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Public reason is one of the central concepts in modern liberal political theory. As articulated by John Rawls, it presents a way to overcome the difficulties created by intractable differences among citizens' religious and moral beliefs by strictly confining the place of such convictions in the public sphere.Identifying this conception as a key point of conflict, this book presents a debate among contemporary natural law and liberal political theorists on the definition and validity of the idea of public reason. The contributors test public reason by examining its implications for current issues, confronting the questions of abortion and slavery and matters relating to citizenship.
List of contents
Introduction Robert P. George and Christopher WolfeIn Defense of Liberal Public Reason: Are Slavery and Abortion Hard Cases? Stephen MacedoNatural Law and Public Reason Robert P. George and Christopher WolfeAbortion, Natural Law, and Public Reason John FinnisAbortion, Natural Law, and Liberal DiscourseA Response to John Finnis Jeffrey ReimanCitizenship and Public Reason Paul J. WeithmanPolitical Liberalism, Pubic Reason, and the Citizen of Faith Patrick Neal ContributorsIndex
About the author
Robert P. George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University and the author of
Making Men Moral: Civil Liberties and Public Morality (Oxford, 1993) and
In Defense of Natural Law (Oxford, 1999).
Christopher Wolfe is professor of political science at Marquette University and the author of
The Rise of Modern Judicial Review (Basic Books, 1986).
Summary
"Public reason" is one of the central concepts in modern liberal political theory. Identifying this conception as a key point of conflict, this book presents a debate among contemporary natural law and liberal political theorists on the definition and validity of the idea of public reason.
