Political theorists propose standards that identify legitimate uses ofpolitical power. Some adopt a principle ofpublicjustification. A public justification is a kind of rationale forexercising power and control. It is public because the rationale, orgroup of rationales, is one that members of the public can accept. Putanother way, to treat people as equals, we must ensure that politicalpower is justifiedfor orto them by their ownlights, so a public justification thus consists of reasons the publiccan recognize as valid. Those who adopt a public justificationstandard are often calledpublic reason liberals. Liberalinstitutions (freedom of speech, the rule of law, democracy) arepublicly justified, but illiberal institutions are not. Diverseperspectives within the public will reject non-liberalinstitutions.

Coercion is the standard object of public justification because it isperhaps the characteristic feature of political life. Charles Larmoreremarks that public justification has “to do with the sort ofrespect we owe one another in the political realm — that is, inrelationships where the possibility of coercion is involved”(Larmore 2008, 86). John Rawls’s principle of publicjustification holds that political power requires justification (Rawls2005, 12) because “political power is always coercivepower” (Rawls 2005, 68). Jonathan Quong holds that publicjustification concerns the imposition of coercive laws (Quong 2011,233–250). And, as Christopher Eberle puts it (2002, 54),“the clarion call of justificatory liberalism is the publicjustification of coercion.” Some have wondered whethernon-coercive state actions need public justification (2.7). But theynonetheless agree that coercion generally, if not always, requiresit.

The idea of a public justification is, at its root, an idea aboutwhich reasons justify coercion. Public justification is not aprocess of exchanging reasons. Instead, the exchange ofreasons can uncover or generate a public justification. Or we couldarrive at a public justification through a non-deliberative route.Examples include bargaining processes and adjudicative procedures. Inthis way, the ideas of public reason and public justification aredistinct. Public justifications might consist of public reasons. But areason shared by the public might fall short of a sound justificationif other reasons undercut or override it. One might, for example,support a new anti-poverty program on shared grounds of justice forthe poor. However, alternative programs reduce poverty moreeffectively. The original poverty program could be publicly justifiedbased on a shared commitment to justice, but other shared reasons,like policy efficacy, can undercut the public justification for theprogram.

Rawls was the foremost advocate of the idea of public justification.But we find the idea stressed in the works of Jürgen Habermas,David Gauthier, Gerald Gaus, Stephen Macedo, Charles Larmore, SeylaBenhabib, and many others.

There is considerable disagreement about how to understand the idea.Some theorists hold that all public justifications consist of sharedor accessible reasons. These are often calledconsensustheorists. Others allow diverse, unshared reasons to figure intopublic justifications. These are often calledconvergencetheorists. (SeeSection 2.3 below). Public justification theorists also disagree about how toattribute reasons to citizens. This disagreement is about the rightlevel ofidealization. Idealization involves modeling someoneas having improved information and cognitive capacities. The goal isto identify which reasons apply to her, even if she cannot or will notsee them as such in her ordinary life. Some theorists adopt moreradical idealizations than others.

This entry addresses disputes about public justification byarticulating an open-ended principle. This Public JustificationPrinciple (PJP) helps classify competing conceptions of publicjustification.

The entry first situates public justification in the history ofpolitical philosophy. The PJP is then stated and explained, along withits chief variables. Variables include conceptions of reasons,idealization, processes of public justification, and others. The entrythen examines the arguments on behalf of the principle; differentfoundations for the PJP are then discussed. The entry also addressesconcepts of political stability and publicity related to publicjustification. And then, it reviews various objections to the PJP. Theentry concludes by discussing how theorists apply public justificationto specific controversies.

• 1. Origins
• 2. The Public Justification Principle
  • 2.1 “Sufficient” Reasons
  • 2.2 Granularity
  • 2.3 Types of Justificatory Reason
  • 2.4 Idealization
  • 2.5 Scope of the Public
  • 2.6 Modalities of Public Justification
  • 2.7 Coercion Alone?
• 3. The Liberty Principle
• 4. Foundations of the Public Justification Principle
• 5. Sister Concepts
  • 5.1 Publicity
  • 5.2 Stability
• 6. Objections
  • 6.1 The Incompleteness Objection
  • 6.2 The Indeterminacy Objection
  • 6.3 The Antidemocratic Objection
  • 6.4 The Integrity Objection
  • 6.5 The Unreasonableness Objection
  • 6.6 The Asymmetry Objection
  • 6.7 The Self-Refutation Objection
  • 6.8 The Perfectionism Objection
  • 6.9 The Empty Set Objection
  • 6.10 The Insincerity Objection
  • 6.11 Theoretical Indeterminacy
  • 6.12 Concerns about Idealization
  • 6.13 New Objections to Convergence
• 7. Applied Issues
• Bibliography
• Academic Tools
• Other Internet Resources
• Related Entries

1. Origins

Public justification arose to resolve problems for social contracttheory.

Classical social contract theorists grounded political legitimacy onconsent. The chief social contract theorists were Thomas Hobbes, JohnLocke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Immanuel Kant. They had differentstandards of consent; the first three oscillated between an empiricaland a normative standard. The empirical standard draws on actualmental states: consent justifies political power because it draws oneach party’s beliefs and values. The normative standard draws onsomehow rational mental states: we appeal not to what people believeand value but what they have reason to believe and value. Politicalpower is justified when grounded in what parties ideally affirm. Inthe latter case, we sometimes speak of hypothetical consent as a proxyfor rational justification.

In general, empirical standards gave way to normative standards.Theorists wanted to legitimize uses of power that contradict whatpeople actually will. By Kant’s time, actual consent views haddisappeared. Hypothetical consent was the state of play. The normativestandard of legitimacy had won out.

All four theorists recognize the diversity of private judgments aboutjustice. All allowed moral judgments to diverge for any number ofreasons. They all concluded that private judgment could not groundlegitimacy for a diverse public. As Rawls (2005, vii) would put it,these theorists recognized reasonable pluralism. Citizens who reasonfreely will disagree about fundamental values and principles. Contracttheorists concluded that justifications for political power had torespect diverse judgments. So justification could not rest on onespecific set of beliefs and values. A public justification had to beimpartial, at least among respectable but diverse viewpoints.

The idea of public justification surfaced in Kant’s work butthen entered hibernation for a century. Social contract theory gaveway to utilitarianism, Hegelianism, and Marxism. These three schoolsof thought rejected the idea of a social contract, though they havedistinct reasons for doing so. The social contract tradition revivedonly after World War II, first in the United States.

One of the first new forms of social contract theory wascontractarianism, which justifies coercive institutions throughinstrumental rationality: justified political arrangements arerational bargains among parties for dividing social resources. Thefirst contemporary contract theorists were economists like JohnHarsanyi and James Buchanan. But neo-Hobbesian philosophers pursued asimilar project, especially David Gauthier, Jean Hampton, and GregoryKavka.

But the dominant strand of the new contract tradition was Kantian.Here John Rawls leads the pack inA Theory of Justice andlater inPolitical Liberalism.Political Liberalismfeatures public justification as this entry understands the concept.Rawls first understood public justification as a hypotheticalcontract: idealized members of the public choose principles ofjustice. OnlyPolitical Liberalism articulates the challengethat reasonable pluralism poses for political legitimacy. For Rawls,the public must adopt principles justified for them despite theirdifferences. Political power is legitimate only when exercised inaccord with publicly justified norms. (Some theorists use“justified” and “publicly justified” assynonyms. See 2.3 below.)

The modern idea of public justification thus only comes into full viewin the early 1990s. Works on public reason and justification publishedin rapid succession. They produced a new tradition of politicalthought that flourishes today; indeed, public justification is now acore concept in political philosophy. Yet the idea admits significantvariation, so we now examine those differences.

2. The Public Justification Principle

Public justification theories vary. But we can categorize themaccording to thePublic Justification Principle (PJP). Definethe PJP as follows:

The Public Justification Principle (PJP): A coercive law\(L\) is justified in a public \(P\) if and only if each member \(i\)of \(P\) has sufficient reason(s) \(R_i\) to endorse \(L\).

The principle permits individuals 1 and 2 to have different reasons toendorse \(L\). Public justifications can consist of reasons some in\(P\) reject. But in this case, \(L\) is still justified for thepublic as a whole. The justification encompasses the public but asdistinct individuals. The justification also need not be public ascommon knowledge; an individual’s reason \(R_i\) need not becommon knowledge in \(P\).

One can analyze the PJP through answers to the following sevenquestions:

1. What makes a reason “sufficient”?
2. How fine-grained is the specification by \(L\) of the conductwhich is permitted or prohibited for members of the public?
3. What types of justificatory reasons \(R\) do we recognize?
4. How are the parties to public justificatory argumentsidealized?
5. What is the scope of the public?
6. What are the modalities of public justification? Or: by whichprocess is public justification achieved?
7. Must we publicly justify anything other than coercion?

Again, public justification does not require thepresentationof reasons. A declaration may produce or uncover a publicjustification, but societies may generate public justifications inother ways (see 2.7). Thus, John can have a justifying reason even ifno one presents it to him through explicit reasoning. We mustnonetheless explain the ideas of a reason and of a sufficient reasonto endorse some law \(L\).

2.1 “Sufficient” Reasons

The PJP requires that members of a public \(P\) have reason to endorsea principle \(L\). One must then explain what it means to “havea reason to endorse” \(L\).

A common approach to reasons in normative ethics is to take the ideaof a reason as primitive. A reason to \(\Phi\) is a consideration thatcounts in favor of \(\Phi\)-ing (Scanlon 1998, 17). But the idea of areason in public justification theory is more specific. We do not needan ontology of reasons, but we must explain when a reasonjustifies a proposal. Gaus defends a conception of reasons onepistemic grounds inJustificatory Liberalism. One has ajustificatory reason whenopenly justified. A reason isopenly justified when it is “stable in the face of acute andsustained criticism by others and of new information” (Gaus1996, 31).

A reason is sufficient when it has some positive epistemic grounds.Some considerations favor it, and none defeat it. Critically, a reasoncan be sufficient for one member of the public but not others. So, ajustifying reason may not justify coercion for all members of thepublic. A coercive law is only justified when each person hassufficient reason to endorse \(L\). Laws gain public justification byresting on the sufficient reasons of each member.

Public justification theorists assume that our personal reasons foraction and belief can differ, and in some cases, substantially. Thereasons one may offer in public justification may be narrower thanone’s personal reasons, but even consensus theorists think thatjustifying reasons must, in some sense, adhere to an agent’sbeliefs and values. Public justification theorists need not adoptGaus’s epistemology of justificatory reasons, but the correctaccount cannot be too far off.

Public justification theorists thus acknowledge that citizens canrationally affirm reasons that others reject. And so, differentindividuals may have epistemic justification to endorse quitedifferent reasons. While members of the public themselves need notrecognize these (admittedly) abstruse principles,theoristsmust accept that two individuals can have reasonable grounds foraffirming diverse and incompatible reasons.

Public justification theory rejects actual endorsement standards,opting for idealization (as we will see in 2.4). Today theoristseither appeal to counterfactual endorsement or rationally requiredendorsement. In the former case, an agent would accept the law througha deliberate act of will. In the latter case, an agent endorses a lawwhen rationally committed to affirming it; that is, rationalityrequires that she approve it through a deliberate act of will.

2.2 Granularity

What is the object of public justification? What is the thing that wepublicly justify? Answers differ, and we can classify them by their“granularity.” Some exercises of political power and statecoercion are small, like legal regulations, while others are broader,like constitutions. If we take laws as our object of justification, wetake a fine-grained approach. But if constitutions are our object, wetake a coarse-grained approach.

Rawls (2005, 140) adopts a coarse-grained approach, applying publicjustification to “constitutional essentials” and“basic questions of justice.” Jonathan Quong (2004,233–259) adopts a fine-grained approach. He applies publicjustification first to laws. Gaus (2011, 495) focuses on laws thatlack “strong interactive effects” with other laws. Forinstance, a smoking ban lacks strong interactive effects with a cornsubsidy, and so they should be justified separately.

Gaus’s case for fine-grained “individuation” ofproposals involves two arguments. We must justify at a level narrowenough to identify which forms of behavior are permitted or not. Butwe must justify at a level wide enough to see rules as governingclasses of behavior (Gaus 2011, 122–125). This entry’sformulation of the PJP focuses on law \(L\) for brevity, and itacknowledges that public justification theorists work with otherobjects of justification.

2.3 Types of Justificatory Reason

A chief disagreement among public justification theorists concerns thenature of justificatory reasons. Variable \(R_i\) in the PJPrepresents the contrast. The mainstream view within public reasoncircles is that justificatory reasons are shared. More accurately,members of the public can share all justificatory reasons. The reasonsare shareable. (Or, at least, be “accessible” in a senseoutlined below (see 2.3.2)). On these “consensus” views,\(R_i\) is the same for each individual \(i\).“Convergence” views allow \(R_i\) to differ betweenmembers of the public. John may have his reason \(R_1\), whereas Rebamay have her \(R_2\). Citizens can see the reasons as justifiedaccording to reasonable evaluative standards. But they need not adoptthose standards themselves. So, on a convergence view, a privatereligious reason can be justificatory. One person’s reasons candiffer from another. Each has reasons, but these reasons aren’tthe same in the two cases. (See D’Agostino 1996, 30) Again,religious reasons may form some of those reasons.

The idea of people having different reasons may seem odd to some. Butwe recognize convergence reasoning in various contexts. One concernsmarket transactions. Suppose \(A\) has apples and \(B\) has bananas.\(A\) wants some bananas, and \(B\) wants some apples. After a trade,both have a mixture and regard themselves as better off. Here \(A\)and \(B\) exchanged for different reasons. And so, the arrangement hasa convergence justification. Each has a reason of their own to preferit. And note that the point stands even if \(A\) and \(B\) find oneanother’s reasons quite alien. Indeed, they might not even knowone another’s reasons. But the arrangement still has a kind ofpublic justification.

So convergence only requires that individuals have their reasons\(R_i\), which creates set \(\{R_1, R_2 , \ldots ,R_n\}\) to support\(L\). Consensus requires, in the limit, that all members of thepublic share a (set of) reason(s) \(R\) to endorse \(L\).

But even convergence limits the range of justificatory reasons:\(A\)’s reasons for endorsing \(L\) might be repugnant, perhapsenough to undermine \(L\)’s public justification. For thisreason, convergence theorists appeal to idealization (see 2.4below).

Again, the consensus approach remains dominant. Convergence is in theminority, both in earlier and contemporary works. (Gaus 1990, 256;Stout 2004; Klosko 1993 vs Gaus 2011; Vallier 2014; Vallier 2019, Gaus2021).

But the public reason tradition provides grounds for both approaches.Rawls seems to have combined the two approaches. Rawls looks like aconsensus theorist in the “freestanding” stage ofpolitical justification. He (2005, 12) says that citizens should useshared reasons to converge on a political conception of justice. Butin the “overlapping consensus” stage, Rawls leavesjustification “to each person.” Each person must sync thepolitical conception of justice with their comprehensive doctrine, andthe public adopts no single comprehensive doctrine. Rawls includedboth accounts of justificatory reasons in his view, yet while thecombined view is attractive, many writers feel compelled to rejectit.

Habermas (1995) provides the most well-known illustration of thetension in Rawls. Gaus (2011) opts for overlappingconsensus/convergence justifications. Quong (2011) opts forfree-standing/consensus justifications. Vallier and Muldoon (2021)argue that these answers generate two public reason projects. Gausfounded a “diversity project” focused on how diversereasoning resolves social conflicts. Quong founded a “coherenceproject” focused on rendering key political conceptscoherent.

As noted, even convergence theorists adopt restrictions on the set ofjustificatory reasons. Some discipline is implicit in the concept of“a reason.” A factual claim does not justify a principleif evidence falsifies the claim, and a normative claim is not a reasonto endorse \(L\) if it lacks real normative force. So, we need toarticulate some tests that count reasons as justificatory. The entryorganizes them by increasing stringency: intelligibility,accessibility, and shareability.

2.3.1 Intelligibility

Define intelligibility and the intelligibility requirement asfollows:

Intelligibility: \(A\)’s reason \(R_A\) is intelligibleto members of the public if and only if members of the public regard\(R_A\) as justified for \(A\) according to \(A\)’s evaluativestandards.

Intelligibility Requirement: \(A\)’s reason \(R_A\) canfigure in a justification for (or rejection of) a coercive law \(L\)only if it is intelligible to all members of the public.

\(A\)’s intelligible reasons are those members can see asreasons for \(A\), who advances them. And members see \(A\)’sreasons as reasons for \(A\) based on \(A\)’s own evaluativestandards. Contrast these reasons with mere utterances, expressions ofemotions, or irrational demands: intelligible reasons have rationalgrounds.

Intelligibility theorists (Vallier 2016b) argue that reasonablepluralism applies to evaluative standards as it applies to reasons(Vallier 2011). Reasonable people can dispute standards of inferenceand epistemic justification. For instance, John may regard theologicalreasoning as intelligible. To illustrate, he points to the rationalstructure of religious exegetical disputes. We may rejectanother’s sacred texts but think they furnish reasonableevaluative standards. Others may disagree: sacred texts are tooindeterminate for adequate interpretation. Members may disagree aboutwhat counts as a good cognitive process.

The intelligibility requirement recognizes these differences inevaluative standards. But it still places pressure on a purelyempirical approach. An empirical approach would count reasons asjustificatory simply because people affirm them. But intelligibilitydemands that our reasons for endorsing a principle meet rationalstandards. Others must see the reason as one for the person who offersit, at least according to that person’s standard.

Not all intelligible reasons can figure into a justification for some\(L\). Some intelligible reasons are irrelevant; others only pertainto the benefits for oneself; still others may not be sufficient tojustify a law, as specified in 2.1. Intelligibility is a requirementbeyond logical sufficiency to give reasons some epistemic credentials.\(A\)’s intelligible reasons must be available to others toconsider at least as reasons for \(A\).

2.3.2 Accessibility

The accessibility requirement is more stringent than intelligibility.It does not mandate that a reason for \(A\) to accept \(L\) bejustified according to \(A\)’s reasonable standards. (Even ifothers do not share these reasons). Instead, accessibility requiresthat reasons be justified according to shared evaluative standards.(Members believe that \(R_A\) justifies \(L\) for \(A\) under commonevaluative standards, and \(A\) accepts that \(R_A\) justifies \(L\).)Accessibility permits reasons to differ. \((A\) might endorse \(R_A\)and \(B\) might not). But it requires that they be evaluated asreasons according to shared evaluative standards. Thus, accessibilitylies between intelligibility and shareability. (Which we considernext, in section 2.4.3.) Intelligibility permits differing reasons andevaluative standards, whereas shareability permits neither.Accessibility is the most common standard, with at least eightavailable interpretations. (Eberle 2002, 252–286; for a recentdefense, see Boettcher 2015). Define accessibility and theaccessibility requirement as follows:

Accessibility: \(A\)’s reason \(R_A\) is accessible tothe public if and only if all members of the public regard \(R_A\) asjustified for \(A\) according to common evaluative standards

Accessibility Requirement: \(A\)’s reason \(R_A\) canfigure in a justification for (or rejection of) a coercive law only if\(R_A\) is accessible to all members of the public.

2.3.3 Shareability

Shareability is the strongest of the three requirements. It combinesshared evaluative standards with the shared reasons requirement(Bowman and Richardson 2009; Hartley and Watson 2009; Watson andHartley 2018). Public reason liberals often argue that justifyingreasons are necessarily shared. But they say little about what itmeans to share reasons. Public reason liberals presumably hold thatreasons must be shareable, in that citizens have the reasonsat the right level of idealization.

Like intelligibility and accessibility, the shareability requirementhas two components: a requirement on the appropriate evaluativestandards and a requirement on the range of permitted reasons. Defineshareability and the shareability requirement as follows:

Shareability: \(A\)’s reason \(R_A\) is shareable withthe public if and only if members of the public regard \(R_A\) asjustified for each member of the public, including A, according tocommon standards.

Shareability Requirement: \(A\)’s reason \(R_A\) canfigure in a justification for (or rejection of) coercion only if\(R_A\) is shared with all (suitably idealized) members of thepublic.

Shareability rules out convergence approaches to public justification,and citizens may only use shareable reasons in their public uses ofreason. (One could argue that members of the public share any goodreason at high levels of idealization, and here people may even sharetheir comprehensive doctrines. This point bleeds into the matter ofidealization, addressed below).

2.3.4 A Diagram

Intelligibility, Accessibility, and Shareability are the three corestandards of justificatory reasons in the public justificationliterature. They can be grouped together in a diagram:

The bottom left quadrant is open—public reason liberals neveradvocate shared reasons and unshared evaluative standards. There aretwo reasons for this. First, sharing evaluative standards is morecommon than sharing reasons. So if reasons are shared, evaluativestandards should be too. Second, evaluative standards help toindividuate and distinguish between reasons. So it’s not clearwe could determine which reasons are shared if evaluative standardsare not shared.

2.4 Idealization

Once the outer bounds of the public are set (seeSection 2.5 below), and we know which individuals have to have reason(s) for somearrangement to legitimize that arrangement, public reason liberalsmust explain how to ascribe reasons to the members of this group.Specifically, public reason liberals, unless they are empiricalconsent theorists, engage in idealization to show how citizens’beliefs, desires, and values enter into the process of publicjustification. Idealization is the practice of consideringcitizens’ beliefs, desires, and values as if they possessed goodinformation and good reasoning. It is typically employed because anindividual’s morally significant reasons may not be the same asthe reasons she affirms. Her affirmed reasons might rest on poorinformation, poor reasoning, or incoherent beliefs and desires.Justificatory populism determines citizens’ reasons bytheir actual commitments (Eberle 2002, 200).

Rawls’s primary model of idealization (1971, 118) is the veil ofignorance. It models parties as reasonable by withholding informationthat would undermine the impartiality of their deliberations. (Theveil device models reasonableness and the parties’ veiledreasoning models rationality.) Jürgen Habermas (1999, 198)prefers deliberative conditions without abstract idealization. Heconstrains the form of discourse to actual individuals. David Gauthier(1986, 245) prefers a bargaining scenario. Individuals know thecharacteristics of persons, but they do not know which person theyare.

Idealization alters citizens’ belief-value sets. Acitizen’s belief-value set is the set of all her beliefs,desires, goals, and plans, i.e., everything she thinks and wants.(This idea derives from Bernard Williams’s (1981, 102)conception of a subjective motivational set.) A citizen is idealizedwhen we consider her belief-value set as it might be. Theorists changeone or more of her beliefs, desires, and goals according to somecriteria. They may imagine her having more or different information orvalues. Or they must insist on modeling her as fully rational. Bothmodels alter her belief-value set. And the appropriate level ofidealization might vary with context. Perhaps it depends on theepistemic quality of reasoning demanded by the situation. (Somereasoning aims to design institutions, whereas one might use otherreasoning to plan a family vacation).

To motivate idealization, consider how public justification fareswithout it. Populist views “take citizens as they are: thedefault populist position is that a rationale \(R\) counts as a publicjustification only if the members of the public find \(R\) acceptablein light of their existing [subjective motivational sets],irrespective of their epistemic pockmarks and doxastic defects”(Eberle 2002, 200). Populist conceptions of idealization have severeproblems. People can “withhold their assent because ofobstinacy, selfishness, laziness, perversity, or confusion”(Gaus 1996, 121). Populism also problematically requires askingeveryone about their reasons before deciding whether a coercive law isjustified.

2.4.1 Radical Idealization

Public justification theorists typically prefer radical idealization.They do this to fix the weaknesses of justificatory populism and alterbelief-value sets to rid them of inconsistencies and ignorance.Radical idealization thus has two dimensions—rationality andinformation—pushed to their upper bound.

2.4.1.1 Rationality

The distinction between full rationality and less-than-fullrationality is central to idealization. Though, as we will see, fullrationality is elusive. To attribute reasons to citizens based on poorreasoning corrupts public justification. A theory of full rationalityidealizes agents by giving parties flawless cognitive powers. (SeeRawls (1971, 12) and Gauthier (1986, 234) for explicit attributions offull rationality to their agents.)

The assumption of full rationality initially seems irresistible. If wecan discern the reasons citizens would affirm if perfectly rational,surely these reasons would be morally relevant. The public reasonliberal tries to justify demands and coercion to members of hersociety. How could she do better than full rationality? Anothermotivation for embracing full rationality is to generate agreement.Many assume that suitably idealized individuals will agree on mattersthey otherwise would not. Rawls ascribes full rationality to partiesto the original position to induce agreement. Were they less thanfully rational, the parties might reach different conclusions.

But problems with full rationality abound. First, the notion of fullrationality may be incoherent when applied to finite and falliblebeings (see Cherniak 1986). It requires adjusting a dense web ofbeliefs and values. And these beliefs and values are not computable inreal-time given limited resources. Second, full rationality willproduce justifications that individuals cannot reflectively endorse.Individuals’ actual beliefs and values differ significantly fromthose which justify the arrangements. (This is one way in which theproblem of stability might arise. See below 5.2.)

2.4.1.2 Information

Again, public reason liberals add information to the belief-value setof ordinary citizens. (And, indeed, remove misinformation.) Theythereby avoid holding public justification captive to ignorance.Rawls, Gauthier, and Habermas all pursue this strategy. Their modelsassume that idealized agents have all (and only) the facts thatdetermine what reasons they have. Public reason liberals removebeliefs and desires that stop individuals from adopting an impartialperspective. They add such general and specific information necessaryfor the agent to reason well about the issues before her. Publicreason liberals disagree about what sets of information interfere withimpartiality. But all theorists subtract misinformation and biasinginformation.

Informational idealization ranges between complete information andadequate or relevant information. The motivations for embracing andrejecting full information resemble those for full rationality. A fullinformation account is attractive because it attributes reasons tocitizens based on many true propositions and no false ones. Further,complete information might guarantee determinate recommendations, andif agents share relevant information, they will tend to converge onsimilar conclusions. Yet, complete information may model citizens inan implausibly abstract fashion, and it gives them powers that nofinite and fallible being has.

2.4.2 Moderate Idealization

Public reason liberals take criticisms of radical idealizationincreasingly seriously. (See Gaus 2011, 232–260 and Vallier2014, 145–180.) If these criticisms are successful, one mightreconsider returning to justificatory populism. However, there may bea third option: moderate idealization. Moderate idealization assignsreasons based on some standard of adequate information and reasoning.Yet it falls short of full information and perfect reasoning. Themoderate idealization theorist argues that we can go too far inseparating idealized belief-value sets from citizens’ dingy,real-world belief-value sets. We will eventually sever the tie betweenthem. And, as Wolterstorff insists (2007, 153), the idealized personmay have no reason to care about his counterpart’srecommendations. (Also see Enoch 2013, 164–170; for a reply, seeGaus 2015). The pull toward radical idealization must balancerespecting citizens as they are. (This latter element will be crucialfor maintaining stability; see 5.2.) Radical idealization may test the“strains of commitment” (Rawls 1971, 155–9) indemanding that citizens cognitively struggle to see what reasons theyhave. But moderate idealization may prove acceptable to most ordinarycitizens. Moderate idealization is an appropriate acknowledgment ofthe demands of the impartial perspective.

2.4.3 Reasonableness

Idealization limits the set of reasons that figure into publicjustification. “Normative” idealizations that representthe public as reasonable do likewise. In one way, reasonableness mayseem to be a redundant category. Rawls, Gauthier, and Habermasrepresent citizens as reasonable by depriving them of partializinginformation. But reasonableness is not redundant. It attributescognitive dispositions to agents uncaptured by idealizing beliefs,desires, and values.

Rawls’s conception of the reasonable plays two roles in histheory of justice. First, the veil of ignorance models reasonableness.But a citizen of the well-ordered society is also reasonable becauseshe possesses the following four dispositions (Rawls 2005,49–52, 53–58, 60, 76, 119, 162–3, 229). (1) Adisposition to engage in public justification or to offerjustifications for her own preferred principles and abide by thejustified principles proposed by others. (2) A disposition torecognize the “burdens of judgment” implies reasonablepluralism. (3) A disposition to reject the repression of otherreasonable points of view. (4) A disposition to rely on methods ofreasoning that others can share or access.

Public reason liberals share something like the standard conception ofreasonableness. But idealizing members of the public as reasonableruns into two problems. First, such idealization risks ruling too manycitizens out of the justificatory public. Second, representing thepublic as reasonable might forestall justifying coercive socialarrangements in a way that helps them to approximate a voluntaryagreement (Nagel 1987).

2.5 Scope of the Public

The scope of the public determines who to idealize. Publicjustification theorists typically identify the public with members ofa traditional nation-state. Theorists do this to simplify, but alsodue to an implicit nationalism. Rawls confined his theory of justiceto members of a nation, though he later developed an account of publicjustification for global matters (2002). This matter is left todebates about nationalism and cosmopolitanism (see the entries onnationalism andcosmopolitanism).

Public reason liberals tend to leave future generations out of thepublic (though see the entry onintergenerational justice). Some theorists, like Gauthier, confine public justification topersons capable of cooperation. But most theorists apply publicjustification to all citizens.

2.6 Modalities of Public Justification

The PJP can also specify which social processes establish publicjustification. We can sort social processes into four types:discursive, universalizing, bargaining, and evolutionary. Discursiveviews identify public justification with an agreement reached betweenpublic discussants. Universalizing approaches identify publicjustification with fair and reciprocal principles. Bargainingapproaches identify publicly justified principles as those thatmaximally advance individual interests. Evolutionary approaches arethe most distinctive. They distinguish sharply between public reasonand public justification. In their view, a coercive principle \(L\) ispublicly justified when it is a stable, evolved public equilibrium. Noprocess of public reasoning needs to take place. These four theorieseach have a prominent representative. In order they are JürgenHabermas, John Rawls, David Gauthier and Gerald Gaus.

2.6.1 Discursive

Discursive theories understand public justification as generatingagreement among disputants through a process of real discourse underjust and fair social institutions. Such views divide into Habermasianand pragmatist theories (Talisse 2005; Misak 2000). We can outline thediscursive view by reviewing Habermas’s account (see the entryonJürgen Habermas).

Habermas holds (1999, 68) that “the justification of norms andcommands requires that a real discourse be carried out.” Theonly way to achieve public justification is through freeargumentation. Such argumentation convinces citizens to recognize theclaims others make on them. For \(A\) to make a legitimate claim on\(B\), \(A\) must submit his claim to \(B\)’s critique. Thediscursive process forms each individual’s conception of herinterests and commitments. Habermas calls this process “willformation.” Personal opinions can change and then produce arational consensus. Habermas idealizes in this way to define aconception of the reasonable. Citizens take a discursive, moral pointof view. Their goal is to reach a rational consensus about theinterests of the public. (For details about how idealized discourseproceeds, see Habermas 1999, 65–6.)

2.6.2 Universalizing

Universalizing views try to identify a regime that fairly advanceseveryone’s interests in accord with how individuals understandthose interests. Rawls exemplifies this view: a theory of justicejustifies claims that citizens make on one another’s conductfrom our perspectives. Given how much people disagree, Rawls knowsthat gaining traction on justification is complex, and he responds byconverting it into a problem of social choice. Rawls: “thequestion of justification [can be] settled by working out a problem ofdeliberation” (Rawls 1971, 16). Principles of justice arepublicly justified when parties to a proper choice situation selectthem.

2.6.3 Bargaining

Bargaining views call a regime legitimate for an individual when itmaximally advances her interests. Bargaining suggests a negotiationthat yields a stable equilibrium of opposing forces: each personachieves as much as she can, consistent with the needs of others. Themost prominent example of a bargaining theory is DavidGauthier’s contractarianism. Gauthier argues that citizens needa social morality to secure social cooperation. We identify moral andpolitical norms as justified when it is instrumentally rational foreach agent to accept them.

Individuals “faced with the costs of natural or marketinteraction in the face of externalities agree to a different,cooperative mode of interaction.” Rational individuals do so to“maximize their own utility” (Gauthier 1986, 145–6).The goal is to show why anyone should accept moral restraints on theirbehavior. Gauthier proposes that even instrumental rationality canjustify ethical constraints to all. A citizen can be subject to statecoercion in certain respects because it is in his interests. Gauthierdoes not base public justification on the total utility it produces.Parties strike bargains where each person provides the minimumrelative concession of rents. Publicly justified rules maximize eachperson’s share, but joint maximization constrains eachperson’s claim. Each side seeks the best bargain they canget.

In recent years, both Michael Moehler (2018) and Peter Vanderschraaf(2018) have revived bargaining approaches to public justification.Moehler develops a “two level” theory of practicalrationality for social contract theory. Bargaining reasoning is thefallback position when more moralized contracting fails.Vanderschraaf’s book,Strategic Justice, takes thebargaining approach to its highest level of sophistication.

2.6.4 Evolutionary

Evolutionary views are, again, the newest approach. The approacharguably originates in Bryan Skyrms (1996). But Gerald Gaus (2011) istoday the most well-known proponent of such a view. Evolutionary viewsare new because they react to perceived failures of other approaches.Gaus, for instance, rejects bargaining views, claiming that parties topublic justification must be intrinsic rule-followers. We can followrules that frustrate our goals. Gaus argues that agents who followmoral rules for instrumental reasons cannot sustain cooperationbecause its members still have reason to defect when others cooperate.Moral agency, he concludes, must allow us to decline to maximize thesatisfaction of our goals.

For Gaus, then, parties will not accept every instrumentally rationalbargain. They also know that public discourse will not resolve theirdisagreements. And a universalizing approach will yield multipleeligible social arrangements; universalizing strategies areindeterminate. Gaus appeals to social evolution to produce convergenceon an eligible understanding, which would otherwise be indeterminate.When society reaches an undefeated agreement, it achieves publicjustification. Each party sees no other way to secure socialcooperation. Public reason combines with a sociological thesis:spontaneous order processes can converge on norms. No one foresees orconstructs the justified principle or rule. But all have reason toaccept the outcome of such a process.

Evolutionary views draw on “adaptive” rationality,contrasted with “calculated” rationality (March 1978). Anagent is rational when she adapts effectively to her environment, soher rationality does not depend on how she adapts, only that sheadapts well. Calculated rationality occurs when one adapts throughdeliberative decision-making. Many theorists assume the PJP is aprinciple of calculative reason. But evolutionary theorists rejectthis claim. \(L\) is publicly justified for \(P\) if each member hassufficient reason to endorse \(L\). Full stop. Public justificationobtains even if justificatory reasons differ. It even obtains whenthese reasons are the consequence of an equilibrium process. Thereasons need not derive from explicit deliberation.

Gaus continued the evolutionary project up toThe Open Society andIts Complexities (Gaus 2021). The book draws complexity economicsand agent-based modeling to determine when and in what circumstances adiverse population will converge on common rules. Here Gaus draws onRyan Muldoon (2019), who introduced agent-based modeling into socialcontract theory. Muldoon uses his theory to challenge consensus viewsof public reason.

2.7 Coercion Alone?

Typically public justification addresses the permissibility ofpolitical coercion. Coercion might apply to constitutional essentialsand basic justice (Rawls 2005). Or it applies to coercive law as well(Quong 2011). Yet some theorists extend public justification beyondcoercion. Gaus (2011) and Chad Van Schoelandt (2015) argue that publicjustification evaluates relations of moral authority. We publiclyjustify our practice of making moral demands of others, even if therules we demand others follow are not coercive. Colin Bird (2014)grounds public justification in the standing of democratic citizens asco-authors of legislation. In Bird’s view, we must justifynon-coercive legislation that affects the status of citizens. Anexample might be communicative legislation that defines an optionallysworn national pledge of allegiance. Some public reason theoristsbroaden the idea of coercion to cover structural coercion (Boettcher2016, Wong 2020).

3. The Liberty Principle

The PJP only explains how to justify coercion (or some related form ofdemand). It includes no other moral principle that describes whycoercion is problematic. Nor does it explain how to handle unjustifiedcoercion. So, one might combine the PJP with a consequentialist norm.Unjustified coercion, on this view, merits minimization. Or we couldadopt a deontological side constraint on using unjustified coercion.Again, on this matter, the PJP is silent.

And yet, many public justification theorists, with other liberals,adopt such a principle. Some theorists call it the Liberty Principle.It takes the form of a presumption in favor of liberty or againstcoercion. Stanley Benn (1988, 87) defends such a presumption. Benn:“the burden of justification falls on the interferer, not on theperson interfered with.”

Joel Feinberg (1987, 9) also defends a “presumption in favor ofliberty.” Defined: “liberty should be the norm, coercionalways needs some special justification.” While Benn worriesabout interference, and Feinberg about coercion, their presumptionsare similar. Rawls (2001, 44) endorses a presumption against legalcoercion, which also appears in his liberal principle of legitimacy.Rawls: “Our exercise of political power is proper only when wesincerely believe that the reasons we offer for our political actionmay reasonably be accepted by other citizens as a justification ofthose actions” (Rawls 2005, xlvi). Rawls does not speak ofcoercion in this formulation. Yet he elsewhere claims that“political power is always coercive power” (68). Further,public justification should explain when citizens may coerce another(217). We can naturally read Rawls, then, as endorsing the LibertyPrinciple. Gaus (2011) probably provides the most extensive defense ofthe liberty principle to date (though see Vallier 2019).

We can conjoin the PJP with the Liberty Principle. Together, theyexplain how to use the PJP to evaluate laws. When satisfied, the PJPlegitimizes coercion, overcoming the presumption in favor ofliberty.

4. Foundations of the Public Justification Principle

Now we inquire into the foundations of the PJP. Why should anyoneaccept it? The set of proposed normative foundations has increasedwith time. Classically, public justification rests on respect forpersons as free and equal. (See Larmore 2008; for criticism, seeEberle 2002, Gaus 2011 and Van Schoelandt 2015). Others ground the PJPin an analysis of the nature of rationality and morality (Habermas1996). One dominant view bases the PJP on requirements of justice(Rawls 2005: Quong 2013). Some draw on the value of civic friendship.(See Lister 2013, Ebels-Duggan 2010, Leland and van Wietmarschen 2017,van Wietmarschen 2021, Neufeld 2022. For criticism, see Billingham2016.) Gaus adopts a PJP because he argues that publicly justifiedrules avoid authoritarianism and fit with the reactive attitudes (forcriticism, see Tahzib 2019, Taylor 2018). At a deeper moral level,these rules preserve moral relations between persons. (Gaus 2011,Vallier 2022. For criticism, see Enoch 2013 and Enoch 2015.)

Watson and Hartley (2018) rest public justification on respect forpersons and reciprocity. Vallier (2019, 2020) grounds a PJP in thevalue of social trust or trust between members of society (though seeTahzib 2021). Neo-Hobbesian views have seen a revival in the work ofMoehler (2018) and Vanderschraaf (2018); they have much more developedtheories of instrumental rationality as a basis for publicjustification.

For space purposes, I omit a discussion of these foundations, as itwould only recapitulate the argument found in the entry onpublic reason.

A related foundational question asks who merits a public justificationin the first place (this question relates to the question of the scopeof public justification, but is logically prior to it). Quong (2011,137–160) applies public justification to an idealizedconstituency of reasonable people. Gaus (2011, 232–268) directspublic justification to actual persons; their justifying reasons arethose that survive moderate idealization. Quong calls his view the“internal conception” of political liberalism. Hecontrasts it with the “external conception.” The externalconception directs public justification to natural persons as theyare. But few public reason liberals adopt the external view. TheGausian model appeals to a limited idealization, not none. Theinternal conception has been subject to several criticisms. (Gaus2012, Billingham 2017a, Vallier 2017). But theorists also criticizethe Gausian approach (Enoch 2013, Quong 2014).

Deciding who merits a public justification requires explaining itspoint. For Quong and others, public justification renders consistentour fundamental political ideals. Examples include the idea of societyas a system of cooperation and persons as free and equal. For Gaus,public justification establishes moral relations between naturalpersons (Gaus 2011). These relations are ones of equal respect. Butthey also lay the foundation for closer ties of trust, love, andfriendship.

The internal/external conception contrast no longer serves to classifypublic reason liberals. Vallier and Muldoon (2021) have argued thatpublic reason has split into two projects. The first project, whichthey call thecoherence project, characterizes the internalconception; it involves rendering our political ideals consistent. Theproject contrasts with thediversity project; diversitytheorists use diverse reasoning to achieve real-world publicjustification. Vallier and Muldoon (2021) set the external conceptionaside.

Theoriginal project, advanced by Rawls and traditionalRawlsians, continues (Weithman 2011). But the coherence and diversityprojects arose from a shared worry about it. Rawls uses both consensusand convergence reasoning in legitimizing state coercion. We firstjustify a conception of justice based on shared values, and we thensee if it can become the object of an overlapping consensus. Coherencetheorists say the first stage is critical, while the second stage isconfusing. But diversity theorists say the second stage is necessaryas a heuristic for finding points of convergence. Original projecttheorists refuse to choose between these two justificatory stages.

For the most recent work in the coherence project, see Neufeld 2022.For the most recent work in the diversity project, see Gaus 2021.Gaus’s work has pushed public reason so far in a diversitydirection that in some ways it is no longer a form of social contracttheory (Gaus 2018). Gaus now models the choice of principles as asocially interdependent choice process, and not a single agreement.Gaus even began developing a research program based on these insightscalled the New Diversity Theory (Gaus 2018b).

5. Sister Concepts

The PJP ties itself to two essential concepts: publicity andstability. A law that achieves stability and publicity may therebycount as publicly justified. In other cases, theorists see reachingpublicity and stability as theoretical merits—considerationsthat favor their approach to public justification over others. If aversion of the PJP conflicts with publicity, that could refute thespecification. Other factors can count against this specification ofthe PJP. But publicity and stability are central to publicjustification, so we explore connections.

5.1 Publicity

For Rawls, “public justification” occurs when awell-ordered society achieves “full publicity.” Fullpublicity contains three levels (see the entry onpublicity). The first level occurs when public principles of justice effectivelyregulate society. Rawls (2005, 66): “citizens accept and knowthat others likewise accept those principles, and this in turn ispublicly recognized.” Each person sees society’s basicstructure as justified by shared reasoning.

The second level requires that citizens of a well-ordered society haveshared beliefs. In particular, they believe that all can accept thefirst principles of justice. Their evaluations draw on “generalbeliefs about human nature” and how institutions work (67).

Level three establishes “the full justification of the publicconception of justice as it would be presented in its ownterms.” It must include all considerations relevant togenerating a conception of justice. Then the full justificationbecomes “publicly known” or at least “publiclyavailable.”

Full publicity arises when all three levels of publicity occur. When asociety reaches full publicity, its conception of justice becomespublicly justified. Yet this is so only given two conditions. Theconception of justice must become a political conception. It mustderive from shared and public political values. Second, it must reachan overlapping consensus. Full publicity comprises “publicjustification,” Rawls’s third stage of justifying apolitical conception. It occurs when each person knows that thepolitical conception is fully justified. (Rawls 2005, 386–7).For Rawls, “public justification happens when all the reasonablemembers of political society carry out a justification of the sharedpolitical conception by embedding it in their several reasonablecomprehensive views.” Thus, public justification obtains viapublicity.

Charles Larmore (2008, 203–7) traces Rawls’s idea ofpublic reason to concerns about publicity. Paul Weithman (2011, 242)stresses the centrality of publicity in Rawls. Publicity helps educatesociety about the basis of its political views. And it is crucial formaintaining a community as stable for the right reasons.

Rawls’s notion of publicity is the most common in theliterature, but Gaus (2011, 296–7) offers a less demanding“weak” publicity standard. Notice, then, thatRawls’s conception of publicity is quite demanding. The PJP doesnot insist that public justifications achieve full publicity, and mosttheorists say that people should be able to tell when laws or rulesare publicly justified. Publicity is a “sister concept” topublic justification when it helps to establish publicjustification.

Some theorists define publicity as the publicity of shared reasons.(See Rawls 2002, 173.) They adopt a consensus approach to aid publicrecognition that public justification occurs. (See Hadfield and Macedo2012; Watson and Hartley 2018.) And yet, consensus and convergenceviews appeal to publicity. Both approaches want citizens to know whenlaws or policies are justified for all. Convergence theorists may notdefine the PJP as including shared values, but they still findpublicity attractive. This difference draws on the contrast betweenintelligibility and accessibility discussed above.

Publicity remains a central topic in this literature, but has gonewithout major treatments until Kogelmann 2022.

5.2 Stability

Stability is the other sister concept to public justification. Manypublic reason liberals think publicly justified principles must besomehow morally stable. Rawls (2005, 140–3) advances this line:public justification helps political conceptions become “stablefor the right reasons.”

Weithman (2011) argues that Rawls’s changing ideal of stabilitydrove revisions to his theory. Rawls wanted his political principlesto reach stability in a diverse society despite reasonable pluralism.In some ways, concerns about stability are a reason to care aboutpublic justification. A community may only reach moral stability, thatis, stability for the right reasons if each person has moral reason toendorse society’s coercive power. Otherwise, stability rests ona balance of power alone—amodus vivendi regime.

Some theorists draw a looser connection between stability and publicjustification. Whether a principle can stabilize is a reason to preferit over less stable principles. (Rawls sometimes talks this way inTheory.) Stability may also help vindicate a conception ofpublic justification over others. So, suppose that a convergence viewhelps justify laws in ways that promote stability. If so, we may havereason to adopt a convergence over a consensus view.

Rawls’s focus on stability raises another complex issue. Thepresent entry addressed idealizing persons as reasonable or not(2.4.3). Some idealizations attribute reasons to citizens based onwhat they would reasonably endorse. Stability is also sometimesmoralized. It is valuable only when based on “the rightreasons.” Rawls resists merely prescriptive stability, however.He does not want to stabilize a society based only on what ought tomake it stable. Instead, stability has content apart from its basis inmoral reasons. A community can be unstable even if its institutionsrest on reasonable grounds. Stability has an ethical ideal and adescriptive ideal of real stability. Public justification then canhave both moral and descriptive parts. Publicly justified rules areboth real and justified. Gaus has criticized Rawls (1996, 130–6)for his populist conception of stability. He has developed analternative (2011, 389–408). So, many public justificationtheorists feel the pull of descriptive and moral stability. But some,like Quong (2011), adopt a purely normative notion.

Following Weithman (2011), philosophers now explore stabilizationmechanisms. Weithman argues that public reasons create stability forthe right reasons and that this was Rawls’s view.

Vallier and John Thrasher (2015) think public reasons are poorassurance signals. They raise problems associated with cheap talk andmisinformation. These factors may be present even in well-orderedsocieties. Kogelmann and Steven H. W. Stich (2016) embrace convergencediscourse for stability. Convergence allows people to use diversereasons as costly signals of cooperative inclinations. It takes agreat deal of effort to speak the political languages of variousgroups. The use of diverse discourse can thus create stability. Thisliterature continues to bear fruit.

6. Objections

This entry as a whole explains the ideal of public justification, soit does not explore objections to public justification in detail.Instead, it offers a comprehensive list of criticisms. Some items inthe list draw on a shorter list constructed by Jonathan Quong (2011,259–60). In general, the objections aim at particularconceptions of public justification, but unless specified, assume thatcritics direct their complaints against all versions of publicjustification discussed.

6.1 The Incompleteness Objection

Many critics of public justification claim it cannot address criticalpolitical issues. This problem arises from restrictions on permissiblereasoning in public life. (De Marneffe 1994, Reidy 2000; Schwartzman2004). Critics here object to consensus views, which restrict the setof justifying reasons. Citizens may not have shared reasons andinstead appeal to personal considerations, so the convergence viewmakes this objection less pressing.

6.2 The Indeterminacy Objection

Critics have argued that public reason liberals embrace excessivelyindeterminate conceptions of justice. The ideal of publicjustification cannot make determinate recommendations. Gaus (2011)presses this objection against Rawlsian conceptions of publicjustification, resolving indeterminacy by appealing to actualevolutionary mechanisms (see 2.7.4). This “normalization”objection rejects attempts to avoid indeterminacy by adoptinghomogenizing assumptions. (D’Agostino 2003)

6.3 The Antidemocratic Objection

Deliberative democrats have complained that Rawls identifies justiceapart from real deliberation. Habermas famously (1995, 127–8)lodged this criticism against Rawls. This objection targets Rawlsianuniversalizing public justification.

6.4 The Integrity Objection

Some say public justification imposes excessive burdens on people offaith. By barring unshared reasons, it excludes religious reasons frompublic discourse. Critics say people of faith have no reason to acceptthose constraints. (Eberle 2002, Wolterstorff 1997, Vallier 2014). Theconstraints, if followed, would divide the identity of religiouspeople, and the person of faith’s identity may disintegrate.

The integrity objection relates to a fairness objection. Thisobjection claims that public justification prioritizes secular overreligious reasons, arbitrarily preferring secular citizens. (Perry1993, Wolterstorff 1997). Note that convergence undermines theseobjections as it allows appeals to religious reasons. (Eberle 2012).The integrity objection also relates to the Denial of Truth objection(Neal 2009). Neal thinks citizens who abide by public justificationcannot appeal to the truth as they see it. Andrew March (2013)provides a taxonomy of religion-based criticisms of public reason. Heargues that some restrictions can burden us too much. But otherconditions are justified.

6.4.1 The Antidiscourse Objection

Public justification might also support unrealistic views ofdemocratic politics because real politics uses personal reasons tobuild coalitions and forge compromises (Shapiro 1999). This objectionfocuses on the burdensomeness of public reason, but it also concernswhether public reason is realistic. Note that the antidiscourseobjection threatens discursive views of public justification.

6.4.2 The Marginalization Objection

Some critics argue that public justification privileges logical, calm,dispassionate forms of discourse. There may be minority groups that donot find such speech rules satisfactory. (It is a matter ofcontroversy who these minority groups are.) The objection mirrors theintegrity objection, but they apply to different social groups.(Sanders 1997, Young 2000). These critics oppose Rawlsianinterpretations of the PJP.

6.5 The Unreasonableness Objection

Public reason liberals often say many citizens are unreasonable, butthis claim meets powerful resistance due to its ambiguity. Othersobject because uses of the reasonable privilege some over others, sothe standard is inegalitarian. (Bohman 2003, Friedman 2000). Thisobjection focuses on Rawlsian interpretations of PJP.

6.6 The Asymmetry Objection

Public reason liberals argue that reasonable people will disagreeabout the human good. But they also claim that reasonable people willagree on conceptions of justice. Some critics say these claims areproblematic because they are asymmetric. The same factors that drivereasonable pluralism about the good apply to justice, hence theasymmetry. (For discussion and rebuttal, see Quong 2011,192–220.) This objection applies to a wide range ofinterpretations of the PJP. But convergence theorists often acceptjustice pluralism. (Gaus 2011, 276–9; Gaus and Van Schoelandt2017, Vallier 2019, Gjesdal 2022).

6.7 The Self-Refutation Objection

The PJP holds that all coercive actions or laws require justificationfor each member of the public. But critics ask whether this treatmentapplies to the PJP itself. If so, then given that reasonable peopledisagree about the PJP, the PJP is self-refuting. But suppose the PJPneeds no public justification; if so, its defenders make an arbitraryexception for their moral principle. (Wall 2002; Christiano 2010,206–213; Estlund 2008; Wall 2013; Enoch 2013,170–173).

Some respond by arguing that their version of the PJP can satisfyitself (Estlund 2008). Other public reason liberals exclude the PJPfrom public justification, but they then argue that the exclusion isnot arbitrary. (Gaus 2011; Vallier 2016a; Bajaj 2017. This objectionapplies to any interpretation of the PJP. For a more recentdiscussion, see Billingham 2017b.)

6.8 The Perfectionism Objection

Liberal perfectionists claim that the state should promote theauthentic human good. They reject public justification for preventinggovernments from promoting that good. And they reject the ideas of“neutrality” and “restraint” that justify thePJP. (Wall 1998, Chan 2000.) For some prominent replies, see Quong2011. Perfectionists reject the PJP itself, not merely someinterpretations of it.

6.9 The Empty Set Objection

The most powerful objection to the PJP is that it allows too manyreasons to defeat proposed laws. The objection applies to variousinterpretations of the PJP. But critics direct it most often at theconvergence views. (Eberle 2012; Enoch 2015, though see Schultz-Bergin2021) By allowing diverse defeaters into public justification, fewproposals reach public justification. Few states can engage in theirmost basic functions. Some public reason liberals admit that publicjustification is often beyond us. (Rawls 2005, D’Agostino 2006).We may need some degree of social development to establish a publiclyjustified polity. (Rawls 2005).

Gaus offers the most prominent response. The benefits of shared normscan populate an otherwise empty set of proposals. The idea here isthat we all rank some rules ahead of no rule governing some issue.While we regard some rules as sub-optimal, they improve our relationswith others. This reply is a sociological response: people prefersub-optimal ethical rules to no rules because empty sets aredebilitating. Both Rawls and Gaus provide such arguments. (Rawls 2002,124–128, Gaus 2011, 303–333, 389–408,424–447).

In short, each person may have a defeater for another’spreferred moral rule. But most members of the public prefer someethical governance to none, and in that case, they may deem some moralrules acceptable but not optimal.

6.10 The Insincerity Objection

This objection threatens convergence views. Quong thinks permittingpersonal reasons allows citizens to be insincere with one another.Convergence citizens can offer others reasons they do not believe aregood reasons. (Quong 2011). This objection does not address thedistinction between shared reasons and standards. We are not insincereif we offer others reasons that follow our modes of inquiry but end upin a different place. If we share a scientific method, yet end up withdifferent theories, we may have varied reasons. But sharing diversereasons is not insincere when our shared background is commonknowledge.

Quong’s consensus constraints also appear to bar reasoning byconjecture. (Rawls 2002, Schwartzman 2012). Conjectural reasoningallows persons to appeal to the reasons of other comprehensivedoctrines. But both parties are aware of the nature of such appeals.That said, sincerity requirements may still have an essential role inpublic reason. (Schwartzman 2011)

6.11 Theoretical Indeterminacy

Fred D’Agostino (1996) argues that the PJP admits many variants.(We characterize the variants through values in the PJP.) We havereasons to favor a range of interpretations of the PJP. For example,public justification appeals to idealization. But we have grounds toidealize radically, moderately, or not at all. (Macedo 1990 makesthese points.) Unfortunately, the case for idealizing, but notidealizing too much, is complicated and involves conflictingdesiderata. True, conflicting desiderata are common in any theoreticaldomain. Still, D’Agostino worries that conceptions of publicjustification arise from incompatible motivations, and theorists lackconceptual resources to weigh these considerations against oneanother. In his final book, Gaus (2021) argues that even his earlierevolutionary model of public reason (Gaus 2011) would not lead toconvergence on rules in many cases; but with diverse agents in a freeand interactive model of rule choice can converge on rules moreoften.

6.12 Concerns about Idealization

Public reason liberals, again, feel intense pressure to idealize. Butsome critics think idealization is always arbitrary.

Eberle (2002) claims idealizations reflect the biases and values oftheorists, which is why largely secular public reason liberalssuppress religious reasons. So, any version of the PJP that appeals toidealization is subject to this objection.

David Enoch (2013) rejects Gaus’s moderate idealization. ContraGaus, such idealization does not show that social-moral rules reduceauthoritarianism. Nicholas Wolterstorff (2007) argues that coercingsomeone based on an idealization is patronizing. Even disrespectful.For recent papers on idealization, see Besch 2019, Donahue 2021,Vallier 2020b.

In light of these objections, Fabian Wendt (2019) has tried toseparate public justification from public reason liberals. He hopes tocapture what is attractive about public justification while separatingit from problems with public reason in liberal political thought.

6.13 New Objections to Convergence

In recent years, consensus theorists have pushed back againstconvergence views in detail. While these arguments are all unique,they are worth noting as a general phenomenon. See Badano and Bonotti2020, Boettcher 2020, Tahzib 2021, Neufeld 2022. But the debate rageson from convergence theorists; see Motchoulski 2020.

7. Applied Issues

Theorists often use public justification to address important appliedquestions. Applied questions concern religion in liberal democracies,religious exemptions, feminism, marriage policy, environmental issues,healthy eating policies, and even public reason and Confucianism.Applied issues are the order of the day in much of the literature.

On the religion in politics literature, see the entry onreligion and political theory. Also, see literature reviews in March 2013, Vallier 2014, and Baileyand Gentile 2014. While many public reason liberals have moved awayfrom a restraint-based approach to religion in public life (Gaus andVallier 2009, Laborde 2017, newer work defends such principles (Watsonand Hartley 2018). Some even focus public reason on discourse, settingpublic justification aside (Leland 2019). Still other theorists havefocused on developing principles of restraint appropriate for managingpartisanship and the conduct of political parties (Bonotti 2017).

We have seen the rapid expansion of the literature on public reasonand religious exemptions, brought into clear focus in CecileLaborde’s (2017) work. (Also see Bespalov 2019.) Some of theexemption literature extends into medical exemptions. See McConnelland Card 2019.

Public reason and feminism discussions are now voluminous. (Okin 1994,Rawls 2002, Nussbaum 2003, Baehr 2008, Hartley and Watson 2009,Hartley and Watson 2010, Neufeld and Van Schoelandt 2014, and Watsonand Hartley 2018).

To explore public justification and marriage policy, see Brake 2010,Macedo 2015, Chambers 2017, and Toop 2019.

Public reason methods have also been applied to environmental issues(Shahar forthcoming; Nielsen and Hauge-Helgestad 2021), as well ashealthy eating policy (Bonotti and Barnhill 2019).

We are also seeing the beginnings of a discussion about theintersection of public reason and the Confucian religion (Kim 2019;D’Ambrosio 2019).

We have also seen the introduction of new formal methods into publicreason, such as social choice theory (Kogelmann 2017, 2019; Chung2020), agent-based modeling (Muldoon 2019, Gaus 2021), and fixed-pointtheorems (Schaefer 2022).

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Acknowledgments

Versions of this entry published from 1996 to mid-2012 were writtenand maintained by Fred D’Agostino. Kevin Vallier tookresponsibility for updating and maintaining the entry beginning withthe version published in mid-2012. As of March 2018, no substantivecontent remains from D’Agostino and it is now solely the work ofKevin Vallier.