Book contents
- Rawls’s A Theory of Justice at 50
- Cambridge Philosophical Anniversaries
- Rawls’s A Theory of Justice at 50
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations of and Bibliographic Information for Rawls’s Works
- Introduction
- Part I Rawls and History
- Part II Developments between A Theory of Justice and Political Liberalism
- Part III Rawls, Ideal Theory, and the Persistence of Injustice
- Part IV Pluralism, Democracy, and the Future of Justice as Fairness
- 14 Public Reason at Fifty
- 15 Reasonable Political Conceptions and the Well-Ordered Liberal Society
- 16 Religious Pluralism and Social Unions
- 17 One Person, at Least One Vote?
- 18 Reflections on Democracy’s Fragility
- 19 A Society of Self-Respect
- References
- Index
14 - Public Reason at Fifty
from Part IV - Pluralism, Democracy, and the Future of Justice as Fairness
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 July 2023
- Rawls’s A Theory of Justice at 50
- Cambridge Philosophical Anniversaries
- Rawls’s A Theory of Justice at 50
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations of and Bibliographic Information for Rawls’s Works
- Introduction
- Part I Rawls and History
- Part II Developments between A Theory of Justice and Political Liberalism
- Part III Rawls, Ideal Theory, and the Persistence of Injustice
- Part IV Pluralism, Democracy, and the Future of Justice as Fairness
- 14 Public Reason at Fifty
- 15 Reasonable Political Conceptions and the Well-Ordered Liberal Society
- 16 Religious Pluralism and Social Unions
- 17 One Person, at Least One Vote?
- 18 Reflections on Democracy’s Fragility
- 19 A Society of Self-Respect
- References
- Index
Summary
This essay shows the continued value of Rawls’s public reason project. Its internal tendency is to generate new ideas. To do so, I review seven models of public reason, beginning with A Theory of Justice. Following Political Liberalism, I focus on Rawls’s unaddressed problem of justice pluralism. Rawls did not contain reasonable disagreement abou tjustice. Failing to stop it requires developing a fourth model of public reason. If Rawlsians accept justice pluralism, they must explore Gerald Gaus’s public reason project, so I introduce three models of public reason in Gaus’s work. The final model has only begun to bear fruit, generating a research program Gaus called the New Diversity Theory. Rawls and Gaus show that the public reason project remains a fertile research program
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- Rawls’s A Theory of Justice at 50 , pp. 239 - 256Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023