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Papers
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CAN CONVERGENCE PUBLIC REASON FULFILL ITS PROMISES?
Social Theory and Practice
On the consensus model of public justification, reasons derived directly from comprehensive religious, moral, and philosophical doctrines are not proper public reasons, because they draw on incommensurable evaluative standards. On the convergence model, all reasons that meet the reason-givers’ own evaluative standards are allowed. According to convergence theorists, due to the openness of their model to all sorts of intelligible justificatory reasons, it has three practical advantages over the consensus model. First, it protects citizens from perfectionist state coercion at a lower cost to their integrity. Second, it allows to solve more political disagreements. Third, it offers a better algorithm for overcoming political polarization. I contend that the convergence model cannot deliver on any of these three promises.
Forthcoming
THERE SHOULD BE LEGAL LIMITS TO FREE SPEECH
(with A RESPONSE TO GHATE)
Problems in Applied Ethics: An Introduction to Contemporary Debates, ed. Steven B. Cowan. Bloomsbury Academic
2021
AGAINST PUBLIC REASON'S ALLEGED SELF-DEFEAT
Law and Philosophy 40 (6): 617-44
Mainstream political liberals hold that the exercise of political power is legitimate only if it is justified on the grounds of reasons that all may reasonably be expected to accept. Critics argue that this public justification principle (PJP) is self-defeating, because it depends on moral justifications that not all may reasonably be expected to accept. To rebut the self-defeat objection, I elaborate on the following disjunction: one either agrees or disagrees that it is wrong to impose one’s morality on others by the coercive power of the state. Those who disagree reject PJP, they understand politics as war. Those who agree accept PJP, they understand politics as competition. Political competitors abide by PJP to avoid politics as war, by enforcing PJP on political combatants they engage in a war that is unavoidable. In both cases their exercise of political power has a justification that is reasonably acceptable to all.
2020
RELIGIOUS EXEMPTIONS, CLAIMS OF CONSCIENCE, AND IDOLA FORI
Jurisprudence 11 (2): 225-42
According to the standard liberal egalitarian approach, religious exemptions from generally applicable laws can be justified on the grounds of equal respect for each citizen’s conscience. I contend that claims of conscience cannot justify demands for exemptions, since they do not meet even the most inclusive standards of public justification. Arguments of the form “My conscience says so” do not explicate the rationale behind the practices that the claimants seek to protect. Therefore, such arguments do not constitute even pro tanto reasons for exemptions. Rather, they are what Francis Bacon called idola fori — “idols of the marketplace” — conventional justifications that are deemed rational and even self-evident, while in fact they are not.
2019
RELIGIOUS FAITH AND THE FALLIBILITY OF PUBLIC REASONS
Oxford Journal of Law and Religion 8 (2): 223-46
Rawlsian liberals define legitimacy in terms of the public justification principle (PJP): The exercise of political power is legitimate only if it is justified on the grounds of reasons that all may reasonably be expected to accept. Does PJP exclude religious reasons from public justification of legal provisions? I argue that the requirement of ‘reasonable acceptability’ is not clear enough to answer this question. Furthermore, it fails to address the problematic fact that justification on the grounds of religious faith involves non-negotiable claims, which is incompatible with respect for fellow citizens as co-legislators. Accordingly, I reformulate PJP in fallibilistic terms: The exercise of political power is legitimate only if it is justified on the grounds of reasons that can be subject to reasonable criticism. I show that reasons based on religious faith do not meet this principle, just like any other reasons that involve claims about final values.
SHOULD ABRAHAM GET A RELIGIOUS EXEMPTION?
Res Publica 25 (2): 235-59
The standard liberal egalitarian approach to religious exemptions from generally applicable laws implies that such exemptions may be necessary in the name of equal respect for each citizen’s conscience. In each particular case this approach requires balancing the claims of devout believers against the countervailing claims of other citizens. I contend, firstly, that under the conditions of deep moral and ideological disagreement the balancing procedure proves to be extremely inconclusive. It does not provide an unequivocal solution even in the imaginary case based on the Biblical story of Abraham’s sacrifice, not to speak of real-life cases that are far less suggestive. Secondly, I argue that it is possible to consider demands for religious exemptions respectfully, without even challenging the way they are justified, but still reject them for principled reasons — namely, because these demands cannot be met without arbitrarily bending popular sovereignty to the dictate of religious doctrines.
Book reviews
Book reviews
2021. Emmy Eklundh. Emotions, Protest, Democracy: Collective Identities in Contemporary Spain. Routledge, 2019, xv+248 pp. Contemporary Political Theory 20 (1): 17–20.
Articles in progress
Articles in progress
FAKE NEWS, CONSPIRACY THEORIES, AND EPISTEMIC DISOBEDIENCE
Sometimes, thoroughly debunked and utterly preposterous fake news and conspiracy theories (FNACTs) paradoxically continue their presence in public political discourse. For those citizens who consider themselves subject to epistemic injustice, spreading such knowingly false FNACTs could be a way of engaging in epistemic disobedience. The latter is breach of epistemic norms in the name of presumably suppressed truth, for which the disobedients struggle to find more straightforward and empirically accurate ways of representation. I explore this tactic from the normative perspective of Rawlsian public reason. In particular, I argue that epistemic disobedience by means of spreading FNACTs is publicly unjustifiable, however, under certain conditions, it can be excused.
THE FALLIBILISM OF PUBLIC REASON
Mainstream political liberals hold that political decisions are legitimate only if they are reasonably acceptable to all citizens. On the standard Rawlsian interpretation of this public justification principle (PJP), all reasons derived from controversial comprehensive doctrines must be excluded from the balance of considerations for and against political decisions. I contend that, even assuming Rawls’s own definition of reasonableness as willingness to cooperate on fair terms and recognize the burdens of judgment, the standard PJP cannot unequivocally exclude reasons derived from comprehensive doctrines. Instead, I propose an alternative, fallibilistic formulation of PJP: Political decisions are legitimate only if they are justified on the grounds of reasons that can be subject to reasonable criticism. I show that the fallibilistic PJP clearly excludes the appeals to comprehensive doctrines, exposes more instances of unreasonableness in public deliberation than the standard PJP, avoids the idealization problem, and does not invite the allegations of self-defeat.
PUBLIC REASON WITHOUT IDEALIZATION
Public reason liberals hold that state coercion is legitimate only if it is reasonably acceptable to all citizens. However, some individuals reject liberal political values or deny that these values entail the reasonable acceptability principle (RAP). Therefore, in order to safeguard against illiberal political decisions and meet its own criterion of legitimacy, RAP has to rely on the idealizing assumption that its constituency includes only those citizens who accept RAP. Some critics contend that such idealization is an objectionably self-serving move, which public reason liberals struggle to justify. I argue, in reply, that public reason liberals can abandon the language of acceptability and simply require that state coercion be reasonably justified, where “reasonable justification” is justification compatible with cooperating on fair terms and recognizing the burdens of judgment. As I demonstrate, this reasonable justification principle adequately substitutes for RAP without getting public reason into the troubles of idealization.
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