The requirement of mutual justification (MJ) is one or the fundamental ideas shared by some of the most influential deliberative theories of democracy. The aim of the present paper is to defend the plausibility of MJ against two possible objections. The first one states that MJ involves the commitment to a controversial conception of the notion of justification, which is incompatible with what is commonly understood by the epistemic justification of a belief. The second objection claims that satisfying MJ undermines (...) the epistemic quality of political deliberation. (shrink)

From the point of view of political liberalism, one of the main features of “reasonable” people consists in accepting that the firm adhesion to a comprehensive conception of good, the certainty of dealing with a true conception , does not offer a sufficient justification to the intention of promoting it by means of the power of the State. Now, how is this liberal position founded? My aim in this paper is to offer an argument for it. To do so, I (...) will start analysing some aspects of Rawls´conception of “reasonable person” and the difficulties derived from this conception, particularly enlightened by the objections formulated to it by Leif Wenar and Eduardo Rivera López. I will propose an alternative argument to the presented ones, departing from two premises: 1) a political principle of equality and free consensus and 2) a practical interpretation of the burdens of judgement. (shrink)

In A Letter Concerning Toleration, John Locke argues in favor of religious toleration positing that the state cannot make a person's life better by forcing that person to live according to beliefs he refuses. More recently, Ronald Dworkin and Will Kymlicka have developed similar arguments. In the first case, against some paternalistic policies; in the second, in support of the liberal ideal of state neutrality. My aim in the present paper is to analyze the plausibility of these arguments conceived as (...) a defense of liberal neutrality. I will prove that both versions of the argument fail. In section II, I will object the argument's capability to support the conclusions it attempts to establish, without raising doubts about the reliability of its premises. In section III, I will submit three objections against the conception of critical well-being that constitutes the core of both versions of the argument. (shrink)