Public reason is a phrase first coined by Immanuel Kant in his 1784 editorial piece responding to the question What is Enlightenment? It is also used by American philosopher John Rawls to refer to the common reason of all citizens in a pluralist society. Public reason giving involves justifying a particular position by way of reasons that people of different moral or political backgrounds could accept. In order to accomplish this, however, one must overcome what he refers to as the burdens of judgment, which can produce disagreement among reasonable citizens. These burdens include conflicting evidence, giving differing weights to considerations, conceptual indeterminacy, differing experiences and value conflicts. Private reason, by contrast, is the exercise of an individual's reason to the constrained norms and interests of some sub-set of the public as a whole (such as a business, a political party, the military or the family).

[edit] External links

• Fabienne Peter: Rawls’ Idea of Public Reason and Democratic Legitimacy
• Legal Theory Lexicon: Public Reason

[edit] See also

• A Theory of Justice
• Justice as fairness
• Public choice theory

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