Abstract

My aims in this paper are twofold: (1) to develop an account of a kind of respect for persons as reasoners which is motivated by John Rawls’ defense of reasonable pluralism on epistemic grounds, and (2) to demonstrate that this kind of respect vindicates a stronger civic duty to incorporate nonpublic comprehensive doctrines in public deliberation than Rawls provides in his account of public reason. I begin with a discussion of Rawls’ account of the epistemic sources of reasonable disagreement – the burdens of judgment – and argue that this idea provides support for an important conception of respect currently absent in scholarship about norms of public deliberation. I then outline the conception of persons as reasoners and the corollary duties of respect that follow from the recognition of persons as reasoners. I conclude with a discussion of the implications of this conception of respect for the idea of public reason.