A Dilemma for Theories of Public Reason

Abstract

The ideal of public reason requires citizens to justify laws with public reasons. Unlike appeals to comprehensive doctrines, public reasons do not compel citizens to abandon their most basic religious or philosophical convictions, provided that these convictions are reasonable. The article presents a dilemma for theories of public reason. Either the proscription against appealing to comprehensive doctrines is redundant on ordinary rules of argument, or there are in effect public reasons for rejecting a reasonable comprehensive doctrine as false, i.e., public reasons that compel some citizens to abandon their most basic (and reasonable) religious, moral or philosophical convictions

Keywords: public reason, political liberalism, Rawls, pluralism