Public Reason,Justification And Application

This paper is aimed to investigate the issues about the utility and justification of public reason.By inspecting the relevant theory of John Rawls who was a American political philosopher in the last century and introducing other relevant theories such as communicative theory,this paper intends to provide a new strategy concerning the utility and justification of public reason.With the basic contents of Rawls’ theory of public reason remaining unchanged,this new strategy could make it more coincident with the social reality and then play a more active and important role in the citizens’ political practice.Public reason has been a heated discussion in academia in China and abroad.Although there is no settled definition on public reason,generally,scholars believe that actually public reason is composed of a set of rational rules which are suitable for public debates and decision-making.In practice,it is related to the subjects involved in the debate how to determine the starting point,as well as how to put forward and then demonstrate the reasons which can be accepted rationally by each other,and finally reach a consensus.As a key concept in political philosophy,public reason has a long history in Western thoughts.Many thinkers,such as Thomas Hobbes,John Locke and Immanuel Kant,formulated and demonstrated the conceptions of public reason.However,the fact that this theory has been seen as a hot topic in current academic discussions should be attributed to John Rawls.In order to make the justice theory that is proposed in A Theory of Justice be suitable for the present situation of pluralistic democratic society,Rawls modifies the background and goals of the theory of "justice as fairness" in Political Liberalism.Rawls realizes that Pluralism has been a fundamental fact in the modern democratic society,for citizens hold various "comprehensive doctrines" and it is difficult for them to reach a consensus on political problems.For citizens as a community is the ultimate holders for the political power,they are free and equal to each other,so no one can use power to force others to accept the "comprehensive doctrines" which they cannot agree to.Otherwise,the legitimacy requirements of the exercise of political power would be difficult to meet.Rawls believes that,when citizens are involved in political debates or the situations in which they must make decisions,they cannot depend on the"Comprehensive Doctrines";instead,they should apply public reason and resort to the political conception of justice,which is implied in the public political culture of democratic society.The political conception of justice as the content of public reason is a product,generating from a long-term practice in democratic society.Through rational reflection,it would be acknowledged and accepted by the people who grow in this type of society.Moreover,the political conception of justice would not come into conflict with"comprehensive doctrines" held separately by citizens;instead,it will get support from the latter.Hence,Rawls thinks that,the political conception of justice established on the overlapping consensus should be regarded as the ground on which citizens can give a reason when having public discussions and making a decision.Only in this way can it be possible to reach a rational consensus.Besides,the exercise of public power should be constrained by public reason,thus the democratic society would gain the enduring stability.Public reason is essentially a kind of norms on the public use of reason.Just like other norms,public reason also needs to be justified.At present,compared with the application of public reason,justification is more or less a problem ignored by academia.According to Max Weber’s theory,we can examine this concept from two perspectives,namely,the purposive/instrumental rationality and the value rationality,and then can have two models about the justification and application of public reason.In the former perspective,public reason can be employed as a tool to settle our disputes because it can provide us more effective solutions;in the later,the application of public reason is to help us achieve or protect some precious values comparative of well.Overall,Rawls,along with Rousseau and Kant,prefers the latter model,namely,to adopt public reason is not to resolve specific disputes,but to undertake a moral obligation in democratic society in which free and equal citizens take participate in the political activities.As far as the specific way of justification,Rawls has two methods of justification for public reason in Political Liberalism.The first one,the method from "Original Position",indicates that public reason as a part of "original agreement" is considered as the guideline and standard of public inquiry.Just like the principals of justice,public reason gains the universal acceptance from the representatives of citizens who participate in the treaty of"Original Position".Compared the justification from "Original Position",the other method is from "Coherentism",which goes much deeper.By constructing the idea of a well-ordered democratic society,the idea of political conception of justice and the idea of the free and equal citizens,and making those ideas to prove and support each other with the idea of public reason,Rawls establishes a legal status of public reason in public justification.On the basic of justification,Rawls proposes three basic rules in the application of public reason,which are the rule of reciprocity,of exclusivity and of restrictive.Rawls’ theory caused an intense and long-lasting controversy in the academic circles as soon as it was proposed.His critics point out the vulnerabilities in Rawls’ theory from different angles.As for the justification of public reason,on the one hand,because of the fact that Rawls does not fully understand the influence of pluralism in modern democratic society,his ideal well-ordered democratic society is "a Society of Great Harmony",which ignores and tries to cover up or avoid the reasonable differences between citizens.On the other hand,Rawls does not see it that it is difficult to reach the"overlapping consensus" on the political conception of justice among citizens.Although Rawls thinks that each person has two moral capacities which are named "the rational"and "the reasonable".it does not mean that all citizens in reality could distinguish their"comprehensive doctrines" from the political conception of justice,and this fault leads to the breakdown of the scheme of justification based on the distinction above;In the application of public use,for the separation of the "Comprehensive Doctrines" and the political conception of justice in application of public reason,Rawls’ so-called of"overlapping consensus" is lack of cognitive dimension.Therefore,it is hard to play a justifying role in public debates.In addition,if citizens were limited to provide a reason that merely based on the political conception of justice,which they are sharing with others,on the one hand,many important values in our society will be disparaged for theycan’t enter into the field of public debates.On the other,it is not beneficial to promote the mutual understanding and respect among the citizens in the pluralistic society.Despite the numerous criticisms,Rawls’ justification still has its advantages.For instance,Rawls believes that the true purpose of our deploying public reason is not for the realistic benefits that it can bring to us,but for it,that public reason is an appropriate way of public justification we should accept as free and equal citizens in the society of pluralism.As to the application of public reason,since Rawls’ conception of public reason emphasizes the substantial content,so it is a more realistic way for us to apply compared to the pure Proceduralism.Thus,there is room for further improvement to Rawls’ theory of public as a whole.The core task is to guarantee that citizens could find reasons to support their respective viewpoints in the debate on the premise of breaking out the distinction between"Comprehensive Doctrines" and the political conception of justice,with permitting them to bring their respective "comprehensive doctrines" into the discussion and acknowledging the differences between each other and pursuing the final consensus.Therefore,in order to provide a justification for public reason,we need to make a new explanation for several fundamental conceptions in Rawls’ system.First of all,although Rawls opposes to regard a well-ordered democratic society as a kind of ethical community,we still can regard it as a political community.In this community,in spite of the various differences between each other,every citizen as a member of the community is endowed with a citizenship.Secondly,citizenship should be seen as a complex whole of rights and obligations,from this point we can clarify the relationship of citizen and political community,as well as citizens themselves.The community protects the free and equal status of each citizen,but citizens should obey the rules by which the political community could preserve in return.Therefore,there is a kind of interdependent relationship between citizens and political community.On the other hand,although political community guarantees citizens’ right,their specific implementation needs to be completed in cooperation with other citizens,which means that,a realization of a right needs the fulfillment of obligations by other members.Therefore,there is also a kind of mutually cooperative relationship between citizens.Finally,if we consider citizens are free and equal to each other,one cannot force other people to meet his demands to realize his own rights;instead,he must be able to turn these claims into his voluntary obligations,which demands a citizen to give reasons that he will voluntarily accept.According to the requirement of reciprocity,such reasons must be based on the public rules accepted by both sides.As to public rules,it is different from the political conception of justice advocated by Rawls,and it does not take precedence over "comprehensive doctrines" held by citizens,and does not need every citizen to reach some sort of "overlapping consensus" on its content in advance.More exactly,public rules could be regarded as normative resources,which can be quoted by citizens when they are claiming rights to each other and can put forward requests of rights.With public rules replacing the political conception of justice,it does not deny the following fact,that although each citizen could acknowledge and accept public rules as the basis on which they propose right demands.However,it does not mean that the ways they understand and employ public rules stay same.Hence,in practice,public reason is not the obstacle,which prevents citizens’ "Comprehensive Doctrines" coming into public debates;on the contrary,it should be the bridge when they communicate with each other.Furthermore,the main characteristic of public reason essentially is cooperation rather than competition.This means that,firstly,the explanation about the public rules is based on the conversation and communication between different subjects.By this way,the conclusion shows that the explanation is inter-subjective.Secondly,once the differences between both sides cannot be bridged by communication,a cooperative public reason would emphases more on the importance of comprising,compared to a competitive kind of public reason.Therefore,we could get an appropriate solution,which can be accepted to both the disputing sides.