In his Liberalism without Perfection, Jonathan Quong argues for internal conception of political liberalism which goal is to show that a liberal well-ordered society is internally coherent ideal and that citizens who would be raised in such society could endorse and support their own liberal institutions and principles if those institutions and principles are justified in particular way These institutions should be justified by particular conception of public reason which main feature is that overlapping consensus is the first stage of (...) its justificatory structure. So, public reasoning of citizens in well-ordered society should be based solely on values and ideas inherent to liberal conception of justice - freedom, equality, fair system of cooperation and burdens of judgment. Another important feature of Quong?s conception of public reason concerns its scope. Quong argues for a wide scope of public reason which demands that all coercive or binding laws or public policies should be justified on basis of these values alone. Thus, reasonable citizens in well-ordered society by definition accord deliberative priority to public reasons over their other comprehensive or nonpublic beliefs whenever they exercise their collective political power over one another. The problem I raise in this paper is that it is very likely that in well-ordered society there will be a group of citizens that will not accord full deliberative priority to political values, especially not at all levels of political deliberation. On certain issues they will like to see their particular values being realized through common political institutions. If our political theory excludes this group from justificatory constituency on this particular issue or categorize them as unreasonable it can easily undermine their general adherence to liberal conception of justice and endanger stability of well-ordered society. Thus, my point is that we need a further development of political liberalism to solve such problems not as a part of non-ideal theory but as a part of its ideal of well-ordered society. nema. (shrink)

This paper brings together the discussions on international resource trade and immigration. Following Wenar’s analysis of the resource curse, the aim is to challenge the conventional view on immigration that asserts the right of states to have discretionary control over these policies. The paper shows that more liberal immigration is required as an additional remedial policy to persons harmed in unjust trade. The right to self-determination and territorial rights, which are used as the basis for the exclusion of immigrants, are (...) in the context of this analysis constrained by both attentiveness to harm and the charge of inconsistency. Both rights, which are protected domestically, are violated by the unjust ‘might makes right’ trade rule in the international context, causing harm to people in resource exporting countries. This inconsistency presents a challenge to the moral plausibility of the conventional view in the context of the resource trade. (shrink)

Rawls’ idea of overlapping consensus is crucial for the public justification of a political conception of justice in modern democratic societies. While overlapping consensus is mostly understood empirically, in the first part of this article we argue that a normative interpretation is more appropriate. Moreover, we try to show that Baccarini’s proposal of qualified consensus, in contrast to an assumed empirical reading, actually exploits the potentials of a normative reading. In the second part, we concern ourselves with the epistemological implications (...) of a normative understanding of overlapping consensus or, more precisely, with the issue of epistemic deontologism. If we claim that consensus should be understood as agreement about not already existing beliefs and reasons, but about beliefs and reasons that citizens should acquire, it can be argued that this implies a thesis about voluntary control over beliefs. We try to show that a normative reading can be compatible with strategies based both on doxastic voluntarism and doxastic involuntarism. (shrink)

Rawlsian idea of public reason refers to the boundaries on political justification of coercive laws and public policies that have wide impact on lives of citizens. The boundaries of public reason means that political justification should be based on reasons we can expect every citizen can reasonably accept independently of any comprehensive religious, philosophical or moral doctrine to which she adhere. In modern liberal democracies characterized by reasonable pluralism of comprehensive doctrines it is unjustified for political argumentation to be based (...) on claims that many citizens can not accept. As I understand it, the point of idea of public reason is to strengthen the relationship of civic trust or civic friendship that can ensure inherent stability of just political regime. An important part of the idea of public reason is how it incorporates scientific claims in political argumentation. Rawls writes that citizens are to base their public justification on „presently accepted general beliefs and forms of reasoning found in common sense, and the methods and conclusions of science when those are not controversial.“ If the idea of public reason is the source of political stability it is necessary to answer what it means that conclusions of science are controversial in political and social context? First, scientific controversy is different from controversy of comprehensive doctrines. Science stands outside of comprehensive doctrines so conclusions of science will not be controversial because they clash with comprehensive beliefs, but they will be controversial if they rely on comprehensive beliefs. Second, if conclusions of science are controversial within scientific community, if there are some expert witness disputing its validity, then maybe value-judgments can enter to set standards for certification of the scientific claim. If potential consequences of scientific claim are bad for welfare of some group in society than standards of evidence that will certify this claim must go up. Finally, even if some scientific claim has been certified it still can be controversial as a premise in political justification. The reason can be that certification has not been transparent and many citizens do not realize that this claim is part of scientific consensus. Again, the criterion for controversy of scientific conclusions in political context is connected to the notion of trust and not to the validity of scientific claim or supportive evidence by itself. (shrink)

U ovom radu raspravljamo odnos Rawlsovog političkog liberalizma i istine. Budući da je politički liberalizam teorija koja izbjegava sva kontroverzna epistemološka i metafizička pitanja, jednako tako izbjegava i pitanje svoje istinitosti i koncept istine uopće. Usredotočili smo se na tri autora koji tvrde da politički liberalizam ne može izbjeći pitanje istine. Prvi autor je perfekcionist, Joseph Raz, koji pokušava pokazati da je Rawlsova teorija nekoherentna ukoliko se ne bavi pitanjem istinitosti neke moralne doktrine na kojoj mora počivati. Drugi, David Estlund, (...) tvrdi da je teorija filozofski neodrživa ako se ne poziva na istinitost svog fundamentalnog načela. Treći, Joshua Cohen, pokazuje nemogućnost izbjegavanja nekog koncepta istine ako se u političkoj teoriji pozivamo na vjerovanja i opravdanje. Nastojimo dokazati tvrdnju o praktičko-političkoj i filozofskoj ograničenosti njihove kritike Rawlsove teorije. Temeljna intencija članka je opovrgnuti kritike koje se upućuju Rawlsu te time ojačati njegov prijedlog političkog liberalizma. Pri tome nastojimo i nadopuniti nedorečenosti u Rawlsovom prijedlogu te zbog toga nudimo preciznije određenu sliku političkog liberalizma u odnosu na njegovu izvornu.In this paper we discuss the relation between Rawls’ political liberalism and truth. Since political liberalism is a theory that avoids all controversial epistemological and metaphysical questions, it equally avoids the question of its truth and a concept of truth generally. We are focusing on three authors which claim that political liberalism can not avoid the question of truth. First, Joseph Raz, a perfectionist who claims that Rawls’ political theory is incoherent unless it is not concerned with the truth of some moral doctrine on which it must be derived. Second, David Estlund, who claims that Rawls’ theory is philosophically untenable unless it does not consider its fundamental principle as true one. Third, Joshua Cohen, indicates the impossibility of avoiding some concept of truth if political theory is invoking concepts such as beliefs and justification. We are pointing on theirs practical-political and philosophical limited range in criticizing Rawls’ theory. The basic intention of the article is to confute criticisms addressed to Rawls and, in this way, to strengthen his proposal of political liberalism. At the same time, we try to resolve issues deriving from indeterminacies in Rawls’ proposal. For this reason we offer a picture of political liberalism that is more determinate than his original proposal. (shrink)