, does propaganda exist in the United States? The fact that propaganda exists in the United States is perhaps not novel; the novelty of Stanley's book is its philosophical explanation of the mechanism behind propaganda. Stanley does this with the rigor, clarity, and depth that you would expect from such a distinguished philosopher. In what follows, I will provide a brief description of the main arguments of each of seven chapters and offer several observations. These observations are an invitation for further reflection and investigation.I begin by situating Stanley's book in the broader literature. How Propaganda Works situates itself in at least three different terrains of philosophical inquiry. First, Stanley's book is a welcome and important addition to the type of theorizing that blurs the distinction between subdisciplines of philosophy. For instance, Miranda Fricker's groundbreaking book Epistemic Injustice blurs the distinction between analytic epistemology (virtue epistemology), and ethics and politics.1 Stanley's work also blurs the line between analytic epistemology and contemporary social and political philosophy. It would be interesting to see analytic epistemologists working on pragmatic encroachment issues (or what Stanley calls interest-relativism about knowledge) to probe the social-political implications of their apolitical postulates. Second, Stanley's book is a welcome addition to the methodological debate in political philosophy regarding the ideal and nonideal theories. The consequence of this methodological commitment leads Stanley to scour the vast fields of behavioral, social, and human sciences to answer the question of “how propaganda works.” Third, and this may be a hopeful speculation on my part, Stanley's work might legitimize marginalized areas of philosophy, including critical theory and pragmatism. Stanley, for instance, though not uncritical of John Dewey, legitimately recognizes Dewey's contribution to democracy and its culture.How Propaganda Works is comprised of an informative introduction and seven substantive chapters. In what follows, I will briefly discuss the main arguments of each of seven chapters.The goal of chapter 1 is to provide a historical account of the prevalence of propaganda in the history of political philosophy, from Plato to Rousseau to the twentieth century. According to Stanley, one of the central reasons philosophers have endorsed democracy is because of its stability over other political arrangements. Democratic ideals demand that a regime affords liberty to all of its citizens. But having liberty makes it possible to use propaganda or demagoguery to seize power that ultimately makes democracy unstable. This classic problem of propaganda drops out in contemporary political philosophy because of its insistence on political ideals. This reveals the central contention of Stanley's book: ideals can be used to mislead democratic discourse. This also reveals the methodology of the book: we need to connect normative political philosophy with social theory.In chapter 2, Stanley defines propaganda as a means by which the language of democratic ideals is used to undermine the very ideal that it is purported to serve. Stanley attempts to undermine the common belief that propaganda must be false and insincerely made. That propaganda can be true is exemplified by an example that “there is a Muslim in the room.” The assertion is true because it is true that there is a Muslim in the room, but this is an instance of propaganda because it elicits fear about Muslims, that is, all Muslims are potentially terrorists. So, propaganda can be true. This point will be picked up in my discussion of chapter 4. That propaganda can be sincerely made is exemplified by the example of Hitler, who asserted derogatory statements about the Jews. Hitler sincerely held this belief, yet it was used as propaganda to elicit the belief that the Jews were a public health menace. The main problem with the claim that propaganda has to be insincerely made is that it “fails to respect the connection between propaganda and ideology” (46). Stanley draws a distinction between supporting and undermining propaganda: Supporting propaganda: A contribution to public discourse that is presented as an embodiment of certain ideals, yet it is of a kind that tends to increase the realization of those very ideals by either emotional or other non rational means.Undermining propaganda: A contribution to public discourse that is presented as an embodiment of certain ideals, yet is of a kind that tends to erode those very ideals. (53) To illustrate the connection between ideology and (undermining) propaganda, Stanley uses a series of examples. Let me just discuss one such example. The neurosurgeon Carl Hart has persuasively shown that the so-called “War on Drugs” is predicated on Black exceptionalism—Blacks have an exceptional reaction to crack cocaine. This ideology of Black exceptionalism led to sentencing disparity between whites and blacks who consume crack cocaine. This example shows the connection between ideology and undermining propaganda: the “War on Drugs” is intended to promote the rule of law and justice, but the sentencing disparity between whites and blacks undermines the rule of law and justice.In chapter 3, Stanley accomplishes the task of explaining why propaganda is a special problem in democracies. But not all forms of propaganda are bad. There are therefore two types of propaganda. The first type of propaganda strengthens the democratic ideal of reasonableness; Stanley calls this ‘civic rhetoric.’ The second type of propaganda undermines the demo- cratic ideal of reasonableness; Stanley calls this undermining propaganda or demagoguery. Stanley argues that the normative ideal of public reason is central to liberal democracy. Following John Rawls's enormously influential account of public reason, reasons offered in public speech or debate ought to be public, or publicly acceptable. The first normative ideal of public reason is theoretical rationality, by which Stanley means “a contribution to a political debate must be justified, and be assessed solely by its impact on the truth of the issues at hand” (94). The second normative ideal of public reason is reasonableness. According to Rawls's account of reasonableness, reasons offered in public political fora have to be reasonable: that is, one should recognize that there are multiple reasonable comprehensive doctrines, and if one were reasonable, then one should recognize that a doctrine (Christian doctrine for instance) can be rejected by others as unreasonable. Stanley's conception of reasonableness is interesting because he incorporates empathy as part of the concept of reasonableness. The problem with the prison system in the United States, for instance, is that the perspectives of the prisoners are excluded in our public political debates about the prison system. For this reason, those laws and policies about the prison system that are enacted without taking into consideration the perspectives of prisoners in public debate are less legitimate and just.Having given an account of how propaganda works in liberal democracies, Stanley, in chapter 4, argues that seemingly neutral language serves as a mechanism of control. Utilizing his insights from formal and pragmatic semantics, Stanley argues that language is context-dependent. For instance, a universal quantifier, “every,” is contextual; if a teacher says “everyone got an A on the midterm exam,” the teacher is referring to everyone in this class, not everyone in the world. Moreover, Stanley distinguishes between “at-issue content” and “not-at-issue content.” The “at-issue-content” is “what is at issue in the debate” (134). On the other hand, “the not-at-issue content of an utterance is not advanced as a proposal of a content to be added to the common ground” (135). An example of “the not-at-issue content” is an utterance like “welfare”; though the assertion appears to be neutral, its “not-at-issue content” is biased. This is because the repeated assertions make it the case that people connect “welfare” to a negative characterization of a group of people. For example, suppose that a politician uses “welfare” in a political debate to advocate for the reduction of entitlement spending. “Welfare” elicits the connection that negatively characterizes a group of people, so his constituents are proportion- ately against welfare spending. This cuts off rational will and public deliberation. So, “welfare” is a propagandistic tool.Stanley, in chapter 5, discusses ideology. Ideology allows people to navigate their social world. In this sense everyone has ideology. While some ideologies are beneficial—one can acquire a tolerant identity by virtue of living in a tolerant world—some are harmful. The conception of ideology that Stanley pursues in this chapter is flawed ideology. Flawed ideology is characterized by the fact that it is hard to rationally revise one's belief in light of counter evidence. This is puzzling because even if there is good evidence to the contrary, people with flawed ideological beliefs do not revise their beliefs. “The ones that are flawed in the relevant sense are the ideologies that are genuine barriers to the acquisition of knowledge.” In this sense, Stanley's point is not that flawed ideology is a moral and political problem, but an epistemological problem. Unlike some theorists who conceptually connect ideology to psychological or mental states, Stanley instead connects ideology to beliefs, and social identities and practices. So, the reason why flawed ideological beliefs are difficult to revise is due to the adherents' social identities. This move allows Stanley to place the problem of ideological belief within the realm of social reality and not merely one's subjective mental state.In chapter 6, “Political Ideologies,” Stanley advances an epistemological argument for political equality in two steps. First, Stanley provides empirical evidence from social psychology to show that negatively privileged people tend to adopt the flawed ideology of the elites; more specifically, those with negative privilege tend to adopt the ideology that justifies the uneven distribution of goods even if doing this would go against their self-interest. Second, Stanley explains the mechanism under which the flawed ideologies of the elites prevent negatively privileged people from obtaining epistemic resources to counter the dominant narratives. Stanley here appeals to the recent literature in pragmatic encroachment in analytic epistemology. He advances the Knowledge-Action thesis, “one can act on p if and only if one knows that p” (252). Knowledge is relative to the practical interests of an agent: “whether or not someone knows that p at a certain time depends upon the practical decisions they face at that time” (252). So, depending on the practical decision one faces, one could “lose knowledge” if the stakes were high. Applying this seemingly remote epistemological principle to politics, along with the account of flawed ideology, we get the following argument for political equality. Negatively privileged people tend to adopt the flawed ideology of the elites. Negatively privileged people face high stakes when it comes to knowledge claims because they are expected to contribute at an equal level as the elites, but this is not possible for the negatively privileged people. The verdict is that privileged people could literally “lose knowledge.” What is novel about Stanley's argument for political equality is that it is an epistemological argument for equality, not a moral one.Chapter 7, the final chapter, provides a fascinating case study of the ideology of elites. Stanley writes: “The ideology of the elites is a flawed ideology that those who possess more than they deserve tell themselves to justify their excessive control over the goods of the society into which they are born” (268). The ideology of elites makes it possible to justify their excessive control over the goods by appealing to natural facts about their intelligence or superiority. Against Plato and Aristotle, who believed that some are naturally intellectual and others are suited for practical activity, Stanley dispels the idea that the distinction is a natural fact.Stanley's book contains deep insights, rigorous argumentation, and interesting case studies that we would expect from such a distinguished philosopher. It is a challenging book because there are a number of intersecting and crisscrossing arguments. It is also a rewarding book because there are many important insights and arguments, as it should be evident from my discussion. In what follows, I would like to focus on three observations and criticisms that may be of interest to the readers of this journal.First, the book is rich in analysis and explanation, but weak on proposals. The book does not have much to offer in terms of solutions to the problem of propaganda that he is articulating. Here I am reminded of the last chapter of Peter Levine's book, We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For, where he articulates strategies for civic renewal, in addition to articulating facts and values. Stanley does a phenomenal job of articulating facts and values.2 For instance, when he discusses education in the second part of the twentieth century as a mechanism of social control, he argues that democracy is fundamentally about equality and autonomy. The problem with “The Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education” (282–88) is that the document talks about secondary education to further the goals of democracy, but democracy is fundamentally about social efficiency. This is a wonderful example of how facts and values are woven together. There is however no strategy here. This criticism cannot be an internal criticism—criticism about the argument of the book—because the explicit aim of Stanley's argument is to provide a theoretical explanation of why and how propaganda arises in a liberal democratic society; that is, his aim is not to provide a strategy on overcoming propaganda in a liberal democratic society. But one may naturally wonder about what we ought to do, given what we know. I propose one answer: in line with Levine's general thesis, a way of overcoming the general malaise when it comes to civic life is not merely the media, education, government, but the citizens themselves who are active and creative agents of their common worlds. Similarly, the way of overcoming propaganda has to include the citizens themselves. This is the reason why the discussion of ideology in chapters 5 and 6 are so trenchant.Second, if what Stanley argues about were true, then it would pose a significant problem for democratic theory, especially the deliberative or epistemic conceptions of democracy. According to the deliberative conception of democracy, the primary purpose of democracy is not voting, but deliberation. Deliberative democracy postulates that citizens are competent, motivated, and capable of publicly deliberating about the common good. However valid these ideals may be, they may be practically infeasible. Chapter 4 shows that language couched in neutral language could still have negative effects in political discourse. One avenue to counter this problem would be to engage with empirical research in deliberative democracy. Indeed the last decade or so has seen a tremendous amount of empirical research in deliberative democracy that attempts to map out whether the ideals of public reason are practically feasible or not. The jury is still out on that project, but it would be interesting to see Stanley engage with that body of literature. Stanley's project also poses a significant problem for epistemic conceptions of democracy. Epistemic democracy argues that democracy is capable of making good decisions and that the reason why we prefer democratic over nondemocratic regimes is that it has the capacity to make better decisions. Though there are different formulations of epistemic democracy, they all assume ideal conditions. For instance, theories inspired by the Condorcet Jury Theorem assume ideal conditions in which voters decide. Ideal conditions are free of ideology. So, the question is: do flawed ideologies cause problems for the voting public reaching the “right” answer? Although I cannot answer that question here, I suspect that the project of epistemic democracy would be considerably more complicated.Third, one of Stanley's main concerns is the ideology of elites (in other places Stanley refers to this as the ideology of technicism). The basic idea is that epistemic authority does not entail practical authority. This poses a significant problem for democracy because the expert's epistemic authority underwrites their practical authority to rule over the rest of us. So, for instance, those with positive privilege tend to invoke epistemic authority to justify their superiority (culture or material) and those in negative privilege tend to believe this, even when there is evidence to the contrary. The negatively privileged people are not only excluded from knowledge acquisition, but they also lose self-respect. This is precisely why the ideology of elites is so virulent: it thwarts the democratic ideal of citizens as equal and autonomous agents. Here I am reminded of what Alasdair MacIntyre dubs “manipulative expertise.”3 One possible response to the ideology of elites can be found in a small, but growing, body of literature that suggest that deliberation among cognitively diverse perspectives is better at solving complex problems than expert deliberation.4 This literature has garnered much attention lately, and it would have been interesting to have Stanley engage in that debate.In conclusion, I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in propaganda, social and political philosophy, civic studies, and social theory. This book challenges our conception of democracy and its ideals and causes us to be more cognizant of the ways in which flawed ideological beliefs can color the way we look at the world and interact with one another as equals.

Public Reason theorists in political philosophy – roughly, Rawlsians – often make what sure sound like epistemological statements. They talk about justifying principles to others, about the uncertainty with which we should hold our evaluative commitments, about reasonable persons and comprehensive doctrines, about a morally politically motivated higher epistemic standard, about intellectual modesty, and of course, about the burdens of judgment. But they rarely explain, let alone defend, these seemingly epistemological commitments, nor do they engage contemporary epistemological literature. In this paper, I expose these commitments to epistemological scrutiny, arguing that at the end of the day they cannot be vindicated. I focus on what, on such theories, a reasonable person who is nevertheless committed to a comprehensive doctrine believes, and on what epistemic standard may be politically relevant in this context.

AbstractSupporters of Justificatory Liberalism (JL)—such as John Rawls and Gerard Gaus—typically maintain that the state may not coerce its citizens on matters of constitutional essentials unless it can provide public justification that the coerced citizens would be irrational in rejecting. The state, in other words, may not coerce citizens whose rejection of the coercion is based on their reasonable comprehensive doctrines (i.e., worldviews). Proponents of the legal recognition of same‐sex marriage (SSM) usually offer some version of JL as the most fundmental reason why laws that recognize marriage only if it is a union between one man and one woman are unjust. In this article I argue that the application of JL in support of legal recognition of SSM does not succeed because the issue under scrutiny—the nature of marriage—is deeply embedded in, and in most cases integral to, many (if not most) citizens’ reasonable comprehensive doctrines. Thus, I argue that because of the effects and consequences of the legal recognition of SSM, it results (or will result) in a violation of JL against dissenting citizens.

In this paper I argue that Rawlsians have largely misunderstood the idea of an overlapping consensus of reasonable comprehensive doctrines, thereby failing to delineate in an appropriate way the place of comprehensive doctrines in political liberalism. My argument rests on two core claims. The first claim is that (i) political liberalism is committed to three theses about the overlapping consensus. The first thesis concerns the subject of the overlapping consensus; the second thesis concerns the function of the overlapping consensus; the third thesis explains how the overlapping consensus can serve its function in accordance with political liberalism’s commitment to epistemic neutrality. The second claim on which my argument relies is empirical: (ii) Rawlsians typically deny at least one of the three theses to which political liberalism is committed. Based on (i) and (ii), I conclude that Rawlsians have hitherto provided unconvincing accounts of the place of comprehensive doctrines in political liberalism.

For Rawls, there is an important difference between competing forms of regimes and what he calls a “property-owning democracy” and “liberal socialism.”1 This difference includes that only the latter best guarantees principles of justice and satisfies the criterion of reciprocity. In this article, I will focus on the importance of reciprocity for this account and what it reveals about the citizens found in property-owning democracies and liberal socialist regimes.2 These regimes do not merely correctly recognize and uphold the importance of central principles of justice, but they also correctly recognize each other in an identity-forming way. These citizens mutually recognize one another as free and equal, but also they identify with others in a common bond of citizenship. Rawlsian justice is more than about principles and reciprocity; it is also about mutual recognition and shared identity. This becomes clearer when we look to the reasons why Rawls favors some regimes over others.The structure of this article is as follows. First, I begin with a brief explication of the relevant background. This will focus on Rawls's two principles of justice. Secondly, I will then explain how these principles are applied by Rawls to demonstrate which regimes may be acceptable for justice as fairness. This discussion will highlight the central importance of the criterion of reciprocity. The article will conclude with an examination of the importance of reciprocity in Rawls's account and how it may say something new about the citizens Rawls has in mind for regimes such as a property-owning democracy.Rawls's discussion of property-owning democracy is within a particular context. He asks: “what kind of regime and basic structure would be right and just, could it be effectively and workably maintained?”3 This context presupposes specific results that arise from Rawls's analysis of the basic structure and two principles of justice.4 I will address this analysis here. The following section will consider whether an application of this analysis supports property-owning democracy and why it does this.Rawls understands political philosophy as “realistically utopian,” or in other words “as probing the limits of the practicable political possibility.”5 It is utopian in that we should aim for the reasonably just, but realistic in not pursuing what is perfect and beyond our horizon of possibilities. Furthermore, we must operate against the background of the fact of reasonable pluralism. This fact limits possible options in that it imposes some restraints, but it also offers new possibilities in how options can be managed. One such possibility is that we must think about political society from a new perspective and Rawls offers several new conceptual devices by which we may attain such a perspective.Rawls's realistic utopia is centred on the idea of society as a fair system of social cooperation over time from one generation to the next.6 This includes the idea of citizens as free and equal, as well as the idea of a well-ordered society regulated effectively by a public conception of justice.7 One key task is determining the principles that will specify fair terms of cooperation.8 These principles will apply to the basic structure securing background justice. Rawls says: The basic structure of society is the way in which the main political and social institutions of society fit together into one system of social cooperation, and the way they assign basic rights and duties and regulate the division of advantages that arises from social cooperation over time.9 The basic structure is the primary subject of social and political justice. We must determine principles to apply to the basic structure and establish a framework for a political conception of justice. Our object is not to settle all political questions from the start, but instead to provide the framework within which such questions should be addressed.We determine principles of justice in the following way. Rawls argues that we should employ the idea of the original position. Parties to the original position are understood to lie behind a veil of ignorance. This veil masks self-knowledge about arbitrary features from a moral point of view. Thus, the parties are forbidden from knowing their ethnicity, gender, native endowments, and social status.10 The idea is that these features are characterized by moral arbitrariness and should not be taken into account in selecting principles of justice that will apply to the basic structure. The original position is a device to help us with this task. Rawls argues that these principles should be unanimously accepted by the parties. The idea is that we have fair terms of cooperation where all those engaged consent.11 These terms will be fair because morally arbitrary considerations are bracketed by the veil of ignorance.Rawls argues that the parties to the original position will unanimously accept two principles of justice.12 These principles are: (a)Each person has the same indefeasible claim to a fully adequate scheme of equal basic liberties, which scheme is compatible with the same scheme of liberties for all; and,(b)Social and economic inequalities are to satisfy two conditions: first, they are to be attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity; and second, they are to be to the greatest benefit of the least-advantaged members of society.13 These two principles are in some respect really three: (a) the principle of equal basic liberties, (b1) the principle of fair equality of opportunity, and (b2) the difference principle. Where there are potential conflicts, we should always give priority to (a) over (b1) and (b2). This is because we would accept that the possible justification of socio-economic inequalities permitted by (b1) or (b2) are possible only where equal basic liberties are secured. We ought never sacrifice our basic liberties if faced with such a choice. We should likewise prioritize (b1) over (b2) if in conflict. This is because we should recognize the greater importance of securing fair equality of opportunity to implementing the difference principle.My discussion in this section omits many of Rawls's arguments for the two principles of justice and I have not aimed for completeness in exposition of Rawls's richly complex account. In this article, my concern is not whether the above account is convincing, but what follows if we assume that it is. I will now consider why only some regimes can best accept and secure these principles and why other regimes cannot. While much of Rawls's discussion will focus on whether the principles of justice are likely to be satisfied by a regime type, I believe this discussion reveals much more than that. One example is the central importance of reciprocity for this discussion. The following section will explore these arguments before turning to what precisely reciprocity may illuminate within Rawls's account.Rawls next considers whether any regime type is compatible with his two principles of justice. A regime is found compatible where it is able to best satisfy and safeguard these principles. Those regimes which might fail in this task are unjust and unacceptable. Five different regime types are examined and they are: (a) laissez-faire capitalism, (b) welfare-state capitalism, (c) state socialism, (d) property-owning democracy, and (e) liberal socialism.14 Laissez-faire capitalism, welfare-state capitalism, and state socialism are rejected. Rawls argues that we should only accept property-owning democracy and liberal socialism. His defence may appear somewhat straightforward, but the central importance of reciprocity is most notable and this has some potentially surprising results.Rawls highlights two reasons for why we should accept only property-owning democracy and liberal socialism. The first reason is that only these regime types put economic power in the hands of citizens. In contrast, other regimes are far more likely to concentrate wealth into the hands of a few. This central control of economic wealth by a minority disempowers the majority. Therefore, it undermines fair equality of opportunity and violates the second principle of justice. Furthermore, it fails to respect the equal basic rights and liberties of all.Rawls also offers a second reason: a property-owning democracy or liberal socialist regime is best placed to minimize inequalities between rich and poor.15 Other regimes are far more likely to unjustifiably exacerbate these inequalities. Likewise, they violate the equal basic rights and liberties of citizens, but also undermine fair equality of opportunity.Property-owning democracy and liberal socialist regimes best satisfy and secure the two principles of justice. They also best advance democratic equality amongst citizens. These regimes do this in satisfying the liberal principle of legitimacy.16 Rawls says: Our exercise of political power is fully proper only when it is exercised in accordance with a constitution the essentials of which all citizens as free and equal may reasonably be expected to endorse in the light of principles and ideals acceptable to their common human reason … Only a political conception of justice that all citizens might be reasonably expected to endorse can serve as a basis of public reason and justification.17 The idea is that political power is legitimate where all citizens can reasonably be expected to endorse it. Legitimacy is only conferred in conditions of democratic equality where the principles of justice are satisfied. The fact of reasonable pluralism raises the further challenge that legitimacy also requires citizens to engage each other in a project of political constructivism. Citizens must work out a political conception of justice all can endorse on due reflection and reach agreement concerning constitutional essentials and basic matters of justice that arise.18Other regime types fail this test of legitimacy. For example, laissez-faire capitalism prioritizes economic efficiency over basic liberties.19 The system may empower a minority at the expense of the majority and in a morally arbitrary way. Economic control is not guaranteed for citizens and likely to become lost.20 State socialism should be rejected on similar grounds. State socialism is a regime with a command economy. This regime thus fails to ensure economic power is widely dispersed and in the hands of citizens.21 Instead, this power is held by the hands of a few. Both laissez-faire capitalism and state socialism violate the equal basic rights and liberties of citizens. Furthermore, both regimes violate fair equality of opportunity if not the difference principle as well. When we consider which regimes may be justifiable in terms of their compatibility with and securement of the principles of justice, we find that only property-owning democracy and liberal socialism are acceptable.Rawls has often been thought to be the defender par excellence of welfare-state capitalism. It may be a surprise to learn that, in fact, he rejects this regime type as well. Furthermore, an important difference between these types—which is crucial for Rawls's account—is revealed in his rejection of welfare-state capitalism in favor of property-owning democracy. Thus, Rawls says that it “may tempt us” to believe these regimes “are much the same” when, in fact, “[t]hey are not.”22 Rawls objects to laissez-faire capitalism and state socialism for several reasons, including their greater likelihood to concentrate economic power in unacceptably few hands. Property-owning democracy and liberal socialism are more acceptable precisely because they are most likely “to disperse the ownership of wealth and capital” and best protect against too much economic power becoming concentrated.23 These regimes better safeguard democratic equality ensuring “a footing of a suitable degree of social and economic equality.”24 This is equality for a purpose and it raises a new consideration that plays a crucial role.An important passage from Rawls is as follows. He says: The least advantaged are not, if all goes well, the unfortunate and unlucky—objects of our charity and compassion, much less our pity—but those to whom reciprocity is owed as a matter of political justice among those who are free and equal citizens along with everyone else.25 It is not crucial that all citizens have equal economic wealth, but it is important that citizens have a sufficient level of reciprocity. Note: this is owed to all and it is “a matter of political justice.” Equality is for a purpose: it is necessary for securement of reciprocity.Rawls argues that regimes must satisfy a criterion of reciprocity in order to gain political legitimacy. For example, Leif Wenar explains: The use of political power must fulfill a criterion of reciprocity: citizens must reasonably believe that all citizens can reasonably accept the enforcement of a particular set of basic laws. Those coerced by law must be able to endorse the society's fundamental political arrangements freely, not because they are dominated or manipulated or kept uninformed.26 Political legitimacy is guaranteed by satisfying reciprocity amongst free and equal citizens. A legitimate political regime will take some form of democratic equality. This ensures reciprocity, but also the two principles of justice.Rawls's criterion of reciprocity sheds new light on why property-owning democracy is preferable to welfare-state capitalism. The former fails to secure reciprocity, but why? If inequalities are permissible, then the guarantee of reciprocity may seem overly utopian. I believe that Rawls understands something further about reciprocity and that it is a form of mutual recognition and shared identity.27 The central problem with welfare-state capitalism is not only that economic power may be more likely to become concentrated in the hands of a minority, but that citizens fail to mutually recognize one another as having a shared political identity. They are more than equals: they possess a common source of identity and a shared political life.The next section will explain further how reciprocity takes these forms in Rawls's account. While the discussion remains closely tied with Rawls's texts, it is an idea that requires some further development. We learn something about the kinds of citizens that Rawls has in mind for property-owning democracy and liberal socialism. We also learn something about the role of equality for enabling a crucial good, namely, reciprocal reconciliation.We require some level of equality for reciprocity. However, there are reasons for this and these reasons are in addition to the need to satisfy principles of justice. One reason is that equality best enables mutual acceptance and respect for others and principles of justice. In the essay “Justice as Reciprocity,” Rawls argues that the idea of reciprocity is “fundamental to both justice and fairness.”28 This is because reciprocity between citizens makes possible the “mutual acknowledgement of principles by free and equal persons” lacking authority over each other.29 Reciprocity is then a “condition of equal power.”30Reciprocity as a condition of equal power requires both that citizens are above a threshold of basic needs and that any socio-economic inequalities do not threaten the bonds of common political identity. For example, Rawls says: By basic needs I mean roughly those that must be met if citizens are to be in a position to take advantage of the rights, liberties, and opportunities of their society. These needs include economic means as well as institutional rights and freedoms.31 The satisfaction of basic needs is more than mere existence above a threshold of particular material conditions. Basic needs are satisfied only when we are positioned to make full use of our rights and liberties. While material wealth may bring many benefits, Rawls suggests that political and social justice requires something beyond such material goods.32Reciprocity is an activity between persons. One illustration arises within the context of the problem of political stability. The problem is that different individuals may possess and freely endorse different reasonable comprehensive doctrines. These doctrines may be “religious and nonreligious, liberal and nonliberal.”33 The problem is how best to secure political stability for a community where members have deep and reasonable disagreement on many fundamental matters. This is the fact of reasonable pluralism.34 Rawls argues that stability should be created and maintained for “the right reasons” and not as a mere modus vivendi.35 The project of constructing an overlapping consensus through public reason is an activity requiring the engagement of citizens with one another. Reciprocity is more than a recognition that others have an equal voice, but that they have a voice I ought to hear. Thus, Rawls says that unreasonable persons view cooperative engagement as no more than “a necessary public pretense.”36 Instead, reasonable persons interact in a more genuine fashion requiring greater respect and sincere cooperation.Reasonable persons understand reciprocity as requiring genuine engagement with others. Rawls argues that reciprocity helps us conceive of the reasonable fair terms that citizens accept as members of a system of fair cooperation.37 However, reciprocity is not presented as offering a view of “the general good as such,” but instead helping to provide an idea of “a social world in which [citizens], as free and equal, can cooperate with others on terms all can accept. They insist that reciprocity should hold within that world so that each benefits along with others.”38 Reciprocity offers a “normative (moral) conception with its own intrinsic ideal” although it does not offer something more substantial such as “a comprehensive doctrine.”39Reciprocity may not provide a comprehensive doctrine, but its normative conception is surprisingly thick. Consider our two moral powers. The first is the capacity for a sense of justice. This is defined as “the capacity to understand, to apply, and to act from (and not merely in accordance with) the principles of political justice that specify the fair terms of social cooperation.”40 The capacity for a sense of justice is then an activity of understanding and social engagement within a cooperative enterprise with others as free and equal. Reciprocity is central to the success of this capacity because it can only become realized through reciprocity. The second moral power is the capacity for a conception of the good. This is defined as “the capacity to have, to revise, and rationally to pursue a conception of the good.”41 Again, this moral power is also an activity of understanding and social engagement. Citizens are not asked to derive conceptions of the good in isolation. On the contrary, they are to revise their conceptions through social interaction with others.This activity of understanding and social engagement is perhaps better characterized as a form of mutual recognition. Citizens do more than reciprocate their relations. These relationships are more robust and clearly speak to a more genuine engagement. Instead, citizens mutually recognize each other as free and equal; it is through mutual recognition that their moral powers are exercised and preserved.One reason is that mutual recognition is about trust. It would be unlikely to hear someone say that she merely reciprocates friendship for another. Friendship is a good that is shared as a cooperative enterprise. Mutual recognition suggests a more appropriate sense of engaged cooperation. Mutually recognized citizens view each other correctly as having both a say and a stake in matters of political justice. Each has a say given their political standing as free and equal and their being recognized as such. Each citizen also has a stake because each is engaged in exercising their moral powers in concert with others to construct a common sense of political justice for that polity. Political justice will reflect the deliberative outcomes from these on-going deliberations.A second and more powerful reason is that mutual recognition is also about shared identity. We do not merely reciprocate family membership or professional associations, but instead we recognize a shared identity with others that they, in turn, share with us and on the same terms. Mutual recognition is an activity of understanding and social engagement whereby we not only construct a shared understanding of political justice, but we also construct an important source of our shared identity. The importance of this shared identity is that where it is under threat we also find threats to political liberalism.If we understand reciprocity as a form of mutual recognition, then Rawls's defense of democratic equality becomes clearer. For example, Rawls argues that a property-owning democracy is much less likely to see excess inequality between rich and poor. The problem is not that there may be inequality, but rather we must avoid too much economic power falling under the control of a minority. One reason is the threat to the principles of political justice, but a further reason is that excessive inequality will damage mutual recognition. Those in greater poverty may come to view the political society as alien. Rawls admits that such unfortunate circumstances may produce envy and wound self-respect.42 Where mutual recognition may bring us together, alienation pulls us further apart.The idea of reciprocity as mutual recognition has its roots in Hegel's rich philosophical system. For very different reasons, Hegel also argues that political justice must be understood as entailing a strong element of mutual recognition.43 For Hegel, mutual recognition is secured where persons accept and engage with one another on equal terms.44 It is a position of shared respect and commonality between citizens that constructs an important element of their shared identity. This identity is threatened under certain conditions. The first is the condition of poverty. Hegel says: “It is not just starvation which is at stake … the wider viewpoint is the need to prevent a rabble from emerging.”45 Poverty is not merely the condition of inequality and material scarcity, but it also threatens the bonds of mutual recognition. Where we lack reciprocity and fair equality of opportunity, it becomes more difficult for persons in very different circumstances to mutually respect and trust one another as political equals. One reason is perhaps because persons in poverty lack fair equality of opportunity and so cannot participate equally in political affairs. A second reason may be that persons in poverty view political society as an alien other to themselves. For Hegel, the problem of poverty is a problem of recognition and it may affect rich and poor. Thus, the rabble shares a common state of mind that both the very poor or the very wealthy may possess.46 The rabble is best dealt with by best ensuring that we forbid “disproportionate wealth to be concentrated in a few hands.”47 In these ways, mutual recognition plays a very similar role for Rawls.48 Those alienated are, in the words of Rabindranath Tagore, “the poorest, the lowliest, the lost.”49Hegel argues that citizens should engage in mutual recognition in order to create social and political reconciliation. This is an idea that has caught Rawls's attention. He explains: reconciliation means that we have come to see our social world as a form of life in political and social institutions that realizes our essence–that is, the basis of our dignity as persons who are free.50 Reconciliation becomes possible when we are “at home” with the world and do not view it as alien or contrary to our interests.51 Reconciliation is not a form of resignation, but an activity of mutual recognition. We do not passively accept the world as we find it, but construct the possibility of a realistic utopia with others on free and equal terms. We must each have a stake and recognize others as equal stakeholders in society.52 Again, we do not merely reciprocate interactions with others, but we actively and genuinely engage. We construct much more than a sense of justice, but the bonds of mutual recognition and shared identity. The protection of these bonds serves as a fundamental reason why we can accept some regimes, such as a property-owning democracy, and not others.This understanding of Rawlsian justice highlights something potentially new. Recall his endorsement of property-owning democracy and liberal socialism. Both regimes may support some form of regulated market economy. It is clear that Rawls rejects a largely unregulated market given his arguments against laissez-faire capitalism. It is also clear he rejects a command economy which is evidence in his critique of state socialism. Private property ownership is clearly a right, even a human right, on his account.53 However, it is a right stemming from its ability to best “specify a decent scheme of political and social cooperation.”54 It is not the free market or regulated market that we defend, but rather whether a system best satisfies certain conditions. Consider slaves who lack property. Slavery should be rejected on many grounds. One argument is that slaves lack more than property: they also lack access to participation in a decent scheme concerning fair cooperation with others. Others cooperate on unequal terms in virtue of their having property and better abilities to cooperate with others similarly situated. But note: the slave's disadvantage depends on his exceptional status and not primarily his lack of possessions. Property rights may help foster mutual respect, but it is mutual recognition of persons as free and equal that is crucial.Rawls is quick to criticize economic inequality as a problem of social cohesion. For one example, he says that “such a gap often leads to some citizens being stigmatized and treated as inferiors, and that is unjust.”55 What is unjust is not that someone is viewed as inferior as such, but that a person lacks mutual recognition as an equal. Strictly speaking, an individual may be inferior to others without injustice. Some may lack the rational capacities to properly engage with others in deliberation. Inferiority only becomes a political problem where it leads to a failure of mutual recognition. Such a failure has the potential to escalate into a feeling of alienation. Our political community is a shared source of common identity. This identity arises through mutual recognition and enables political reconciliation, the latter conceived as our self-understanding as having a stake. This identity is not our only identity, but it is an important tie that binds us together in a common project.Rawls's idea of the citizen as free and equal in a well-ordered society includes a rich account of reciprocity. I have argued that reciprocity should be understood as mutual recognition to better account for its nature as an active engagement with others. This engagement is central to the formation of a shared political identity. This shared identity involves a sense of trust, recognition, and respect amongst equals. It is the importance of being recognized and having a sense of being reconciled to the political society that is central. Rawls's argument for democratic equality should include the idea that liberal legitimacy is political reconciliation whereby we recognize one another as equal citizens who belong together in a political community and with a shared identity.This becomes clearer when we examine the reasons that Rawls offers in favor of property-owning democracy. It is not the mere fact of economic concentration that is the central problem, but the fact that this concentration will threaten the bonds of mutual recognition and shared identity. Moreover, there is rich empirical evidence to support this result. In The Spirit Level, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett argue that inequality affects everything from life expectancy to mental illness and violence to illiteracy.56 Equality is good for us, but partly because it best enables mutual recognition and a shared identity.To conclude, we learn much from Rawls's account although there are many questions remaining, not least questions about the possibility of a universal human identity. Nevertheless, I hope to have shed a small light on more important issues that lie ahead.

The Good Society

Jun 1, 2012
Thom Brooks

BOOK REVIEWS 501 reasonable hope of fetal survival and the cost of not aborting the fetus is another human life, a more nuanced moral analysis may be called for—albeit one that does not reduce to mere consequentialism and that recognizes that the fetus has a prima facie right to life. The rigor of Kaczor’s metaphysical and ethical arguments concerning when a person begins to exist and the moral rights that pertain to embryos and fetuses should help disarm many alternative views that have been popular in both scholarly and public arenas. Nevertheless, certain difficult questions persist even among those who agree with his overall view. Kaczor’s contribution should definitely move the debate forward in ways that will allow scholars to focus their attention on these and other related questions that have heretofore been relatively neglected in the literature. JASON T. EBERL Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis Indianapolis, Indiana The Political Problem of Religious Pluralism: And Why Philosophers Can't Solve It. By THADDEUS KOZINSKI, Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2010. Pp. 288. $53.00 (cloth). ISBN: 978-0-7391-4168-7. In this work Thaddeus Kozinski tackles the prickly problem of religious pluralism. His main target is liberal political theory, or more specifically the liberal solution to the problem of religious pluralism. We are told by liberal theorists that in order to respect the religious beliefs of others we should not rely on our personal religious beliefs in developing our political positions and advocating them, as to do so would involve imposing our personal beliefs on others who do not share them. Instead, liberal political theorists offer to provide a way of structuring and governing society (including our political debates), which is either compatible with all rival comprehensive doctrines (neutralist liberalism) or at least a wide range of such doctrines (perfectionist liberalism). Kozinski seeks to address this problem through an examination of three different philosophical proposals for how we ought to understand and deal with the problem of religious pluralism: those of John Rawls, Jacques Maritain, and Alasdair MacIntyre. All three take different positions on the liberal solution. Rawls is the liberal theorist par excellence, providing one of the most sophisticated defenses of liberalism. Maritain is a Thomist who attempts a synthesis of the Christian and liberal traditions to address the problem of pluralism. And MacIntyre, also a Thomist, offers perhaps the most unrelenting philosophical critique of modernity and liberal political theory. The work is divided into six chapters with a very clear exposition-critique structure. Each BOOK REVIEWS 502 chapter explaining the political philosophy of one of these three theorists is followed by a chapter of critique. Kozinski begins with Rawls in chapter 1. His focus is Rawls’s revised political theory, “political liberalism,” in which Rawls claims to have developed a "political" as opposed to a comprehensive theory of justice that all “reasonable” citizens will be able to affirm without having to give up or change their commitment to their existing comprehensive beliefs. This political conception is claimed to be “freestanding” (not dependent on any particular comprehensive doctrine) and therefore allows for the possibility of an “overlapping consensus” by those who affirm rival reasonable comprehensive doctrines. Rawls’s work is not particularly easy to navigate, so Kozinski must be congratulated for providing a good, clear summary of his arguments. In chapter 2, Kozinski develops a sophisticated philosophical and theological critique of Rawls, outlining and building on the most important criticisms of his political liberalism so far developed. Of particular importance is his discussion of the theological nature of Rawls’s political liberalism. Kozinski convincingly shows that Rawls’s political liberalism is guilty of relying not simply on controversial metaphysical positions—which Rawls claims to avoid and indeed must avoid for the success of his theory—but also on a controversial theological position. In brief, when considering fundamental political matters, Rawls requires that one’s theological beliefs be subordinated to what is considered most “reasonable” (understood in a Rawlsian way). This is a succinct critique of Rawls’s political liberalism. Kozinski next turns to the work of Catholic convert and philosopher Jacques Maritain, whose response to the problem of pluralism involves an attempt to effect a synthesis...

Political liberalism is supposed to be neutral among reasonable comprehensive doctrines, including comprehensive liberalism. Some critics think that it implicitly assumes comprehensive liberalism. I argue that political liberalism has the resources to avoid this charge and chart a path between sectarianism and unprincipled accommodation that allows a range of policy justifications onto the political agenda of a scope that honors the ideal of neutrality.

The Political Meaning of the Right and the Privatization of the GoodIn today's philosophical and political world we come across an influential current within liberalism called procedural. It faces the problem of building a just society by proposing a formula: the priority of the right over the good. It can be easily found in Rawls's A Theory of Justice which starts from the original position which means that individuals, behind the veil of ignorance, do not know anything about their social location, talents and their own conceptions of the good. Because of such ignorance they would constitute the just society. It would be regulated by two principles of justice, chosen behind the veil of ignorance and reflecting the priority of the right over the good. Nevertheless Rawls understood that this conception could be accepted only by Liberals because it represents an example of a comprehensive doctrine. Therefore he reinterpreted his conception and presented it as political in his Political Liberalism. It has three features: it is worked out for the basic structure of a constitutional democratic regime; it does not depend for its justification on any particular comprehensive doctrine; and, it is formulated in terms of two fundamental ideas implicit in the public culture of a democratic society (the ideas of society as a fair system of cooperation, and of persons viewed as free and equal). Due to this reinterpretation, the justification of his principles of justice proceeds from what is held in common and leads to an agreement based on "an overlapping consensus of reasonable comprehensive doctrines". In this way the good becomes something strictly private and completely absent in the public sphere. Such position is obviously very controversial but a critical approach to it will be a subject of another paper.

If there is, as it seems, deep and pervasive disagreement about what is right and good for us, as well as the nature of moral judgment, we may ask how political discussion can have any moral justification and how fellow citizens are to justify themselves and their proposals to each other in an era of pluralism. According to John Rawls, in a situation of moral pluralism, citizens should be reasonable. They should view each other as free and equal moral persons, and they should offer each other fair terms of social cooperation. Moreover, they should recognize and accept the consequences of the burdens of judgment, that differences between reasonable comprehensive doctrines have a morally innocent source, and therefore, that they should not try to attain a rational agreement on a single comprehensive doctrine. It follows that in justifying a political conception, the reasons given to others are ‘‘reasons we might reasonably expect that they, as free and equal citizens, might also accept.’’ For that reason, in his later work, political liberalism, Rawls seeks to ‘‘apply the principle of toleration to philosophy itself’’ and to bracket controversial

AbstractThis paper examines the political and policy making challenges posed by human embryonic stem cell research and somatic cell nuclear transfer, known colloquially as cloning, by applying two facets of John Rawls' construct of political liberalism—the burdens of judgment and overlapping consensus—to consider how such seemingly intractable controversies are resolved in a constitutional democracy. The analysis underscores the importance of both civic and scientific education to promoting the capacity of citizens to achieve what Rawls calls an overlapping consensus of reasonable comprehensive doctrines.

Critics with egalitarian liberalism usually maintain that civic virtue is an essential element for implementation and stability of social goods like social justice. They usually argue as well that egalitarian liberalism neglects the importance of civic virtue and that, as a consequence, egalitarian liberal goals are either unachievable or unstable. In this paper I assume that civic virtue certainly is an essential element for implementation and stability of social goods like distributive justice. However, I argue that egalitarian liberalism has no problem to recognize this, so criticism in this sense is wrong. Egalitarian liberal state must promote each civic virtue necessary for achieving and/or stabilizing social justice with the only limit given by priority of right over good. Throughout this paper I expose the rawlsian concepts of reasonable pluralism, overlapping consensus among reasonable comprehensive doctrines and neutrality of state, and I try to clarify the role of civic virtue in this theoretical framework.

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