Distinguishing two models of 'public reason' avoids criticism of internal inconsistency

What is it about?

Theories of 'public reason' hold that the exercise of political power ought to be justifiable to everyone, despite people's reasonable differences of religious and philosophical perspective. If the standard of reasonableness is low, such theories risk anarchy and self-refutation, while if it is high they may seem to manifest disrespect for those deemed unreasonable. This paper shows to avoid this dilemma, by distinguishing two different ways of framing the principle – as a constraint on coercion, or as a constraint on reasons for decisions about coercion. Because the principle involves a heightened standard of justification, this seemingly small difference in the default make a big difference in the principle's consequences. The coercion model is vulnerable to the worry about anarchy but not self-defeat, the paper argues, while the reasons model is vulnerable to self-defeat but not anarchy. The reasons model can avoid self-refutation by making acceptance of public reason one of the conditions for counting as fully reasonable. This definitional move may seem ad hoc, but is in fact well-motivated if the purpose of public reason is to establish relations of mutual respect despite moral disagreement.

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Why is it important?

David Enoch has recently argued that all theories of public reason are internally inconsistent, for example because they are officially committed to equality but mandate unequal treatment of citizens. This paper aims to refute these criticisms. The paper also sheds light on the differences between so-called 'consensus' and 'convergence' models of public reason. I think the root difference between competing models of public reason is not that they emphasize different modes of justification (based on shared reasons or based on a convergence of different reasons) but about how we specify the default, deviation from which requires multi-perspectival acceptability.