The concept of reasonableness is essential to John Rawls’s political liberalism, and especially to its main ideas of public reason and liberal legitimacy. Yet the somewhat ambiguous account of reasonableness in Political Liberalism has led to concerns that the Rawlsian distinction between the reasonable and the unreasonable is arbitrary and ultimately indefensible. This paper attempts to advance a more convincing interpretation of reasonableness. I argue that the reasonable applies first to citizens, who then play an important role in determining which (...) comprehensive doctrines and political conceptions of justice are reasonable. In addition, while Rawls fails to specify explicitly the meaning of the reasonable in his standard of political justification (i.e. the liberal principle of legitimacy based on the criterion of reciprocity), I offer an interpretation of what it means for citizens to present reasonable claims and arguments to one another in public reason. (shrink)

Rationality and reasonableness are often sharply distinguished from one another and are even held to be in conflict. On this construal, rationality consists in means-end calculation of the most efficient means to one's ends (which are usually taken to be self-interested), while reasonableness consists in equitableness whereby one respects the rights of other persons as well as oneself. To deal with this conflict, it is noted that both rationality and reasonableness are based on reason, which is analyzed as the power (...) of attaining truth, and especially necessary truth. It is then shown that, by the rationality involved in reason, the moral principle of reasonableness, the Principle of Generic Consistency (PGC), has a stringently rational justification in that to deny or violate it is to incur self-contradiction. Objections are considered bearing on relevance and motivation. It is concluded that, where reasonableness and egoistic rationality conflict, the former is rationally superior. (shrink)

We ask whether it is reasonable to delay or refuse to take COVID-19 vaccines that have been shown in clinical trials to be safe and effective against infectious diseases. We consider two kinds of vaccine hesitancy. The first is geared to scientifically informed open questions about vaccines. We argue that in cases where the data is not representative of relevant groups, such as pregnant women and ethnic minorities, hesitancy can be reasonable on epistemic grounds. However, we argue that hesitancy is (...) not reasonable if a vaccine has passed well-conducted clinical trials. The second kind of hesitancy is to do with beliefs about the institutions offering a successfully trialled vaccine and the justifiability of cooperating with those institutions. For example, in the UK, distrust of the UK Government or the National Health Service is identified as a factor in the vaccine hesitancy of minority ethnic populations. We ask whether this sort of hesitation is reasonable given normative requirements of fair co-operation, both with those institutions and the wider population. We suggest that the answer is not straightforward. Sometimes the hesitation is unreasonable but understandable. -/- . (shrink)

Conviction Narrative Theory (CNT) is a theory of choice underradical uncertainty– situations where outcomes cannot be enumerated and probabilities cannot be assigned. Whereas most theories of choice assume that people rely on (potentially biased) probabilistic judgments, such theories cannot account for adaptive decision-making when probabilities cannot be assigned. CNT proposes that people usenarratives– structured representations of causal, temporal, analogical, and valence relationships – rather than probabilities, as the currency of thought that unifies our sense-making and decision-making faculties. According to CNT, (...) narratives arise from the interplay between individual cognition and the social environment, with reasoners adopting a narrative that feels “right” to explain the available data; using that narrative to imagine plausible futures; and affectively evaluating those imagined futures to make a choice. Evidence from many areas of the cognitive, behavioral, and social sciences supports this basic model, including lab experiments, interview studies, and econometric analyses. We identify 12 propositions to explain how the mental representations (narratives) interact with four inter-related processes (explanation, simulation, affective evaluation, and communication), examining the theoretical and empirical basis for each. We conclude by discussing how CNT can provide a common vocabulary for researchers studying everyday choices across areas of the decision sciences. (shrink)

In debates over the regulation of communication related to dual-use research, the risks that such communication creates must be weighed against against the value of scientific autonomy. The censorship of such communication seems justifiable in certain cases, given the potentially catastrophic applications of some dual-use research. This conclusion however, gives rise to another kind of danger: that regulators will use overly simplistic cost-benefit analysis to rationalize excessive regulation of scientific research. In response to this, we show how institutional design principles (...) and normative frameworks from free speech theory can be used to help extend the argument for regulating dangerous dual-use research beyond overly simplistic cost-benefit reasoning, but without reverting to an implausibly absolutist view of scientific autonomy. (shrink)

In this article I press four different objections on Forst’s theory of the ‘Right to Justification’. These are (i) that the principle of justification is not well-formulated; (ii) that ‘reasonableness and reciprocity’, as these notions are used by Rawls, are not apt to support a Kantian conception of morality; (iii) that the principle of justification, as Forst understands it, gives an inadequate account of what makes actions wrong; and (iv) that, in spite of his protestations to the contrary, Forst’s account (...) veers towards a version of moral realism that isprima facieincompatible with Kantian constructivism. I then evaluate Forst’s theory in the light of a distinction made by Sharon Street between restricted and unrestricted constructivism. I show that Forst has reason to deny that it is either the one or the other, but he is not able to show that it is both or neither. I conclude that the arguments Forst advances in support of his constructivist theory of the right to justification entail that it is a metaphysical and comprehensive conception in the relevant, Rawlsian sense. Forst’s theory of the right to justification therefore fails to fulfil one of the main stated aims. (shrink)

This article offers a critique of John Rawls’s great work, Political Liberalism, from a non-Rawlsian liberal standpoint. It argues that Rawlsian political liberalism is influenced as much by a comprehensive view I call “radical-democracy” as by comprehensive liberal views. This can be seen in Rawls’s account of some of political liberalism’s fundamental ideas—notably the idea of society as a fair system of cooperation, the “liberal” principle of legitimacy, and the idea of public reason. I further argue that Rawls’s impressive attempt (...) to unify liberal and democratic traditions philosophically obscures the prudent liberal attitude to democracy, which remains sound. (shrink)

Is the principal concern of political philosophy the source of political authority? And, if so, can this source be located in individual consent? In this article I draw on Rousseau to answer the second question negatively; and in rejecting that answer, why we might answer the first question in the negative as well. We should be concerned with questions of legitimacy rather than with the source of authority and political obligation. Our principal concern, that is, should be with the question (...) how well political institutions meet the needs of individuals. I pursue these issues in the context of interpreting Rousseau's distinctive contribution to political thought. I start out by asking the question ‘What problem is the General Will designed to solve?’ I argue that Rousseau's challenge to Hobbes represents a crucial step in the move from the source of authority and political obligation to a focus on legitimacy. (shrink)

Since its inception in 1968, the concept of whole-brain death has been contentious, and four decades on, controversy concerning the validity and coherence of whole-brain death continues unabated. Although whole-brain death is legally recognized and medically entrenched in the United States and elsewhere, there is reasonable disagreement among physicians, philosophers, and the public concerning whether brain death is really equivalent to death as it has been traditionally understood. A handful of states have acknowledged this plurality of viewpoints and enacted “conscience (...) clauses” that require “reasonable accommodation” of religious and moral objections to the determination of death by neurological criteria. This paper argues for the universal adoption of “reasonable accommodation” policies using the New Jersey statute as a model, in light of both the ongoing controversy and the recent case of Jahi McMath, a child whose family raised religious objections to a declaration of brain death. Public policies that accommodate reasonable, divergent viewpoints concerning death provide a practical and compassionate way to resolve those conflicts that are the most urgent, painful, and difficult to reconcile. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 28, Issue 2, pp 132 - 148 A striking feature of Thomas Hobbes’s account of political obligation is his discussion of the Fool, who thinks it reasonable to adopt a policy of selective, self-interested covenant breaking. Surprisingly, scholars have paid little attention to the potential of a psychological defense of Hobbes’s controversial claim that the Fool behaves irrationally. In this paper, I first describe Hobbes’s account of the Fool and argue that the kind of Fool most worth (...) considering is the covert, long-term Fool. Then I advance and critically assess two psychological arguments according to which the Fool’s policy of self-interested covenant breaking is prudentially irrational. The first argument holds that, taken together, the deep guilt from early-stage covenant breaking, the cumulative guilt from continued covenant breaking, and the high statistical risk of detection during high-volume covenant breaking render the Fool’s policy irrational. The second argument holds that the Fool’s policy is irrational because it puts him at risk of adopting a psychologically intolerable view of his fellow covenanters and, specifically, the extent to which they can be trusted. (shrink)

Many economists and philosophers assume that status quo bias is necessarily irrational. I argue that, in some cases, status quo bias is fully rational. I discuss the rationality of status quo bias on both subjective and objective theories of the rationality of preferences. I argue that subjective theories cannot plausibly condemn this bias as irrational. I then discuss one kind of objective theory, which holds that a conservative bias toward existing things of value is rational. This account can fruitfully explain (...) some compelling aspects of common sense morality, and it may justify status quo bias. (shrink)

In a recent article, McClennen (2012) defends an alternative bargaining theory in response to his criticisms of the standard Nash bargaining solution as a principle of distributive justice in the context of the social contract. McClennen rejects the orthodox concept of expected individual utility maximizing behavior that underlies the Nash bargaining model in favor of what he calls full rationality, and McClennen’s full cooperation bargaining theory demands that agents select the most egalitarian strictly Pareto-optimal distributional outcome that is strictly Pareto-superior (...) to the state of nature. I argue that McClennen’s full cooperators are best described as reasonable agents whose rationality is constrained by moral considerations and that McClennen’s bargaining theory is moralized in this regard. If, by contrast, the orthodox concept of rationality is assumed and plausible assumptions are made about human nature and social cooperation, then a modified version of the standard Nash bargaining solution, which I call the stabilized Nash bargaining solution (Moehler 2010), is justified. From the perspective of rational agents, the stabilized Nash bargaining solution can accommodate McClennen’s criticisms of the standard Nash bargaining solution in the context of the social contract and, for such agents, it can serve as a principle of distributive justice in deeply morally pluralistic societies. (shrink)

This essay discusses Rawls distinction between the reasonable and the rational in the context of the liberal effort to establish the priority of the right over the good. It argues that inarticulacy about the good makes it difficult for Rawls to find arguments in support of a minimal conception of the reasonable overlapping consensus. The essay examines Rawls’ arguments in support of the distinction between the rational and the reasonable. The paper suggests that in terms of these arguments, the term (...) reasonable seems to be a derivative of the rational. However, this does not stop Rawls from employing that term as if the distinction has been satisfactorily made. Therefore, the philosophical work expected from the term reasonable in Rawls is more than that term is legitimately able to do. Rawls’ arguments explaining reasonable and his arguments employing the term reasonable as a virtue of citizens begin to turn on an equivocation on the use of that term. The conclusion suggests that it is possible to reconstruct Rawls so that the term reasonable can be used in a substantive normative sense without endangering the stability of the overlapping consensus. This is possible if Rawls’ conception of the moral powers of citizens can be philosophically reconstructed as forming part of the basic moral potential of citizens as persons. Such moral potential can be conceived, as prior to and independent of, a complete/partial conception of the good in terms of which that potential might find a complete or partial articulation. (shrink)

The dissertation defends that the often-assumed link between constructivism and universalism builds on non-constructivist, perfectionist grounds. To this end, I argue that an exemplary form of universalist constructivism – i.e., O’Neill’s Kantian constructivism – can defend its universalist commitments against an influential particularist form of constructivism – i.e., political liberalism as advanced by Rawls, Macedo, and Larmore – only if it invokes a perfectionist view of the good. (En route, I show why political liberalism is a form of particularism and (...) reconstruct the role of its conception of public justification, its implied contextualism about justified belief, its conceptions of toleration, neutrality, good reasons, and legitimacy, and, not least, its justification-constitutive conception of reasonableness.) Contrary to what is often assumed, then, at the level of a vindication of the very project of a universalist constructivism, universalist constructivists should construe perfectionists not as their opponents, but as partial, though uneasy, allies. (shrink)

(In German.) The book addresses Rawls's post-1985 political liberalism. His justification of political liberalism -- as reflected in his arguments from overlapping consensus -- faces the problem that liberal content can be justified as reciprocally acceptable only if the addressees of such a justification already endorse points of view that suitably support liberal ideas. Rawls responds to this legitimacy-theoretical problem by restricting public justification's scope to include reasonable people only, while implicitly defining reasonableness as a substantive liberal virtue. But this (...) virtue-ethical grounding of political liberalism is itself unreasonable. The phenomenon of disharmony of practical reason gives the reasonable reasons to take it that political legitimacy does not obtain if and where moral-political principles are acceptable from their point of view only. (shrink)

Adrian Piper argues that the Humean conception can be made to work only if it is placed in the context of a wider and genuinely universal conception of the self, whose origins are to be found in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. This conception comprises the basic canons of classical logic, which provide both a model of motivation and a model of rationality. These supply necessary conditions both for the coherence and integrity of the self and also for unified agency. (...) The Kantian conception solves certain intractable problems in decision theory by integrating it into classical predicate logic, and provides answers to longstanding controversies in metaethics concerning moral motivation, rational final ends, and moral justification that the Humean conception engenders. In addition, it sheds light on certain kinds of moral behavior – for example, the whistleblower – that the Humean conception is at a loss to explain. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to argue that justification should not be conceived of in purely objective terms. In arguing for that conclusion I focus in particular on Paul Robinson’s presentation of that position, since it is the most sophisticated defense of the objective account of justification in the literature. My main point will be that the distinction drawn by Robinson between objective and subjective accounts of justification is problematic, and that careful attention to the role played by reasonableness (...) in subjectivist accounts of justification reveals that the apparent puzzles Robinson raises for subjectivism are merely apparent. I will suggest that we ought to be reasonable subjectivists about justification, where “reasonableness” is understood in a particular manner. This has consequences for various other issues, including how we make sense of mistaken justification, and I will have something to say about those issues as they arise along the way. (shrink)

This paper aims to explore an important concept in the work of the later Rawls: the idea of the reasonable. While the concept has its roots in both Aristotle and Kant, Rawls develops a unique account of the reasonable in the light of his theory of political liberalism. The paper includes Rawlsian responses to the practical challenges of radical democrats on the one hand, and epistemological challenges to the reasonable on the other. It concludes that Rawls’s account of the reasonable (...) helps to bridge the gap between liberal theory and democratic practice. (shrink)

Is the principal concern of political philosophy the source of political authority? And, if so, can this source be located in individual consent? In this article I draw on Rousseau to answer the second question negatively; and in rejecting that answer, why we might answer the first question in the negative as well. We should be concerned with questions of legitimacy rather than with the source of authority and political obligation. Our principal concern, that is, should be with the question (...) how well political institutions meet the needs of individuals. I pursue these issues in the context of interpreting Rousseau's distinctive contribution to political thought. I start out by asking the question 'What problem is the General Will designed to solve?' I argue that Rousseau's challenge to Hobbes represents a crucial step in the move from the source of authority and political obligation to a focus on legitimacy. (shrink)

Was ist eine gute Weltanschauung? Die Aufsätze behandeln einige der großen Themen der westlichen Philosophie unter neuen Gesichtspunkten, wie z. B. das Apeiron des Anaximander, das Leib-Seele-Problem bei Descartes und Wittgensteins Begriff der Sprache und Lebensform. Sie beleuchten aber auch Seitenwege wie z. B. einen Ausflug Schopenhauers, ein „Plagiat" Nietzsches und einige der Aphorismen Ludwig Hohls.

An increasing number of studies indicate that virtues affect brain structure. These studies might shed new light on some neuroethical perspectives suggesting that our brain network activity determines the acquisition and permanence of virtues. According to these perspectives, virtuous behavior could be interpreted as the product of a brain mechanism supervised by genes and environment and not as the result of free choice. In this respect, the neural correlates of virtues would confirm the deterministic theory. In contrast, I maintain that (...) these findings do not undermine the role of willpower and freedom while reinforcing an interactionist view of free will. If virtues affect our neural system, then the predictability of the virtuous behavior follows. The likelihood of our future actions is primarily virtue-dependent; therefore, the acquired naturality of virtuous behavior is a source of predictable behavioral patterns outlining expected actions, which I propose to call Hypotheses of Action. However, the predictability of an action indicates its likeliness and not its certainty or necessity. The neural traces of virtues can be interpreted as major indicators of HAs. It is always possible for the agents to depart from their more likely, virtue-induced actions, but their deviations from the virtuous behavioral pattern are rare, as it is rare for the vicious/non-virtuous person to behave well systematically. This implies a reaffirmation of the notions of veto and consent as they provide a universal practical power affecting the subject’s use of moral virtues. (shrink)

: The rights to liberty championed by classical liberal and libertarian theorists may be supported as products of practical reason. The foundations for these rights rest initially on the idea that the separateness of persons is embedded in the circumstances of life that make justice a meaningful concept. We can discover the duties justice imposes […].

On what basis should we judge whether a parent’s medical decision for their child is morally acceptable? In a recent article, Johan Bester attempts to answer this question by defending a version of the Best Interest Standard for parental decision making. The purpose of this paper is to identify a number of problems faced by Bester’s version of BIS and to suggest ways to redress these problems. Accordingly, we intend to advance the project of formulating a method for guiding parents’ (...) medical decision making for their children. We argue that Bester’s standard fails to accommodate the autonomy of the child and that his criteria for assessing the reasonableness of the parents’ argument for their decision is too weak. We conclude that properly addressing these worries renders his test otiose and that it ought to be replaced with the three commonly held principles of bioethics—the principles of autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence—and a standard of reasonableness. (shrink)

In his 2014 paper entitled “Reason, Rationality and Fiduciary Duty”, Lydenberg ventures into the field of the moral and political philosophy dealing with distributive justice in search of fresh perspectives on fiduciary duty. Simply by doing this, Lydenberg makes the very important contribution of drawing a little more attention to the potential that this huge field of study might have in relation to understanding socially responsible investment. There are however difficulties with Lydenberg’s paper. I describe three in particular that I (...) believe warrant critical attention. The first emerges out of Lydenberg’s treatment of the central concepts of reasonableness and rationality. The second lies in his apparent suggestion that at some earlier time fiduciary duty was somehow more generally other-considering than it is today. And finally, the third is associated with the place that impartiality occupies in Lydenberg’s storyline, and the implications of this in terms of his call for a reconciliation between reasonableness and rationality. This critical scrutiny clarifies theoretical and practical implications of the transition Lydenberg is suggesting. In doing this, it makes the realization that what Lydenberg is attempting is more than likely nothing short of resolving “The fundamental problem of ethics and politics” in the specific context of fiduciary action. (shrink)

Is it possible to recognize the limits of rationality, and thus to embrace moral pluralism, without embracing moral relativism? My answer is yes; nevertheless, certain anti-foundational positions, both recent and ancient, take a cynical stance toward the possibility of any critical moral judgment, and as such, must be regarded as relativistic.1 It is such cynicism, I argue, whether openly announced or unknowingly implied, that marks the distinction between relativism and pluralism.2 The danger of this cynicism is not so much that (...) it renders the categorical acceptance of a particular moral view unattainable, but that it renders categorical condemnation of any particular position (or action) impossible.3 Two .. (shrink)

Against arguments that suggest that Rawls’s notion of reasonability is ‘obscure’ and ‘unclear’ I argue in this essay that the idea of reasonability in the later Rawls can be defended in three ways. First, it can be shown that reasonability is fundamental to the architectonic of the later work. Reasonability, and the subordination of reason to reasonability, is fundamental to the later (post-1980) writings. Second, it can be shown that reasonability is not necessarily a vague term as many have claimed. (...) Third, it can be shown that reasonability is fundamental to what Rawls calls the three major new ideas of Political Liberalism: overlapping consensus; the reconception of the priority of the right over the good; and the idea of public reason. (shrink)

A central point of debate over environmental policies concerns how future costs and benefits should be assessed. The most commonly used method for assessing the value of future costs and benefits is economic discounting. One often-cited justification for discounting is uncertainty. More specifically, it is risk aversion coupled with the expectation that future prospects are more risky. In this paper I argue that there are at least two reasons for disputing the use of risk aversion as a justification for discounting (...) when dealing with longterm decisions, one technical and one ethical. Firstly, I argue that technically, it implies an inconsistency between theory and practice. And secondly, I argue that discounting for uncertainty relies on a form of individualism which, while reasonable in standard microeconomic theory where an agent chooses how to spread her own consumption over her own lifetime, is inappropriate in the context of intergenerational social decisions. (shrink)

This thesis examines the concept of civil disobedience, and the role the latter can play in a democratic society. It aims to offer a moral justification for civil disobedience that departs from consequentialist or deontological considerations, and focuses instead on virtue ethics. By drawing attention to the notion of civic virtues, the thesis suggests that, under some circumstances, an act of civil disobedience is the very act displaying a virtuous disposition in the citizen who disobeys. Such disposition is interpreted in (...) light of a duty each individual has to respect her fellow citizens as autonomous agents. This grounds, in turn, a moral obligation to respect the law. The central claim of the thesis is that the obligation towards the law is fulfilled not only through acts of obedience but also, under different circumstances, through acts of disobedience. The status of non-violence as a necessary component of civil disobedience is questioned, and it is argued that a degree of force or violence may be permissible in civil disobedience, when it is compatible with the duty to respect others’ autonomy. Subsequently, the thesis offers an analysis of ‘reasonableness’ as a civic virtue, and by comparing three different approaches to the issue of reasonable disagreement among democratic citizens, it defends the deliberative approach as the most suited for treating fellow citizens as autonomous agents. The last two chapters focus on the importance, for an act of civil disobedience, of the agent’s willingness to accept the legal consequences of her law-breaking behaviour. It is argued that a civil disobedient has an obligation to face the prospect of being punished for the breach of the law. However, in considering the behaviour of a virtuous civil disobedient who appears at her criminal trial, it is also claimed that she should plead not guilty and aim to persuade her fellow citizens that she does not deserve to be punished, because what she did does not constitute a criminal wrong. In doing so, this thesis depicts civil disobedience not as a merely permissible form of behaviour, but as a morally praiseworthy conduct within a democratic community. (shrink)

Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, EarlyView.

Our reactions to actual crime-disbelief about the act committed, anger at the hurt caused, a desire to get even, and fear for ourselves and our children-arrive in an indecipherable rush of emotion. We perceive strong, intuitive, and sometimes oppositional reactions at once. So it is little wonder that no single traditional moral justification for punishment is satisfactory. Traditional theories, both retributive and utilitarian, are grounded in a priori truths that ignore the convergence of the theoretical, the practical and the emotional (...) that gives rise to the need to punish. In their stead, we should embrace an advertently pragmatic theoretical approach, which recognize the primary need to protect ourselves against danger, but looks as well to providing reformation wherever possible. Such an approach does not ignore the traditional rationales. To eschew retribution entirely is to deny a deeply-rooted moral intuition and forego efforts to tame it. To jettison utility is to condemn the victim and community to perpetual fear; just to the extent that retributive impulses, by any name, undermine necessary forward-looking concerns about our future's safety, they poorly serve our needs, which include service to the victim, the community and the offender. (shrink)

Trata-se de analisar a possibilidade de resolução de desacordos morais a partir de uma base contratualista e de um método construtivista. Por isso, a proposta não é apresentar, propriamente, a resposta correta para cada caso de desacordo, mas demonstrar que o recurso a uma base procedimental justificadora permite verificar a legitimidade de juízos morais-políticos em cada situação.

The paper examines a specific charge against Rawls's political liberalism, namely that the manner in which it uses the notion of reasonableness renders it a form of secular fundamentalism. The paper begins with an examination of what Rawls means by his notion of ‘the reasonable’ and briefly outlines its role in his version of political liberalism. This leads to a discussion of the different meanings of ‘secular fundamentalism’ and how it is specifically used in its criticism of Rawls's ‘justice as (...) fairness’. The essay then offers two arguments to show that the charge of secular fundamentalism cannot be sustained due to a deep misunderstanding of the derivation and use of the notion of reasonableness as well as the context, scope, and aims of Rawls's political liberalism in particular and the project of political liberalisms more generally. (shrink)

In this essay I consider the normative implications of the notion of reasonability for the construction of an idea of public reason that is cosmopolitan in scope. First, I consider the argument for the distinction between reason and reasonability in the work of Sibley and Rawls. Second, I evaluate the normative implications of reasonability through a consideration of Korsgaard's recent work. Third, I argue for a notion of reasonability that moves us beyond a Kantian concept of autonomy through a consideration (...) of the relationship between reasonability and judgment vis-à-vis Arendt's work on Kant's Third Critique. Finally, I argue for a cosmopolitan appropriation of the notion of reasonability based on Kant's notion of the aesthetic idea. The latter argument relaxes the bonds of public reason, moving us beyond the domain of ethnocentricism. (shrink)

This article defends a specific account of reasonableness as a virtue of liberal citizenship. I specify an account of reasonableness that I argue is more consistent with the phenomenology of intersubjective exchanges among citizens over political matters in contexts of deep disagreement. My reading requires reasonable citizens to undertake an attitude of epistemic modesty while deliberating public matters with agents who hold views different from theirs. In contrast with my view, I debate Martha Nussbaum’s and Steven Wall’s accounts of reasonableness (...) and specify why I believe that these proposals, although interesting, both require revisions. Distinguishing my account from theirs, I specify the normative relation between reasonableness and a general framework of political legitimacy that identifies citizens as ‘co-authors of democratic decisions’. Here, I argue that the liberal ideal of ascribing to each member of the constituency the status of putative epistemic authority can be properly fulfilled if coupled with a correct specification of the political ideal of mutual respect. I conclude claiming that opacity respect, a notion of respect according to which the recognition respect that is owed to individuals is expressed by the idea that we have to treat them as ‘opaque’, is the most adequate concept of political respect when dealing with interpersonal deliberations at political level in contexts of deep disagreement. (shrink)

Is the principal concern of political philosophy the source of political authority? And, if so, can this source be located in individual consent? In this article I draw on Rousseau to answer the second question negatively; and in rejecting that answer, why we might answer the first question in the negative as well. We should be concerned with questions of legitimacy rather than with the source of authority and political obligation. Our principal concern, that is, should be with the question (...) how well political institutions meet the needs of individuals. I pursue these issues in the context of interpreting Rousseau's distinctive contribution to political thought. I start out by asking the question ‘What problem is the General Will designed to solve?’ I argue that Rousseau's challenge to Hobbes represents a crucial step in the move from the source of authority and political obligation to a focus on legitimacy. (shrink)

This article explores Carter G. Woodson’s The Mis‐Education of the Negro in terms of its political philosophical content. It examines how Woodson’s account of the miseducation of Black people and the accordant miseducation of whites is involved in the production and reproduction of an unjust basic structure, with reference to John Rawls and Frantz Fanon. It then turns to Woodson’s critique of leadership and its relationship to miseducation, drawing on E. Franklin Frazier’s study of the Black bourgeoisie and the political (...) philosophy of Enrique Dussel. Finally, it examines miseducation as a site for the reproduction of racist knowledge production in light of the work of Anténor Firmin and examines how, for Woodson, rigor in the human sciences was essential for counteracting miseducation and serving the greater cause of liberation. (shrink)

The publication of Political Liberalismhas allowed John Rawls to bring to the fore issues that remained in the background of A Theory of Justice. His explicit attention to the concept of ‘the reasonable’ is a welcome development. In a more recent publication, he affirms the importance of this concept, ‘while [granting] that the idea of the reasonable needs a more thorough examination than Political Liberalism offers.’ In this paper, I will present a critical exposition of the senses of the reasonable (...) on which justice as fairness relies. Rawls employs the term in four main contexts. I will outline these various senses and argue that in each case, a controversy in the secondary literature can be resolved by close attention to the concept of the reasonable. In three of these contexts, Rawls relies on what I will call a ‘strong’ sense of the reasonable, while in one he sometimes seems to rely on a ‘weak’ sense. I argue that justice as fairness is best served by relying on a strong sense throughout. (shrink)

Philosophy & Social Criticism, Volume 48, Issue 7, Page 937-955, September 2022. Reasonableness is a complex notion recently developed by legal and political theorists. John Rawls’s famous proposal of ‘reasonableness as reciprocity’ requires careful testing in the light of several criteria arising from legal doctrine and adjudication. I enquire into this variety of concepts in search of a common thread that makes sense of the use of the same concept in diverse contexts. I assume the normative thrust of reasonableness as (...) an institutional and an individual virtue the basic core of which derives from Aristotelian phronesis. However, this double aspect of reasonableness betrays its major complexity that I try to shape through the help of two categories: subjective agency and objective context. The upshot of my enquiry will be that of showing that we can use another model, alternative to Rawls’s and better able to make sense of the variety of legal and ethical uses: Von Wright’s reasonableness as ‘the right way of living’. (shrink)