This splendid review by Kelly Sorensen of Wolterstorff's recent volume of essays (edited by the distinguished philosopher, Terence Cuneo [this goes unremarked in the review]) calls attention to six "arguments against public reason liberalism." The first two are described as follows:
First, public reason liberalism actually is not realistic enough. One's capable adult fellow citizens clearly do not universally endorse the same reasons. So public reason liberalism has to idealize -- it has to imagine what reasons capable adult fellow citizens would endorse if they met certain hypothetical conditions, with the presumption that a consensus or convergence about these reasons would emerge. The hypothetical conditions vary from one brand of public reason liberalism to another...Why think disagreement about these reasons will disappear under idealization? ... So public reason liberalism is not realistic enough: we are stuck with pluralism, and we cannot idealize our way out of it.
Second, public reason liberalism is paternalistic and patronizing, despite its lip service to respect. Suppose Jones favors some policy on religious reasons that do not qualify as public reasons. Smith, a fan of public reason liberalism, is stuck with telling Jones, "You shouldn't express your reasons in public discussion, and you shouldn't vote on them. Here instead are the kinds of reasons that count -- reasons you would endorse if you were not under-informed and rationally impaired." Jones will of course find this condescending and patronizing.
Some might wish to explore the degree public reason Liberalism (Rawls, Larmore, etc.) can respond to these problems or needs to be amended by what Sorensen calls "aspirational public reason liberalism." That's not my concern here. Rather, it's fascinating (to me) to see the embrace of political pluralism by a central figure in Reformed philosophy and theology. (Now, one might claim that this just continues Dooyeweerd's embrace of pluralism in a religiously divided society, but Dooyeweerd's philosophy has its own problem(s) with paternalism. [Recall this on Dooyeweerd & Plantinga.]) Progressive and Conservative American protestant political thought is generally characterized by monistic conceptions of the good, which animate a variety of (often noble) moral 'crusades.'
Wolterstorff's first two arguments both track the fact that the dominant (Rawlsian) public reason Liberalism embrace a variety of strategies that embrace technocratic or expert driven consensus-seeking procedures that have trouble fully acknowledging ways of existing that do not conform to dominant conceptions of 'the reasonable,' and, thus (?), always risk patronizing others. (Of course, over time public reason Liberalism is quite flexible, and so tends toward the inclusive--this is part of the aspirational nature that Sorensen emphasizes.) This is, in fact, where Wolterstorff's position comes close to Feminist and Standpoint criticisms of Liberalism.
While Stateside commitment political pluralism can be traced back to Madison's contributions to the Federalist Papers, in the twentieth century the dominant form was probably associated with Dewey's program (see Eisenberg's interesting treatment). While I would not deny many continuities between Rawls and Dewey's (expert-guided) "problem solving" orientation, the success of Rawls's Theory of Justice effectively displaced Dewey's program, which had been at the core of American progressive thought for several generations, without ever needing to argue against Dewey's very different conception of political philosophy; Rawls is more interested in offering an alternative to Arrow (and Utilitarianism, etc.). In TJ Rawls' main pluralist interlocutor is the economist Frank Knight (and fellow critic of Arrow [recall]), but at bottom Knight thought society had to embrace some agreement over fundamental values.
Of course, Dewey-style progressives often took for granted a shared outlook that they had inherited from shared WASP culture (Dewey was raised in a Vermont Congregational church). Given that over the last half century, American Protestants have been tempted by majoritarian strategies (associated with the American political right), it would be fascinating if Reformed philosophers would be the source of a renewed, farsighted, robust American form political pluralism.
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