Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T10:16:12.574Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Public justification versus public deliberation: the case for divorce

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Kevin Vallier
Kevin Vallier*
Affiliation:
Philosophy Department, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, USA
*
*Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

I drive a wedge between public deliberation and public justification, concepts tightly associated in public reason liberalism. Properly understood, the ideal of public justification imposes no restraint on citizen deliberation but requires that those who have a substantial impact on the use of coercive power, political officials, advance proposals each person has sufficient reason to accept. I formulate this idea as the Principle of Convergent Restraint and apply it to legislators to illustrate the general reorientation I propose for the public reason project.

Keywords

philosophypolitical philosophypublic reason liberalismpolitical liberalismdeliberative democracypolitical theory
Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 45 , Issue 2 , April 2015 , pp. 139 - 158
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Journal of Philosophy 2015

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Audi, Robert, and Wolterstorff, Nicholas. 1997. Religion in the Public Square: The Place of Religious Convictions in Political Debate. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Cohen, Joshua. 1989. “Deliberation and Democratic Legitimacy.”; In The Good Polity: Normative Analysis of the State, edited by Hamlin, Alan and Pettit, Philip, 17–34. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Cohen, Joshua. 1997. “Procedure and Substance in Deliberative Democracy.”; In Deliberative Democracy: Essays on Reason and Politics, edited by Bohman, James and Rehg, William, 407–438. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Fearon, James. 1998. “Deliberation as Discussion.”; In Deliberative Democracy, edited by Elster, Jon, 44–68. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feinberg, Joel. 1987. Harm to Others: The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Freeman, Samuel. 2000. “Deliberative Democracy: A Sympathetic Comment.”; Philosophy & Public Affairs 29 (4): 371–418. doi:10.1111/j.1088-4963.2000.00371.x.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gaus, Gerald. 2010. “The Place of Religious Belief in Public Reason Liberalism.”; In Multiculturalism and Moral Conflict, edited by Dimovia-Cookson, Maria and Stirk, Peter, 19–37. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Gaus, Gerald. 2011a. The Order of Public Reason. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gaus, Gerald. 2011b. “Between Discovery and Choice: The General Will in a Diverse Society.”; Contemporary Readings in Law and Social Justice 3: 70–95.Google Scholar
Gaus, G. F., and Vallier, Kevin. 2009. “The Roles of Religious Conviction in a Publicly Justified Polity: The Implications of Convergence, Asymmetry and Political Institutions.”; Philosophy & Social Criticism 35 (1–2): 51–76. doi:10.1177/0191453708098754.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goodin, Robert. 2008. Innovating Democracy: Democratic Theory and Practice After the Deliberative Turn. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greenawalt, Kenneth. 1988. Religious Convictions and Political Choice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gutmann, Amy, and Thompson, Dennis. 1996. Democracy and Disagreement. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Landemore, Hélène. 2013. Democratic Reason. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Larmore, Charles. 1996. The Morals of Modernity. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Larmore, Charles. 2008. The Autonomy of Morality. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lister, Andrew. 2011. “Public Justification of What?”; Public Affairs Quarterly 25 (4): 349–367.Google Scholar
Mill, John Stuart. 1978. On Liberty. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett.Google Scholar
Nagel, Thomas. 1987. “Moral Conflict and Political Legitimacy.”; Philosophy and Public Affairs 16 (3): 215–240.Google Scholar
Page, Scott. 2008. The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quong, Jonathan. 2011. Liberalism Without Perfection. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rawls, John. 2001. Justice as Fairness: A Restatement. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Rawls, John. 2005. Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Schwartzman, Micah. 2011. “The Sincerity of Public Reason.”; Journal of Political Philosophy 19 (4): 375–398. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9760.2010.00363.x.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thrasher, J. and Vallier, K. 2013. “The Fragility of Consensus: Public Reason, Diversity and Stability.”; European Journal of Philosophy.doi:10.1111/ejop.12020.Google Scholar
Vallier, Kevin. 2014. Liberal Politics and Public Faith: Beyond Separation. New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vallier, Kevin, and D’Agostino, Fred. 2013. “Public Justification.”; In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2014 Edition), edited by Edward N. Zalta. http://www.plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2014/entries/justification-public/.Google Scholar