In this article, I examine the ways in which “Public Reason” (or public reasons, in plural) can be said to resonate with some types of reasons as presented and defended in contemporary legal theory. I begin by identifying the concept of Public Reason within the context of a discussion sparked by the between “internal” and “external” reasons, which was made famous by Bernard Williams. I will then compare this interpretation of Public Reason with Joseph Raz’s celebrated concept of exclusionary reasons. (...) Next, I refer to two concepts of moral “neutrality” and how such concepts affect our understanding of Public Reason. I also reflect upon whether it is tenable to draw a distinction between the good reasons for actions that we conduct in our own lives and good reasons to be adopted in public life. Finally, I raise the question of a distinction between the reasons which we press in general societal discourse and those that we press in the advocacy-related law-making process. (shrink)

According to most contemporary theorists, free riding on the cooperative contributions of others is unfair. At the same time, obligations to contribute to cooperative schemes can compel conformity with conventional practices, and can do so to a degree that poses a real threat to individuality. This paper exposes this tension between fairness and individuality, and proposes a way to resolve it. The resolution depends on an alternative approach to understanding fairness—one that appeals to the relational goods fairness is meant to (...) maintain. In particular, norms of fairness protect against the interactions within a relationship becoming disrespectful. Many instances of free riding are indeed disrespectful and hence unfair. But this is not always so: one can choose to live a lifestyle that fails to return the benefits their community provides without disrespecting one's fellows. It is thus possible to free ride without being unfair, and so duties of fairness need not add to those already formidable forces that threaten to extinguish valuable individuality. (shrink)

With a book as wide ranging and insightful as Barry'sJustice as Impartiality, it is perhaps a little churlish to criticize it for paying insufficient attention to one's own particular interests. That said, in what follows I am going to do just that and claim that in an important sense Barry does not take utilitarianism seriously. Utilitarianism does receive some discussion in Barry's book, and in an important section which I will discuss he even appears to concede that utilitarianism provides a (...) rival though ultimately inadequate theory of justice. Nevertheless, utilitarianism is not considered a rival to ‘justice as impartiality’ in the way that ‘justice as mutual advantage’ and ‘justice as reciprocity’ are. One response, and perhaps the only adequate response, would be to construct a rival utilitarian theory. I cannot provide such a theory in this paper, and I certainly would be very cautious about claiming that I could provide such a theory elsewhere. What I want to suggest is that utilitarianismisa genuine third theory to contrast with ‘justice as mutual advantage’ and ‘justice as impartiality’ – ‘justice as reciprocity’ being merely a hybrid of ‘justice as mutual advantage’, at least as Barry presents it (pp. 46–51). I also want to argue that it poses a more significant challenge to a contractualist theory such as Barry's than his discussion of utilitarianism reveals. (shrink)

The term “political” egalitarianism is used here, not to refer to equality within the political sphere, but rather in John Rawls’s sense, to refer to a conception of egalitarian distributive justice that is capable of serving as the object of an overlapping consensus in a pluralistic society.1 Thus “political” egalitarianism is political in the same way that Rawls’s “political” liberalism is political. The central task when it comes to developing such a conception of equality is to determine what constraints a (...) principle of equality must satisfy in order to qualify as “freestanding,” or to be justifiable in a way that does not presuppose the correctness of any one member of the set of reasonable yet incompatible “religious, philosophical and moral” doctrines that attract large numbers of adherents in our world.2 (Rawls uses the analogy of a “module” in order to describe the way that a properly political conception of justice “fits into and can be supported by various reasonable comprehensive doctrines that endure in the society regulated by it.”3 Political egalitarianism would be “modular” in this sense.) Rather than getting embroiled in the controversies that have arisen over Rawls’s formulation of this idea, I would like simply to accept the intuition, widespread among political philosophers, that equality is the sort of principle that – if given a proper formulation – could satisfy the requirements of a political conception of justice. After all, regardless of what peoples’ projects, values, or conceptions of the good life may be, it should be possible to design a set of arrangements that would provide equal opportunity to pursue these goals, or that would treat each conception of the good with equal respect, etc. From this perspective, the principle of equality resembles the principle of Pareto-efficiency, or certain formulations of the principle of liberty – it is one that everyone should be able to endorse, insofar as it does not privilege, or presuppose the correctness of, any particular set of projects, values.. (shrink)

(1998). Liberal legitimacy, reasonable disagreement and justice. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy: Vol. 1, Pluralsim and Liberal Neutrality, pp. 19-36. doi: 10.1080/13698239808403246.

We have found that a sparse version of the claim that alienated labor is a bad thing can inform a political morality without turning that morality into one which makes more comment on people's ends than the liberal can accept. We have also seen that a modification of the ideas of alienation from our species being can play a limited role in a liberal political morality, but that the rational kernel of the critique from species alienation is already a familiar (...) part of the liberal tradition. However, the substantive view of the good life - as one which essentially involves engagement in communal ties and satisfying labor - cannot play the role which certainly many Marxists would like it to play in their critique of capitalism, at least if their critique is to be recognizably liberal. Why should it matter so much that Marxists be able to accommodate central liberal insights? It is not because a political morality has to be liberal in order to be successful in the real world: history and the contemporary world are full of examples of political views which command wide assent despite (or because of) their illiberality. But the foreseeable stages of a socialist society will be plagued by the circumstances of justice as they have been classically conceived. A socialism which is sufficiently better than capitalism to be worth the significant risk and sacrifice it is likely to require must be liberal in the sense that it can be regarded as defensible to each person who is actually subject to it. This does not require that it accommodate the greed of the greedy or the injustice of the unjust. But it does require that it not presume the unworthiness of the moral commitments of its reasonable citizens. 47. (shrink)

Is a policy of economic growth compatible with the neutrality of the State? Some liberals (Rawls, Dworkin, Ackerman, Larmore, Kymlicka) think so. I do not. I begin by explaining and discussing the different meanings of the neutrality thesis, then I show that, whatever meaning we give to the idea of neutrality, it is very difficult to argue convincingly that a policy of economic growth does not favour some conceptions of the good.

In contemporary market societies, the laws do not place individuals under enforceable obligations to aid others. Perhaps the most striking exception to this broad generalization is the practice of conscription of able-bodied males into military service, particularly in time of war. Another notable exception is the legal enforcement in some contemporary societies of “Good Samaritan” obligations — obligations to provide temporary aid to victims of emergencies, such as car accident victims. The obligation applies to those who are in the immediate (...) vicinity of the emergency and who can supply aid of great value to the victim at small risk and tolerable cost to themselves. The fact that not all contemporary societies have enacted such Good Samaritan laws underscores the point that the general rule is that individuals are under no legal obligation to help others. According to some moral views, this legal situation approximately accords with the moral fact that persons who have not voluntarily incurred obligations to aid others should not be coerced into tendering such aid. Moreover, it is worth noting that these two prominent exceptions to the tendency of legal systems to eschew enforcement of positive obligations to aid others are plausibly in everyone's ex ante interest and not notably redistributive in intent. (shrink)

Public reasoning is widely thought to be essential to democracy, but there is much disagreement about whether such deliberation should be constrained by a principle of public reason, which may seem to conflict with important democratic values. This paper denies that there is such a conflict, and argues that the distinctive contribution of public reason is to constitute a relationship of civic friendship in a diverse society. Acceptance of public reason would not work against mutual understanding, learning, or compromise, nor (...) does the principle involve any violation of political equality. The real threat to democracy is not public reason, but the framing of public reason by a presumption against state action. (shrink)

This thesis argues that a particular version of equal opportunity for welfare is the best way of meeting the joint demands of three liberal egalitarian ideals: distributional equality, responsibility, and respect for individuals’ differing reasonable judgements of their own good. It also examines which social choice rules best represent these demands. Finally, it defends the view that achieving equal opportunity for welfare should not only be a goal of formal public institutions, but that just citizens should also sometimes be guided (...) by it in their everyday life. The version of equal opportunity for welfare it defends differs from some well-known contemporary versions in the following ways. First, it rejects a definition of welfare as the degree of satisfaction of a person’s preferences, because, it argues, this conception of welfare cannot adequately deal with preference change. Instead, it suggests that we should adopt a conception of welfare based on a list of goods and conditions that are recognised as valuable from the perspective of a variety of different conceptions of the good. Second, it argues that individuals’ prima facie claim to an equally valuable share of the world’s resources—a claim which is based on their equal moral worth—is limited to situations in which giving one person a more valuable share means that someone else ends up with a less valuable share. It also argues that in situations where we can improve at least one person’s situation without worsening anyone else’s, we generally do not fail to respect each person’s equal moral worth by doing so, even if this leads to inequalities. Third, it defends a distinct view of responsibility, which justifies social arrangements that give people certain options with reference to the value that individuals can achieve (but don’t necessarily achieve) through their choices from these options. (shrink)

En el presente trabajo sostengo que los argumentos específicos desarrollados por John Rawls para justificar la adopción de un estándar de bienes sociales primarios no logran su cometido. En primer lugar, presento y critico los argumentos rawlsianos relacionados con intuiciones antidiscriminatorias y con el hecho del pluralismo razonable. Asimismo, caracterizo y critico las ideas rawlsianas concernientes al alcance del concepto de equidad, así como el argumento de los gustos caros y de la responsabilidad por los fines. Estimo que ellos no (...) logran justificar el distribuendum recursivista de bienes sociales primarios. En cambio, entiendo que tales consideraciones brindan apoyo a un estándar bienestarista. Ello se debe a que un estándar welfarista enfrenta exitosamente las dificultades que Rawls menciona para favorecer el estándar recursivista de bienes sociales primarios. In the present paper I argue that the specific arguments developed by John Rawls to justify the standard of social primary goods do not succeed. In the first place I develop and criticize the Rawlsian arguments grounded in antidiscriminatory intuitions and the fact of reasonable pluralism. I also characterize and criticize Rawls's ideas concerning the scope of the concept of fairness as well as his argument concerning extensive tastes and responsibility for ends. I believe that they do not justify a resourcist distribuendum. On the contrary, I argue that such considerations support a welfarist standard. The reason is that a welfarist standard successfully deals with the difficulties Rawls mentions in favoring the resourcist standard of social primary goods. (shrink)

Under the circumstances of pluralism people often claim that the state ought to be neutral towards its citizens’ conceptions of the good life. However, what it means for the state to be neutral is often unclear. This is partly because there are different conceptions of neutrality and partly because what neutrality entails depends largely on the context in which neutrality is demanded. This paper discusses three different conceptions of neutrality – neutrality of impact, neutrality as equality of opportunity and justificatory (...) neutrality – and analyses the strengths and weaknesses of the different conceptions in different contexts. It suggests that there are two common elements of neutrality in all its exemplifications: a) an element of “hands-off” and b) an element of equal treatment. It therefore argues that while justificatory neutrality is necessary for the state to be neutral it is not sufficient and claims that while conceptions of the good must not enter the justification of state regulations, they must be taken into consideration when delib- erating the implementation of these regulations. (shrink)