Abstract
This piece defends the asymmetric convergence model of public justification in response to James Boettcher’s critique. I maintain both that Boettcher’s critique of asymmetric convergence fails and that his alternative view, Weak Public Justification, faces a number of serious challenges.
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Notes
Importantly, however, the convergence view is demanding by requiring that legislators not support what they justifiably believe to be defeated law. But it is no more demanding than the consensus view in this regard. I thank an anonymous referee for this point.
I thank an anonymous referee for stressing the central role of the presumption against coercion in justifying asymmetry.
Which is typically packaged with a presumption against coercion, though convergence is not unique among conceptions of justificatory reasons in being so associated.
Boettcher points to Boettcher 2007 to back up the arguments here, but he does not explain how the piece buttresses his argument. Since I have limited space, I will not attempt to reconstruct the connection.
One might worry that setting the boundaries of a right held by all by appealing to the private reasons of a particular group is odd. Why should John have a right merely because Reba’s doctrine demands it? The reason, briefly, is that on convergence private reasons set a minimum extent of a right that, then, by publicly justified principles of equal treatment, are extended to others. If Reba’s reason to reject coercion is sound according to the convergence standard, then she may not be coerced in that way. And by a principle of equal treatment, John has the same right. There may be exceptions to this generalization, however, such as the case of religious exemptions. I discuss these cases in detail in “The Moral Basis of Religious Exemptions,” forthcoming.
Note here that in responding to both Boettcher’s critiques of convergence and his critique of the presumption against coercion generally associated with convergence, we have effectively replied to his critiques of asymmetry.
Boettcher also raises the question of why convergence views take coercion to stand in need of justification. “What is wrong with state coercion such that it stands in need of a special kind of justification?” Boettcher doesn’t push this objection far, but Gaus has provided a detailed explanation that Boettcher does not address. Gaus 2011, 479–90.
The following is Boettcher’s “gloss” on Reiman. See Boettcher 2015, 12.
Boettcher 2015, p. 191-208. PJ1 refers to one of Boettcher’s preliminary statements of a public justification principle.
Boettcher also raises an objection in defense of convergence that “the reasons that would support or defeat a theory of public justification must meet a more demanding standard.” I think the idea is that the convergence liberal could insist that Reiman’s conception of coercion is just incorrect, and so we can ignore it in a theory of public justification. This objection gets into the confusing and complicated territory of how to understand the strength of argument needed to formulate a political theory vs. the strength needed to formulate an adequate political argument in a publicly justified polity. For this reason I believe that addressing the objection would take us too far afield. Since no public reason liberal has advanced this defense of convergence, there is little need to address it.
Importantly, Boettcher develops a previous principle, PJ3, or Strong Public Justification, as an aspirational ideal that is more restrictive, but claims that it is seldom relevant in real-world politics. Boettcher claims that the ideal will “rarely obtain in actual polities, even when citizens are generally reasonable and epistemically responsible” (Boettcher 2015, pp. 191–208). Consequently, I will leave it aside.
I think an anonymous referee for raising this objection.
Though Weak Public Justification does seem to permit coercion in the case of an inconclusive balance of justificatory reasons, as opposed to some convergence views, which often require a conclusive justification.
See Vallier 2014, p. 24.
References
Boettcher J (2007) “Respect, recognition and public reason.” Soc Theory Pract 33:223–249
Boettcher, J (2015) “Against the asymmetric convergence model of public justification.” Ethical Theory Moral Pract. Published online: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10677-014-9519-7
Gaus G (2011) The order of public reason. Cambridge University Press, New York
Gaus G, Vallier K (2009) “The roles of religious conviction in a publicly justified policy.” Philos Soc Criticism 35:51–76
Quong J (2011) Liberalism without perfection. Oxford University Press, New York
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Schwartzman M (2012) The ethics of reasoning from conjecture. J Moral Philos 9(4):521–544
Vallier K (2011) “Against public reason’s accessibility requirement.” J Moral Philos 8:366–389
Vallier K (2014) Liberal politics and public faith: Beyond separation. Routledge, New York
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This paper is a discussion piece that directly replies to James Boettcher’s recent piece in this journal.
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Vallier, K. In Defense of the Asymmetric Convergence Model of Public Justification: A Reply to Boettcher. Ethic Theory Moral Prac 19, 255–266 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-015-9605-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-015-9605-5