Reasonable Pluralism Research Articles

Reasonable Pluralism about Desert-Presupposing Moral Responsibility: A Conditional Defense

Reasonable Pluralism about Desert-Presupposing Moral Responsibility: A Conditional Defense

Conspiracy theories and reasonable pluralism

The popularity of conspiracy theories poses a clear challenge for contemporary liberal democracies. Conspiracy theories undermine rational debate, spread dangerous falsehoods and threaten social cohesion. However, any possible public policy response, which would try to contain their spread, needs to respect the liberal commitment to protect pluralism and free speech. A successful justification of such a policy must therefore: 1) clearly identify the problematic class of conspiracy theories; and 2) clarify the grounds on which the state is justified in acting against them. This article argues that the prevailing epistemic approaches to conspiracy theorizing cannot fulfil these criteria. Defining conspiracy theories by their flaws in reasoning, questionable coherence or factual mistakes can neither sharply distinguish problematic conspiracy theories from other, non-problematic worldviews nor justify state action. Thus, we propose to understand conspiracy theories through their ethical unreasonableness. We hold that containment of conspiracy theories is justifiable insofar as they undermine the liberal-democratic ideals of mutual respect, freedom and equality. We then show that such ‘ethical’ criteria for conspiracy theories can be sufficiently robust and clear-cut so that they can serve as a useful guide for public policy.

Automation and Fairness: Assessing the Automation of Fairness in Cases of Reasonable Pluralism and Considering the Blackbox of Human Judgment

In this article we probe whether the automation of fairness is in itself inherently unfair i.e. that the very attempt to automate a particular process that involves issues of justice, will necessarily be unfair. We do this by first explicating what we mean by fairness, and then discuss the notion of discernment i.e. deciding what kind of fairness to choose between in cases of reasonable pluralism. Following this we outline the difference between automating implementation and automating fairness. We discuss the latter in terms of discernment i.e. the making of a fairness judgment, and the legitimacy of the judgment made. An argument is then presented regarding the benchmarking of performance of automated systems and critiqued in terms of an erosion of the judicial process. We close with a speculative discussion concerning the comparative legitimacy of the fairness judgments of human reasoning and blackbox systems, and argue that notwithstanding the opacity of human psychology, the processes that appeal to human reasoning sit within a cluster of accountable and public/democratic institutions (something that the developers and deployers of automated systems lack). We conclude with a note on the challenge the question of fairness and automation poses in a world of increasing automated decision making.

Functionalist Justice and Coordination

This article lays out the “functionalist” view according to which justice is a social technology for adjudicating competing claims, then defends the claim that any functional principles of justice must effectively coordinate the expectations of diverse members of society. From there, it argues that within the functionalist framework there cannot be any adequate conception of justice for society’s basic institutional structure or constitution under conditions of reasonable pluralism. It concludes by discussing the theoretical place of emergent legal and constitutional principles within a functionalist theory.

Ethics of technology needs more political philosophy

Incorporating considerations of reasonable pluralism, individual agency, and legitimate authority.

Justice, Political Obligation and Public Reason: Rethinking Partisanship and Political Liberalism

In Partisanship and Political Liberalism in Diverse Societies I examine political parties and partisanship within the context of John Rawls’s (Political Liberalism, expanded edn. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2005a) theory of political liberalism. I argue that parties and partisanship are vital to Rawls’s political liberalism, since they offer a distinctive and crucial contribution to the process of public justification that is central to it, which combines the articulation of public reasons with the channelling into the public political realm of the particular values and conceptions of the good emerging from parties’ specific constituencies. Furthermore, I argue, partisanship generates a special kind of political obligations, and this further contributes to state legitimacy under conditions of reasonable pluralism. In this paper, I respond to three commentators who have raised important criticisms against my argument. More specifically, Section 1 provides a response to Lea Ypi’s argument that my normative account of partisanship wrongly presupposes that existing liberal societies are reasonably just. Section 2 answers Daniel Weinstock’s concerns regarding the plausibility and internal consistency of my account of partisan political obligations. Finally, Section 3 addresses Kevin Vallier’s criticisms, which challenge my account of public reason and propose an alternative one.

Sideways at the entrance of the cave: A pluralist footnote to Plato

The idea of a ‘true’ account of pluralism is ultimately contradictory. Liberal political philosophers often fell prey to a special version of this fallacy by presupposing that there might be only one correct argument for justifying the acceptance of pluralism as the core of a liberal democratic polity. Avoiding this trap, Rawls’s ‘political liberalism’ has offered a more sophisticated view of reasonable pluralism as linked with the ‘burdens of judgement’. His philosophical agenda, however, left some questions underexplored: What is the relation of pluralism to relativism? How can a conception of pluralism (epistemic, moral and political) avoid being either one view among others with no special claim to truth, or a foundationalist claim? If pluralism is a fact, in what sense can it bind us? These questions – crucial for grasping the distinctiveness of ‘political’ liberalism – are addressed by revisiting Plato’s simile of the cave, in order to make it accommodate the groundbreaking Rawlsian notion of the ‘reasonable’.

상고심 제도의 개혁 방안 연구: 합당한 법다원주의의 관점에서

상고심 제도의 개혁 방안 연구: 합당한 법다원주의의 관점에서

Sticking Points: Epistemic Pluralism in Legal Challenges to Mandatory Vaccination Policies

“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion,” so the saying goes, “but not to his own facts.” Yet contemporary society is marked by a remarkable divergence of belief concerning matters of “objective” fact. This Article explores the phenomenon of “epistemic pluralism”—entrenched disagreement about matters of empirical fact—from the perspective of John Rawls’s work on political liberalism. Expanding on Rawls’s discussion of reasonable pluralism among normative viewpoints, it argues that the persistence of epistemic pluralism poses challenges to the moral legitimacy of coercive state action analogous to the challenges that Rawls identified as arising from normative pluralism. The Article examines legal challenges to mandatory vaccination policies as a principal case study of epistemic pluralism in the law. For over two hundred years, antivaccinationists have rejected the mainstream medical consensus that vaccines are safe and effective and have demanded exemptions from immunization mandates on both empirical and normative grounds. The Article develops a principle of “epistemic public reason,” which incorporates a principle of epistemic reasonableness by which to distinguish those epistemic viewpoints entitled to moral duties of civility and reciprocity by fellow citizens. Finding that most empirical objections to vaccination mandates are either directly or indirectly epistemically unreasonable, the Article concludes that the coercive imposition of immunization requirements on epistemic outliers is consistent with the principle of epistemic public reason. It also clarifies more generally the nature and extent of public officials’ obligation to offer reasons on contested empirical questions relevant to public policy that all reasonable citizens, including dissenters, can reasonably accept.

Respect in Neo-Republicanism: A Good Too Rich or Too Thin?

The article critically examines the neo-Republican conception of respect put forward by Philip Pettit in Robust Demands of the Good (RDG). The paper argues that Pettit’s treatment of respect as a rich good in RDG is too thin in some ways, but too rich in others. There are four critical claims to support this argument. First, that (a) both invading the domain of basic liberties, and failing to protect and resource the capacity to exercise choice, constitute individually sufficient conditions for disrespectful treatment, and (b) that the protection and resourcing of basic liberties are both relevant domains over which an appropriate disposition is also necessary for the provision of the rich good of respect. Second, that it is unnecessary and undesirable to rely on local conventions to provide a specification of the treatment that the status of respect requires. Third, that providing respect as a rich good in conditions of reasonable pluralism implies treating minorities in a disrespectful way. Fourth, that the role given to law in supporting the provision of the rich good of respect leads to a difficult dilemma for Pettit: either the full enjoyment of respect is not possible in nearby worlds, or it is only possible in ideal conditions that are far from nearby worlds.

The Fact of Unreasonable Pluralism

AbstractProponents of political liberalism standardly assume that the citizens of an ideal liberal society would be overwhelmingly reasonable. I argue that this assumption violates political liberalism's own constraints of realism—constraints that are necessary to frame the central problem that political liberalism aims to solve, that is, the problem of reasonable pluralism. To be consistent with these constraints, political liberalism must recognize that, as with reasonable pluralism, widespread support for unreasonable moral and political views is an inevitable feature of any liberal society. I call this the fact of unreasonable pluralism. This fact threatens Rawlsian political liberalism's account of stability because an overlapping consensus cannot stably order a society pervaded by unreasonable views. My argument also raises questions about the coherence of Rawls's conception of ideal theory.

Reasonable Pluralism and Pragmatic Confucian Democracy: Reply to Li

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Summary

In Minimal Morality, I develop a multilevel social contract theory that, in contrast to existing theories in the liberal tradition, does not merely assume a restricted form of reasonable moral pluralism but is tailored to the conditions of deeply morally pluralistic societies that may include liberal moral agents, non-liberal moral agents and, according to the traditional understanding of morality, non-moral agents. The theory takes its main inspiration from the moral theories of Hobbes (1651), Hume (1739/1740) and Kant (1785, 1795, 1797), and some of their contemporary followers, such as Rawls (1971) and Gauthier (1986). In its simplified form, the theory combines what I call traditional first-level morality with second-level pure instrumental morality and derives, in the form of the weak principle of universalization, a principle of conflict resolution that defines the minimal behavioural restrictions that are necessary to ensure, compared to violent conflict resolution, mutually beneficial peaceful long-term cooperation in deeply morally pluralistic societies. I argue that, despite its ideal nature, this theory is, in principle, applicable to the real world and, for the conditions described, most promising for securing mutually beneficial peaceful long-term cooperation in a world in which a fully just society, due to moral pluralism, is unattainable. If Rawls’s intention was to carry the traditional social contract argument to a higher level of abstraction, then the multilevel social contract theory brings it back down to earth.

Public reason, civic trust and conclusions of science

Rawlsian idea of public reason refers to the boundaries on political justification of coercive laws and public policies that have wide impact on lives of citizens. The boundaries of public reason means that political justification should be based on reasons we can expect every citizen can reasonably accept independently of any comprehensive religious, philosophical or moral doctrine to which she adhere. In modern liberal democracies characterized by reasonable pluralism of comprehensive doctrines it is unjustified for political argumentation to be based on claims that many citizens can not accept. As I understand it, the point of idea of public reason is to strengthen the relationship of civic trust or civic friendship that can ensure inherent stability of just political regime. An important part of the idea of public reason is how it incorporates scientific claims in political argumentation. Rawls writes that citizens are to base their public justification on „presently accepted general beliefs and forms of reasoning found in common sense, and the methods and conclusions of science when those are not controversial.“ If the idea of public reason is the source of political stability it is necessary to answer what it means that conclusions of science are controversial in political and social context? First, scientific controversy is different from controversy of comprehensive doctrines. Science stands outside of comprehensive doctrines so conclusions of science will not be controversial because they clash with comprehensive beliefs, but they will be controversial if they rely on comprehensive beliefs. Second, if conclusions of science are controversial within scientific community, if there are some expert witness disputing its validity, then maybe value-judgments can enter to set standards for certification of the scientific claim. If potential consequences of scientific claim are bad for welfare of some group in society than standards of evidence that will certify this claim must go up. Finally, even if some scientific claim has been certified it still can be controversial as a premise in political justification. The reason can be that certification has not been transparent and many citizens do not realize that this claim is part of scientific consensus. Again, the criterion for controversy of scientific conclusions in political context is connected to the notion of trust and not to the validity of scientific claim or supportive evidence by itself.

Are Healthy Eating Policies Consistent with Public Reason?

AbstractStates are increasingly implementing policies aimed at changing people's dietary habits, such as fat taxes, food bans, and nudges. In this article, we ask whether healthy eating policies are consistent with public reason, the view that state laws and policies should be justified on the basis of reasons that all citizens can accept at some level of idealisation despite their different conceptions of the good. What we intend to explore is an ‘if…, then…’ line of thought: if one is committed to public reason, then may one consistently endorse healthy eating policies? First, we illustrate multiple ways in which contemporary societies are characterised by a reasonable pluralism concerning conceptions of health and values attached to eating practices. Second, we critically assess the implications of three main conceptions of the structure of public reason, i.e. ‘shareability’, ‘intelligibility’ and ‘accessibility’, for the public justifiability of healthy eating policies. We conclude that healthy eating policies are only consistent with public reason under the ‘accessibility’ conception, i.e. if they are based on reasons grounded in shared epistemic and moral evaluative standards, as long as such reasons reflect a reasonable balance of political values and do not overly prioritise or neglect any of these values.

Value Pluralism and Philosophy of History

Abstract In my reply to George Crowder’s criticism of my essay on the Soviet Revolution in the last issue of Analyse & Kritik, I discuss two problems: the nature of a reasonable value pluralism and the relation between ethics and philosophy of history. Concerning the first, I insist on the necessity of an objective rank ordering of values; with regard to the second, I side with Kant, who builds philosophy of history on ethics, and reject the Marxist idea that ethics is itself grounded in philosophy of history.

Growing up Sexist: Challenges to Rawlsian Stability

John Rawls pinpoints stability as the driving force behind many of the changes to justice as fairness from A Theory of Justice to Political Liberalism. Current debates about Rawlsian stability have centered on the possibility of maintaining one’s allegiance to the principles of justice while largely ignoring how citizens acquire a sense of justice. However, evaluating the account of stability in political liberalism requires attention to the impact of reasonable pluralism on both of these issues. I will argue that the first question of Rawlsian stability – how a child acquires a sense of justice – remains unanswered in Political Liberalism. This fact has been overlooked by Rawls, his defenders, and his critics. The failure to attend to the ways reasonable pluralism undermines Rawls’s own story about a child’s moral development ultimately threatens Rawls’s account of stability in political liberalism – or so I will argue. Despite all of the changes Rawls makes to justice as fairness in order to resolve the stability challenge, Political Liberalism fails to deliver the robust stability Rawls seeks.

Fact of the matter: Rawls, political ideals, and worldview consensus

In this article, I argue that the fact of reasonable pluralism (FRP) – a famous Rawlsian assumption about the intellectual demographics of liberal democracies – is not as self-evident as is sometimes thought. The problem with the FRP is that in Political Liberalism Rawls is treating the freedoms and burdens story as being sufficient – in itself – to explain the demographics of reasonable pluralism. The inadequacy of the freedoms and burdens story is an indication that the FRP is empirically underdetermined as a way of glossing the belief demographics of liberal democracies. And it is a reason to wonder whether pluralism is as permanent as Rawls thinks. But worldview disagreements are not necessarily so incorrigible. In response to the FRP, it can be asserted that there is nothing that is inherent in the idea of a liberal democracy to preclude the choice by the citizens of a common worldview.

Autonomy and Disagreement about Justice inPolitical Liberalism

Rawls says in Political Liberalism that “the focus of an overlapping consensus is [more likely to be] a class of liberal conceptions” than a single one. In conceding that members of the well-ordered society are unlikely to live up to justice as fairness, Rawls would seem to have conceded that they are also unlikely to live autonomously. This is exactly the conclusion some commentators have drawn. I contend that the likelihood of “reasonable pluralism about justice” does not have the implication for Rawls’s project that it is said to have: political autonomy remains available even when such pluralism obtains.

DEMOCRACIA LIBERAL: SUFRÁGIO E DELIBERAÇÃO COMO PRIMEIROS PASSOS PARA UMA SOCIEDADE PLURAL

Neste artigo pretendemos abordar duas características centrais das democracias liberais: o sufrágio igual e universal e o uso da deliberação como racionalidade na fundamentação do conceito de razão pública, considerados aqui como primeiros passos para a realização de uma sociedade que possa acomodar a pluralidade de concepções de bem. Para análise do tema, partimos do referencial que acreditamos ser, hoje, o sustentáculo teórico das democracias liberais, qual seja o liberalismo político. O estudo tem como objetivo reconhecer que o liberalismo político é compatível com algumas conquistas democráticas modernas encontradas nas assim chamadas democracias liberais, especialmente no que diz respeito a questões ligadas à igualdade e ao “pluralismo razoável” de concepções de vida, mas que também deixou de cumprir algumas de suas principais promessas, fracassando no objetivo de produzir um regime menos excludente. Diante deste cenário, coloca-se como problemática central a suficiência desses dois cânones liberais nos projetos democráticos das sociedades contemporâneas, tomando como pressuposto o crescente alargamento do pluralismo e das diferentes doutrinas abrangentes. Ao fim, conclui-se que, embora se trate de uma teoria ideal, o liberalismo político é responsável por conquistas fundamentais nas democracias contemporâneas, mas que no plano material não se sustentam como projetos independentes e suficientes nos dias atuais.