Two Conceptions Of Public Reason

Public reason is a prevalent trend of thought in the current liberalism,and it is a controversial concept.So,how exactly should we understand public reason?Where does it come from,and why?What is the focus of the controversy?These constitute the theme of this article.The core concern of public reason is the legitimacy of order.Public reason,as a term,was born in the period of enlightenment,but its connotation is constantly enriched and developed.The enlightenment ended the theocratic polity and established the central position of human reason and made great progress.At the same time,the fading of divinity caused disenchantment of the norm of the world,the conflict of rational cognition called for new standards of judgment,and society needed new authority and order.The theme of public reason is to reflect on this order.The second chapter sorts out the ideas of the public reason from the enlightenment thinkers.Hobbes first proposed the concept of public reason,refers to the sovereign's reason,with absolute sovereign's will to quell the dispute;although Locke did not put forward the exact term of public reason,but he thought that human society should set up public judges with public authority,to remedy the limitation of private reason;Rousseau put forward public reason as "general will",from Rousseau's statements,the public reason is law,and the law is the expression of the general will,bearing the public interests and fairness;Kant did not explicitly put forward the expression of public reason,but he gave "public use of reason".This expression emphasize "human reason" which carrier is homogeneous and abstract rational beings who believe that the order would unity with the public use of reason.These ideas deeply impact Rawls's idea of public reason which combines Hobbes's"secular",Locke's "tolerance",Rousseau's "general will" and Kant's "publicity".The core part of this article is to make a comparative analysis on a major controversy about conception of public reason between John Rawls and Gerald Gaus.Gaus is the most influential figure in the study of public reason after Rawls,and his theory is diametrically opposed to Rawls.The theme of the two public reason is the same,which is to explore how to conduct public justification among citizens who are deeply differentiated by multiple value beliefs.The difference is:the public reason of Rawls contains three aspects,citizen's ability of reason,public reasons,public political value,he thinks citizens engaged in certain political activities have a duty of civility to be able to justify their decisions on fundamental political issues by reference only to public values and public standards;Gaus sees public reason as simply that which is endorsed by the reasoning of the public,understood as the individual members of a social system.The order of public reason is the result of the game among social members,public reasoning is about processes and institutions,not a special sort of common discourse.In addition,reasoning and value diversity itself is the basis of a free and stable social and political order.Gaus's criticism of Rawls is not about the correctness or reasonableness of the principle of justice in the ontological sense,but the methodology of Rawls's justification of the principle of justice.Apparently,the arguments between the two sides would be inconclusive.lt is better to say the mission of political philosophy is to seek reason rather than truth.