Reconstructing Public Reason

Can a liberal polity act on pressing matters of public concern in a way that respects the variety of beliefs and commitments that its citizens hold? Recent efforts to answer this question typically begin by seeking an uncontroversial starting point from which legitimate public ends can be said to follow. This reluctance to admit controversial beliefs as legitimate grounds for public action threatens to prevent us from responding effectively to many of the leading social and political challenges that we face. Eric MacGilvray argues that we should shift our attention away from the problem of identifying uncontroversial public ends in the present and toward the problem of evaluating potentially controversial public ends through collective inquiry over time. Rather than ask ourselves which public ends are justified, we must instead decide which public ends we should seek to justify. Reconstructing Public Reason offers a fundamental rethinking of the nature and aims of liberal toleration, and of the political implications of pragmatic philosophy. It also provides fresh interpretations of founding pragmatic thinkers such as John Dewey and William James, and of leading contemporary figures such as John Rawls and Richard Rorty.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments Abbreviations Introduction: The Task before Us 1. The Present Dilemma 2. What Pragmatism Is (and Is Not) 3. Overview PART I. TOWARD A PRAGMATIC THEORY OF POLITICAL JUSTIFICATION 1. The Tyranny of Minimalism 1. Does Justification Matter? 2. The Limits of Proceduralism 3. The Limits of Agonism 4. Pragmatic Justification 5. Beyond Minimalism 2. Prospectivism and the "Will to Believe" 1. Scope of the Problem 2. Belief and Will 3. Belief and Evidence 4. Belief and Context 5. Pragmatism and the Will to Believe 3. Narrative and Moral Reasoning 1. Narrative and Moral Experience 2. Narrative and Moral Ontology 3. Narrative and Evidence 4. Narrative and Doubt 5. Narrative and Public Discourse PART II. PRAGMATISM AND DEMOCRACY 4. Against a Second Pragmatic Acquiescence 1. Acquiescent Pragmatism 2. The Problem of Context 3. Experience as Experiment 4. Science and Democracy 5. Pragmatism and Egalitarianism 5. Against Deweyan Democracy 1. The Deweyan Revival 2. The Hegelian Deposit 3. Individuality and Community 4. The Problem with the Public 5. Dewey's Enduring Contribution Part III. Political Liberalism 6. Political Liberalism and the Limits of the Political 1. Desiderata 2. Public Justifiability 3. Right and Reasonable 4. Right and Good 5. Public Reason and Reasonable Disagreement 6. Two Difficulties 7. Public Reason and Public Institutions 1. Embodying Public Reason 2. Disagreement, Consensus, and Respect 3. The Judicial Model 4. Insincerity Examined 5. The Federal Model 6. Is Injustice Justifiable? 8. The Fact of Reasonable Disagreement 1. The Pluralist Narrative 2. Is Pluralism Necessary? 3. Is Pluralism Permanent? 4. The Fallibilist Narrative 5. Fallibilism without Skepticism 6. Legitimacy without Neutrality Conclusion: Liberalism after Minimalism Index

About the Author :
Eric MacGilvray is Assistant Professor of Political Science at The Ohio State University.

Review :
[MacGilvray’s] thoughtful book, Reconstructing Public Reason, proposes a pragmatic modification of liberalism that hypothesizes making narrative accounts of proposed actions transparent, public, and prospective in order to test competing claims… While written for an audience of political theorists, Reconstructing Public Reason will appeal to scholars interested in deliberative democracy, pragmatism, and narrative reasoning. Imaginatively conceived and skillfully executed, Reconstructing Public Reason will appeal to those anxious about the declining (or ascending!) influence of pragmatism and those anxious about the practical significance of theorizing about political justice generally and political liberalism specifically. No small accomplishment. This is an intelligent book that addresses two important and fashionable themes in political theory—pragmatism and political liberalism. And it contributes to our understanding of both.