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Is There a Need for Political Liberalism to Have an Account of Pre-Overlapping Consensus Reasoning?

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Is There a Need for Political Liberalism to Have an Account of Pre-Overlapping Consensus Reasoning? LIBERALISM WITHOUT Is there a Need for Political Liberalism to PERFECTION have an Account UDK: 141.7 FILOZOFIJA I DRUŠTVO XXV (1), 2014. DOI: 10.2298/FID1401057Z Originalan naučni rad Nebojša Zelić Faculty of Philosophy University of Rijeka Is there a Need for Political Liberalism to have an Account of Pre-Overlapping Consensus Reasoning? Abstract In his Liberalism without Perfection, Jonathan Quong argues for internal conception of political liberalism which goal is to show that a libe- ral well-ordered society is internally coherent ideal and that citizens who would be raised in such society could endorse and support their own liberal institutions and principles if those institutions and principles are justified in particular way These institutions should be justified by particular concepti- on of public reason which main feature is that overlapping consensus is the first stage of its justificatory structure. So, public reasoning of citizens in well-ordered society should be based solely on values and ideas inherent to 57 liberal conception of justice – freedom, equality, fair system of cooperation and burdens of judgment. Another important feature of Quong’s conception of public reason concerns its scope. Quong argues for a wide scope of public reason which demands that all coercive or binding laws or public policies should be justified (whenever possible) on basis of these values alone. Thus, reasonable citizens in well-ordered society by definition accord deliberative priority to public reasons over their other comprehensive or nonpublic be- liefs whenever they exercise their collective political power over one another. The problem I raise in this paper is that it is very likely that in well-ordered society there will be a group of citizens that will not accord full deliberative priority to political values, especially not at all levels of political deliberation. On certain issues they will like to see their particular values being realized through common political institutions. If our political theory excludes this group from justificatory constituency on this particular issue or categorize them as unreasonable it can easily undermine their general adherence to liberal conception of justice and endanger stability of well-ordered society. Thus, my point is that we need a further development of political liberalism to solve such problems not as a part of non-ideal theory but as a part of its ideal of well-ordered society. Keywords: Quong, Rawls, political liberalism, public reason, reasonablene- ss, sincerity, moral duty of civility It is a great privilege to have the opportunity to discuss Jonathan Quong’s Liberalism without Perfection. This book is one of finest accounts of po- litical liberalism that will surely have wide impact on new generation of political thinkers interested in liberal political theory. Perfectionist lib- erals have good target to attack and political liberals have a great start- ing point for further development of their theory. I agree with Quong’s account of political liberalism, so the aim of this paper is not to raise NeboJšA Zelić IS THERE A NEED FOR POLITICAL LIBERALISM TO HAVE AN ACCOUNT critical points about his book. Rather, aim is to provoke Quong to elab- orate more on certain problems concerning stability of well-ordered so- ciety that can possibly go beyond his initial account. Starting point in Quong’s thinking of political liberalism is to develop an internal conception of political liberalism the goal of which is “to show that a kind of citizens who would be raised in a society well-or- dered by a liberal conception of justice could endorse and support their own liberal institutions and principles if those institutions and princi- ples are justified in particular way”.1 The main feature of Quong’s inter- nal conception of political liberalism is that the constituency of pub- lic justification is made only of reasonable citizens that, by definition, accept political values and always accord them deliberative priority in reasoning about political rules that their common political institutions should implement.2 These political values – fairness, equality, freedom 58 and reasonable pluralism (characterized by burdens of judgment) – are in the focus of overlapping consensus. Thus, overlapping consen- sus is conceptualized as the first stage in the justificatory structure of a political liberalism.3 We begin by asking what values or ideals citizens in an ideally well-ordered liberal society would all accept, and then we use those ideas as the basis for subsequent philosophical argument and public reasoning about the content of liberal justice. So, political rea- soning according to this picture is post – overlapping consensus reason- ing (post-OC reasoning). Further aspect of post-OC reasoning is that we have two kinds of disa- greement – foundational reasonable disagreement (FRD) and justifica- tory reasonable disagreement (JRD).4 Former kind of disagreement is characterized by the fact that there are no shared premises or frame- works between the parties, latter kind of disagreement is characterized by the fact that the parties share certain premises which frame their dispute. First kind of disagreement is part of pre-OC reasoning, while the latter is part of post- OC reasoning. So, there is a principled reason for treating these two kinds of disagreements differently. Quong’s main point is that there is asymmetry between these two kinds of disagree- ment. FRD is disagreement about the good, and JRD is disagreement about justice. Even in well-ordered society it would be implausible to 1 Quong (2011), p. 158 2 Ibid, ch. 5 3 Ibid, ch. 6 4 Ibid, ch. 7 LIBERALISM WITHOUT PERFECTION think that all reasonable citizens would give equal weight to same pub- lic reasons and hold same particular law justified by these same reasons. Citizens will differently weigh public reasons and they will disagree on outcomes of their post-OC reasoning. But, the important thing is that whatever decision is reached we can expect that all citizens can reason- ably accept it, because it is based on shared political values, even if they think that some other decision is more reasonable or more just.5 Thus, the criterion by which the law is just and legitimate is that it can be rea- sonably accepted and not that it cannot be reasonably rejected. The criterion of reasonable acceptance and not reasonable rejection is in accordance with Rawls’ principle of liberal legitimacy which states that “our exercise of political power is fully proper only when it is ex- ercised in accordance with constitution the essentials of which all citi- zens as free and equal may reasonably be expected to endorse in light of 59 principles and ideals acceptable to their common human reason”.6 In this way we can see the link between justice and legitimacy. If liberal theory of justice is based on political values that all citizens accept in JRD and if they base their reasoning solely on these values then, even if they reasonably disagree on which outcome is best, whatever decision is reached will be reasonably just and legitimate.7 Thus, our exercise of political power over each other can be legitimate only if it is within the range of liberal theory of justice, and we know that it is within this range only if it is based on political values all reasonable citizens share. Soci- ety for which internal conception of political liberalism is designed is well-ordered liberal society and that is the reason we start from liberal theory of justice. Essential idea of political liberalism which refers to practice of political justification is idea of public reason. Since idea of public reason refers to question of legitimate exercise of our political power over each other then it is evident that for Quong the idea of public reason is grounded in the value of justice.8 This, I believe, can also be said for the moral duty of civility which refers to moral demands that norms of public reason place on citizens and of- ficials in their political behavior or, in other words, in their exercising 5 Ibid, p. 209–210 6 Rawls (1996), p. 137 (my italics) 7 On difference between reasonably just and perfectly just institutions see Quong (2011), p. 133. 8 On different ways of grounding the idea of public reason see Quong (2013). NeboJšA Zelić IS THERE A NEED FOR POLITICAL LIBERALISM TO HAVE AN ACCOUNT their political power over each other in well-ordered society. Moral duty of civility, similarly as liberal principle of legitimacy, requires from citi- zens to “to be able to explain to one another on this fundamental ques- tion how the principles and policies they advocate can be supported by the political values of public reason”.9 Moral duty of civility asks from citizens to reason with each other only in terms of public reasons or political values, at least when fundamental questions of justice are at stake. As we will see below, Quong does not restrict public reason only to fundamental questions of justice, but for now we can leave this prob- lem aside. So, we have a moral, not legal, duty to restrain our reasoning on political issues on post- OC reasoning. Where that duty does comes from? I believe that it is possible to ground that duty in more fundamen- 10 tal duty – natural duty of justice . Natural duty of justice “requires us to support and comply with just institutions that exist and apply to us. 60 It also constrains us to further just arrangements not yet established, at least when this can be done without too much cost to ourselves”.11 How do citizens in well-ordered society fulfill their duty of justice? Since rea- sonable pluralism is an internal fact about well-ordered society it would be wrong to determine one true or perfect conception of justice backed by comprehensive reasons and then demand from all citizens to com- ply with it.
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