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Must Liberal Citizens Be Reasonable?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2016

Kenneth A. Strike
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Extract

Political Liberalism was motivated by Rawls's belief that A Theory of Justice inadequately treated the problem of stability. Theory of Justice grounded justice in a comprehensive doctrine, ethical liberalism. In a society wherein citizens hold a variety of reasonable comprehensive doctrines, such a theory of justice is unstable. Political Liberalism seeks a free-standing political theory compatible with many reasonable comprehensive doctrines.

Reasonableness involves reciprocity which in turn requires the acceptance of the burdens of judgment. We cannot respect other citizens if we regard them or their comprehensive doctrines as pernicious or stupid. While we may continue to accept our own comprehensive doctrine, reciprocity and tolerance require that we recognize that other doctrines and those who hold them are reasonable.

Callan claims that Rawls's project fails. Ethical liberalism views autonomy as essential to a good life. However, if the burdens of judgment are a prerequisite for reciprocity, political liberalism must also value autonomy, if not as an essential part of a good life, then as a public good. Any view of political socialization robust enough to secure a recognition of the burdens of judgment must also produce habits of mind tantamount to autonomy. If so, political liberalism collapses into ethical liberalism. Their implications for political socialization are indistinguishable. Many comprehensive doctrines, paradigmatically religious ones, will be weakened by these requirements for political socialization.

Callan's argument points to a tension in liberal views of education. A liberalism that promotes a thick liberal culture will appear intolerant to many with religious commitments.

Type
Discussion
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 58 , Issue 1 , Winter 1996 , pp. 41 - 48
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1996

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References

1. I have developed a fuller account of this approach in Strike, Kenneth, “On the Construction of Public Speech: Pluralism and Public Reason,” Educational Theory 44 (1994): 1–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2. In my judgment the original position reeks with neo-Kantianism and burdens of judgment is strongly associated with empiricist epistemology. They import large chunks of modernity into the Rawlsian justificatory apparatus.

3. An example may be the Catholic Church's views on women in the priesthood. Perhaps there is no formal contradiction between the claim that women as citizens are free and equal and the idea that they are not eligible for full participation in the institutions of the Church. Yet we must also consider whether the fact that women are excluded from the priesthood means that we should “downgrade” the voice of the Church when it speaks on women's issues in the public square. And Catholics must ask whether these tensions flow from central commitments.

4. Ackerman, Bruce, Social Justice and the Liberal State (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980)Google Scholar.