Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

In Defense of Liberal Public Reason: are Slavery and Abortion Hard Cases?

In Defense of Liberal Public Reason: are Slavery and Abortion Hard Cases? "Public Reason" and Reasons for Action by Public Authority: An Exchange of Views IN DEFENSE OF LIBERAL PUBLIC REASON: ARE SLAVERY AND ABORTION HARD CASES? STEPHEN MACEDO I. INTRODUCTION: TWO-PART LIBERALISM I want here to defend a version of liberalism that is made up of two parts: on the one hand a commitment to broad guarantees of liberty and equality, on the other hand a commitment to a practice of public reasonableness. The first part is the most widely known and discussed part of liberalism. There are, of course, many different ways of specifying our basic liberties and guarantees of political equality. Even non-academics are familiar with debates over individual rights and their limits and the nature of equality, debates that go on within as well as across the boundaries of liberalism. I do not want directly to take up these familiar debates here, but rather will focus on the second less familiar dimension of liberalism. The second part of liberalism—the commitment to public reasonable- ness—likely seems a bit more obscure. It is perhaps more a focus of academic than of popular attention. Nevertheless, practical political debates are sometimes marked by the assertion that a proposed law or policy http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png American Journal of Jurisprudence Oxford University Press

In Defense of Liberal Public Reason: are Slavery and Abortion Hard Cases?

Macedo, Stephen
American Journal of Jurisprudence , Volume 42 (1) – Jan 1, 1997
Download PDF
29 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/oxford-university-press/in-defense-of-liberal-public-reason-are-slavery-and-abortion-hard-PXunirH560
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Copyright
© 1997 by The University of Notre Dame
ISSN
0065-8995
eISSN
2049-6494
DOI
10.1093/ajj/42.1.1
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

"Public Reason" and Reasons for Action by Public Authority: An Exchange of Views IN DEFENSE OF LIBERAL PUBLIC REASON: ARE SLAVERY AND ABORTION HARD CASES? STEPHEN MACEDO I. INTRODUCTION: TWO-PART LIBERALISM I want here to defend a version of liberalism that is made up of two parts: on the one hand a commitment to broad guarantees of liberty and equality, on the other hand a commitment to a practice of public reasonableness. The first part is the most widely known and discussed part of liberalism. There are, of course, many different ways of specifying our basic liberties and guarantees of political equality. Even non-academics are familiar with debates over individual rights and their limits and the nature of equality, debates that go on within as well as across the boundaries of liberalism. I do not want directly to take up these familiar debates here, but rather will focus on the second less familiar dimension of liberalism. The second part of liberalism—the commitment to public reasonable- ness—likely seems a bit more obscure. It is perhaps more a focus of academic than of popular attention. Nevertheless, practical political debates are sometimes marked by the assertion that a proposed law or policy

Journal

American Journal of Jurisprudence – Oxford University Press

Published: Jan 1, 1997

There are no references for this article.