Premium
The Fragility of Consensus: Public Reason, Diversity and Stability
Author(s) -
Thrasher John,
Vallier Kevin
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
european journal of philosophy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.42
H-Index - 36
eISSN - 1468-0378
pISSN - 0966-8373
DOI - 10.1111/ejop.12020
Subject(s) - fragility , diversity (politics) , stability (learning theory) , public reason , mechanism (biology) , law and economics , political science , positive economics , epistemology , mathematical economics , sociology , philosophy , economics , law , democracy , computer science , physics , machine learning , thermodynamics , politics
J ohn R awls's transition from A T heory of J ustice to P olitical L iberalism was driven by his rejection of T heory's account of stability. The key to his later account of stability is the idea of public reason. We see R awls's account of stability as an attempt to solve a mutual assurance problem. We maintain that R awls's solution fails because his primary assurance mechanism, in the form of public reason, is fragile. His conception of public reason relies on a condition of consensus that we argue is unrealistic in modern, pluralistic democracies. After rejecting Rawls's conception of public reason, we offer an ‘indirect alternative’ that we believe is much more robust. We cite experimental evidence to back up this claim.