Convergence and Consensus in Public Reason

Abstract

The public reason tradition holds that the only reasons that can justify coercion within a legitimate social order are public. However, the notion of a public reason is ambiguous between what is sometimes called the consensus and convergence conceptions of reasons. Consensus holds that public justification allows only common or shared reasons into justificatory discourse. In contrast, convergence that public justification allows reasons that are not shared, permitting comprehensive reasons into the process of public reasoning.

This paper defends convergence and rejects consensus. Despite consensus’s relative prominence, public reason liberalism’s foundational commitments provide strong reasons to prefer convergence. In particular, convergence expresses much greater respect for reasonable pluralism and individual liberty. The consensus requirement only permits reasons to enter into public justification if they are shared, which discriminates against a number of social groups, including many communities of faith. It even threatens to undermine the practice of religious exemption.

This paper also responds to several criticism of convergence, one from John Rawls and three very recent criticisms advanced by Christopher Eberle, Stephen Macedo and Jonathan Quong. In one way or another, all four criticisms charge convergence with generating informational challenges because it permits a vast array of private reasons to enter into the process of public justification. In my view, however, the introduction of private reasons will prove to be a great benefit to public reason liberalism, not a cost. In particular, convergence deemphasizes the role of deliberation and ideal theory and shifts the focus of public reason liberalism towards institutional design and motivates a broader conception of social epistemology than that provided by deliberation alone.

Keywords: public reason, public justification, convergence, religion and politics, liberalism