Publications

Articles

2021

AGAINST PUBLIC REASON'S ALLEGED SELF-DEFEAT

Law and Philosophy 40 (6): 617-44

Open access

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

Download draft

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

Download draft

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

Download draft

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

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 


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. 

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.

DOES COVID-19 AFFECT PUBLIC REASON?

I contend that the two major accounts of public reason — John Rawls’s consensus- and Gerald Gaus’s convergence-oriented conceptions — face significant difficulties in providing a robust normative framework for the public justification of restrictive healthcare policies similar those that were implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic. In contrast, I show that the fallibilistic conception of public reason is well suited to expose the unreasonableness of the most subversive arguments against lockdowns, mask mandates, and vaccination requirements, such as the arguments from human dignity, individual freedom, and medical scepticism. 

CIVIC FRIENDSHIP VS. PUBLIC REASON

According to Rawlsian political liberals, it is sufficient for civic friendship that citizens fulfil the requirements of public reason: they should publicly support only those legal provisions that are justifiable on the grounds of liberal political conceptions of justice, such as Rawls’s justice as fairness. I contend that when Rawlsians’ own notion of civic friendship is defined clearly, it demands more political solidarity than is required by liberal conceptions of justice, including justice as fairness. Therefore, the commitment to public reason is insufficient for civic friendship, and furthermore, legal provisions aimed at maintaining civic friendship cannot be publicly justified.


Here is a complete list of my publications