The Fragility of Consensus: Public Reason,Diversity and Stability

John Rawls's transition from A Theory of Justice to Political Liberalism was driven by his rejection of Theory's account of stability. The key to his later account of stability is the idea of public reason. We see Rawls's account of stability as an attempt to solve a mutual assurance problem. We maintain that Rawls's solution fails because his primary assurance mechanism, in the form of public reason, is fragile. His conception of public reason relies on a condition of consensus that we argue is unrealistic in modern, pluralistic democracies. After rejecting Rawls's conception of public reason, we offer an ‘indirect alternative’ that we believe is much more robust. We cite experimental evidence to back up this claim.     

In Defense of the Asymmetric Convergence Model of Public Justification: A Reply to Boettcher

This piece defends the asymmetric convergence model of public justification in response to James Boettcher’s critique. I maintain both that Boettcher’s critique of asymmetric convergence fails and that his alternative view, Weak Public Justification, faces a number of serious challenges.     

Can liberal perfectionism justify religious toleration? Wall on promoting and respecting

Toleration is perhaps the core commitment of liberalism, but this seemingly simple feature of liberal societies creates tension for liberal perfectionists, who are committed to justifying religious toleration primarily in terms of the goods and flourishing it promotes. Perfectionists, so it seems, should recommend restricting harmful religious practices when feasible. If such restrictions would promote liberal perfectionist values like autonomy, it is unclear how the perfectionist can object. A contemporary liberal perfectionist, Steven Wall, has advanced defense of religious toleration that grounds perfectionist toleration in an innovative account of reasons of respect. He thus defends perfectionist toleration on two grounds: (i) the appropriate manner of responding to perfectionist goods like autonomy and membership is to respect the religious choices of others; (ii) citizens can acquire reasons to respect the religious choices of others through internalizing a value-promoting moral and political code. I argue that both defenses fail. The cornerstone of both arguments is the connection Wall draws between reasons to promote value and reasons to respect it. I claim that Wall’s conception of the relationship between promoting and respecting value is inadequate. I conclude that the failure of Wall’s defense of perfectionist toleration should motivate liberal perfectionists to develop more sophisticated accounts of normative reasons. The viability of a truly liberal perfectionism depends upon such developments.     

Public justification versus public deliberation: the case for divorce

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.     

Repeated Effects of Vigorous Interval Training in Basketball,Running-Biking,and Boxing on the Physical Self-Perceptions of Obese Adolescents

This study aims to examine the repeated effects of three sessions of vigorous interval training (VIT) in basketball, running-biking, and boxing on the physical self-perceptions (PSP) of obese adolescents participating in a dietary program. A sample of 24 obese adolescents performed the consecutive VIT sessions every week for 5 weeks. PSP were measured immediately after each training session. Analyses of covariance were used to examine changes in PSP. The results showed rapid and constant increases in PSP with significant differences according to sex, time, type of VIT, and an interaction of sex by time by type of VIT, mainly for basketball.     

Pluralistic Partisanship

Res Publica - This essay explores and criticizes Matteo Bonotti’s argument that parties and partisans in a publicly justified polity should appeal primarily, if not exclusively, to accessible...     

Equal Citizenship and Convergence

I argue against Lori Watson and Christie Hartley's recent criticisms of convergence approaches to public justification. In particular, I argue that convergence approaches can capture what is distinctive about democratic decision-making and provide an attractive account of stability for the right reasons.     

The Duties of Political Officials in a Minimally Secular State

Cécile Laborde's important book, Liberalism's Religion, attempts to develop an ethic governing political officials that requires that they only use, and be responsive to, accessible reasons. Laborde's accessibility requirement articulates her unique approach to the role of religion in liberal politics. This article challenges Laborde's accessibility ethic on three grounds: (1) the ethic suffers from a lack of idealisation, (2) there is little reason to prevent inaccessible reasons from defeating coercion, and her ecumenical approach to exemptions recognises this in effect, and (3), the question of whether the accessibility ethic is true is partly empirical, but Laborde does not supply us with an adequate empirical argument.