THE BEGINNING OF COMMUNITY:

POLITICS IN THE FACE OF DISAGREEMENT

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Rawls requirement that citizens of liberal democracies support only policies which they believe can
be justied in public reason depends on a certain ideal for the relationships between citizens. This
is a valuable ideal, and thus citizens have reasons to try to achieve it. But it is not always possible to
find the common ground that we would need in order to do so, and thus we should reject Rawls
strong claim that we have an obligation to defend our views in public reason. Because I recognize
that we have strong reasons to conduct our political enquiry within the guidelines of political
liberalism, but deny that we always have an obligation to do so, one might call my view permissive
political liberalism.
In our society people disagree about what is valuable and how we ought to
live. We need to gure out how to understand and organize our relation-
ships in the face of this. Politics, the question of how to organize our
relationships as fellow citizens, presents us with one inevitable form of the
problem. This paper deals solely with this form: given that we disagree, how
should we organize our collective political life? Though the question is about
collective organization, I am particularly interested in the implications for
individuals. I ask how each of us should conceive our relationship to other
citizens, and what obligations we should thus take ourselves to have.
This paper engages the view about disagreement in politics articulated by
John Rawls in Political Liberalism.
1
Rawls holds that while citizens of liberal
democracies disagree about many things, we must agree on what counts as a
reason for political purposes. This agreement supplies us with what Rawls
calls public reason. I refer to the view that citizens should aim to justify
policy positions using the shared premises of public reason as political
liberalism. Rawls and others embrace a version of this view which I call
strict political liberalism. This variant adds that citizens have an obligation to
support only policies they believe they can justify with the common ground
of public reason. They violate this obligation when, in defending their
1
J. Rawls, Political Liberalism (Columbia UP, :qq6), henceforth PL.
The Philosophical Quarterly Vol. , No. January
ISSN doi: :o.::::/j.:6-q.:..oo8.q:.x
.oo8 The Author Journal compilation .oo8 The Editors of The Philosophical Quarterly
Published by Blackwell Publishing, q6oo Garsington Road, Oxford ox .n, UK, and o Main Street, Malden, x\ o.:8, USA

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policy views, they appeal to value claims about which there is reasonable
disagreement.
2
I am sympathetic with the ideal of the relationship of citizens which strict
political liberalism advances. We misunderstand such relationships if we do
not appreciate the value of achieving this ideal, and we have reason to try
to achieve it. Further, I agree that strict political liberalism tells us how to
achieve the ideal, and so we have reason to follow its norms. But I part
company with strict political liberals in rejecting the claim that this ideal
imposes on us an obligation to follow the norms. I believe that the ideal is not
always achievable. When we cannot achieve it, we should admit our failure
to realize an important value. Regret over this is appropriate, but we have
not violated an obligation to our fellow citizens. Because I recognize that we
have strong reasons to conduct our political enquiry within the guidelines of
political liberalism, but deny that we have an obligation always to do so, one
might call my view permissive political liberalism.
Strict political liberals hold that when we legislate or publicly advocate
our political views on fundamental questions, our justications must not rely
on the truth of our own worldview. Rather, we should limit ourselves to con-
siderations which all reasonable people agree count as reasons for political
purposes. In I I argue that the justication of this claim relies on a certain
ideal of political relationships. I ask in II exactly what we would need to
agree on to achieve these relationships. In III I explain the importance of
the modier reasonable, discussing why it is needed and how to determine
who counts as reasonable. In IV I discuss the prospects for achieving the
relevant agreement. Although the ideal of public reason is practical, provid-
ing guidance in many cases, it cannot settle all fundamental political issues.
Then reasonable people must, with regret, fall back on something else.
I. THE NEED FOR AGREEMENT
I.:. The persistence of disagreement
Rawls view is paradigmatic of a certain pessimism about the possibility of
agreement. He holds that when competent adults reason freely they will
POLITICS IN THE FACE OF DISAGREEMENT :
.oo8 The Author Journal compilation .oo8 The Editors of The Philosophical Quarterly
2
Other defenders of strict political liberalism include R. Audi, in R. Audi and N. Wol-
terstor, Religion in the Public Square (Lanham: Rowman & Littleeld, :qq), pp. :66, :.:,
:6, and The Separation of Church and State and the Obligations of Citizenship, Philo-
sophy and Public Aairs, :8 (:q8q), pp. .qq6; J. Cohen, Deliberation and Democratic
Legitimacy, and Procedure and Substance in Deliberative Democracy, both in J. Bohman
and W. Rehg (eds), Deliberative Democracy (MIT Press, :qq), pp. 6q., o8; C. Larmore,
Political Liberalism, Political Theory, :8 (:qqo), pp. q6o.

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come to various and conicting conclusions about what is of value and how
we should live.
3
He calls the objects of disagreement comprehensive doctrines.
Comprehensive doctrines are more or less complete ways of understanding
the world, human beings, and what is of worth. They are what I have been
calling worldviews. Most religious traditions and some philosophical systems
are comprehensive doctrines or worldviews. Rawls counts thoroughgoing
utilitarianism and his own comprehensive liberalism among the latter.
Strict political liberals arm that disagreement about which compre-
hensive doctrine is true or best stems from the vexing nature of the questions
they address, not merely from epistemic irresponsibility on the part of some.
Rawls (PL, pp. ) explains this persistent disagreement by what he calls
the burdens of judgement. These include the complexity of assessing
evidence, the diculty of determining what evidence is relevant, the judge-
ment needed to weigh various reasons, the vagueness of our concepts, and
the inuence of our past experience. The burdens of judgement ensure that
two open-minded interlocutors, both aiming in good faith to discover the
truth and adhering to their epistemic responsibilities, may form conicting
views. Thus reasonable people cannot always come to agreement, even in
principle. Rawls thinks that disagreement normally persists even when all
have reasoned well.
This places out of reach one attractive possibility for political community.
On this view, the point of political community is to share in a common way
of life, based on a shared sense of what is valuable. I think that many people,
on all parts of the political spectrum, pine for this model of political life, and
understandably so.
4
Relationships that meet this description are among the
most satisfying and valuable possible. But, along with strict political liberals,
I reject the idea that we can achieve this politically.
In fact, reasonable disagreement does more than place this model of civic
relations out of our reach. It ensures that we should not even try to achieve it
or approximate to it. We may, of course, try to convince one another of our
worldviews by making our best cases for them. But we must recognize that
we cannot thereby succeed in fully bringing about consensus on values.
With convincing one another out of the question, other means to agreement
could only be some kind of non-rational conditioning or repression. These
are objectionable, especially in the hands of the state. For instance, we
might at least approximate to nation-wide consensus by severely limiting
parents rights to educate their children and instituting compulsory public
education that aimed to inculcate a particular view in all.
5
This would
. KYLA EBELS-DUGGAN
.oo8 The Author Journal compilation .oo8 The Editors of The Philosophical Quarterly
3
Cf. Cohen, Procedure and Substance in Deliberative Democracy, p. o.
4
See, e.g., A. MacIntyre, After Virtue (Notre Dame UP, :q8:).
5
See G. Coq, New York Times, o January .oo, Section A, p. ..

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amount to the state selecting and aiming to establish a single way of life not
presently accepted by all citizens. It is unclear why we should think that the
state has the authority or competence to make such a selection.
Thus we should abandon an ideal for civic relations which requires com-
prehensive agreement on values and ways of life. The ideal we seek is one
for relations with those with whom we disagree.
I... The reciprocity criterion
But according to Rawls, there is a problem about how any constitutional
democracy can tolerate the disagreement which it cannot eradicate.
6
This
problem arises for him because he thinks that part of accepting constitutional
democracy is accepting what he calls the criterion of reciprocity.
7
This is the
demand that we justify policy proposals on fundamental matters, those
having to do with what Rawls calls the basic structure of society, only by
appeal to considerations which we think that others could reasonably agree
are reasons. I can understand this demand only if I know what it means for
me to think that it would be reasonable for others to accept my reasons. If it
simply means thinking my reasons are good ones, not merely attempts at
manipulation, then the criterion does not forbid appeal to reasons grounded
in the truth of particular worldviews.
8
If it means, rather, that others would
have to be able to accept these reasons as true and applicable while remain-
ing committed to their own worldviews, the reciprocity criterion does have
this implication. Strict political liberals must take the criterion in this latter
way, since only this interpretation explains how the criterion makes dis-
agreement problematic. Our comprehensive doctrines might seem the most
natural, or even inevitable, source of justication for our own political views.
But when we disagree about these, this source of justication is placed o
limits and we require some other grounds of justication. Among the most
important projects of strict political liberalism is the identication of this
source. III below examines attempts to do this.
But here I am concerned with what makes this project pressing. Even if
we accept that the criterion of reciprocity holds that citizens should not
appeal to their comprehensive doctrines to support fundamental policy
POLITICS IN THE FACE OF DISAGREEMENT
.oo8 The Author Journal compilation .oo8 The Editors of The Philosophical Quarterly
6
Rawls casts the problem in terms of stability. J. Cohen, A More Democratic Liberalism,
Michigan Law Review, q. (:qq), pp. :o6, and S. Freeman, Political Liberalism and the
Possibility of a Just Democratic Constitution, in his Justice and the Social Contract (Oxford UP,
.oo), pp. :.:, provide helpful exegesis of this understanding. I defend an account of
citizens obligations, believing this is importantly related to but more purely normative than
the stability issue.
7
Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Harvard UP, :q:), p. ; cf. PL, pp. xliv, xlvi, li.
8
Cf. the discussion of Raz in Freeman, Public Reason and Political Justication, in his
Justice and the Social Contract, pp. .:8, at pp. ...

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positions, we have not yet been shown why we should accept such an obliga-
tion. Rawls claim that commitment to this criterion is part of a commit-
ment to constitutional democracy is far from obvious. Surely commitment to
constitutional democracy requires armation of the rule of law and fair
democratic procedures for enacting laws. As part of this, it requires recogni-
tion of certain political rights, to vote, hold oce and propose laws, and,
plausibly, rights to free speech, free press, and free assembly. But someone
could be committed to all this but not to the further thought that citizens
should govern themselves by the strong reading of the reciprocity criterion.
9
It is far too strong to claim that a polity in which citizens do not acknow-
ledge and govern themselves by this obligation fails to that extent to qualify
as a constitutional democracy.
One of Rawls own distinctions, that between concept and conception,
can help to make clear what is missing. Suppose we think that the concept of
a constitutional democracy is just that of government by rule of law, under a
constitution that designates democratic procedures for determining further
laws. A conception of constitutional democracy lls this out, arguing that
various rights and obligations of citizens would need to be recognized in
order to realize the concept.
10
But it is essential to give arguments in moving
from concept to conception. If we think that the right conception includes
the strong reading of the reciprocity criterion, we must be able to say why.
Asserting that it is part of the denition is not illuminating.
I.. The liberal principle of legitimacy
An idea which Rawls invokes elsewhere, the liberal principle of legitimacy,
might be thought to provide the key to making this move. The liberal
principle of legitimacy holds (PL, p. :) that
Our exercise of political power is fully proper only when it is exercised in accordance
with a constitution the essentials of which all citizens as free and equal may
reasonably be expected to endorse in the light of principles and ideals acceptable to
their common human reason ... all questions arising in the legislature that concern or
border on constitutional essentials, or basic questions of justice, should also be settled,
so far as possible, by principles and ideals that can be similarly endorsed.
The principle is that when we exercise political power in ways that bear
on constitutional essentials and matters of basic justice, we must do so on
grounds which all reasonable people could accept. For citizens, voting and
advocacy would count as such exercises of power, so here Rawls is
KYLA EBELS-DUGGAN
.oo8 The Author Journal compilation .oo8 The Editors of The Philosophical Quarterly
9
See, e.g., C.J. Eberle, Religious Conviction in Liberal Politics (Cambridge UP, .oo.). Cf.
R. Dworkin, Sovereign Virtue (Harvard UP, .ooo), pp. :8.:o, and Freedoms Law: the Moral
Reading of the American Constitution (Harvard UP, :qq6), pp. .
10
Cf. Cohen, Procedure and Substance in Deliberative Democracy.

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concerned, in part, with the question of citizens obligations. It may look as
if the principle of legitimacy could ground the criterion of reciprocity.
11
As it stands, though, the principle of legitimacy has exactly the same
problem as the criterion of reciprocity: it can be read in two ways, one of
which seems clearly part of the conception of constitutional democracy and
the other of which does the work that the argument needs. The rst takes
constitutional essentials and matters of basic justice to include only the
political rights listed above, those that are part of the functioning of a con-
stitutional democracy. But this way of reading the criterion requires nothing
more than a constitution enshrining these rights. We thus would not violate
this weak reading of the principle of legitimacy if we appeal to our world-
views to justify either these rights or our political views on other matters,
such as education, poverty, war, abortion, family structure, environmental
policy, etc.
On the other hand, if these and other issues are included in matters of
basic justice, then the criterion does exclude grounding our political views
on these matters in the truth of our worldviews. I think that Rawls means us
to read the criterion this way. But, like the strong reading of the reciprocity
criterion, this more ambitious version of the liberal principle of legitimacy
needs a defence which is thus far lacking. Someone who thinks that a regime
is illegitimate when individual citizens justify policy by appeal to their
comprehensive doctrines needs to say more about what is problematic about
doing so. Packing this content into the very idea of a liberal constitutional
democracy is unhelpful. It has no tendency to persuade someone who is not
antecedently sympathetic to the view that citizens have an obligation not to
appeal to their worldviews.
I.. Civic friendship
I hold that an apparently minor element of Rawls view does the important
work of explaining the appeal of strict political liberalism. Rawls believes
that the political relation in a constitutional democracy should have a
certain character, which he calls civic friendship.
12
This understanding of
relations between citizens arises from his conception of the state as a fair
system of co-operation among free and equal citizens. In friendships, we
characteristically act co-operatively as equals, rather than trying to mani-
pulate or control one another. We view one another as persons who have
POLITICS IN THE FACE OF DISAGREEMENT
.oo8 The Author Journal compilation .oo8 The Editors of The Philosophical Quarterly
11
Freeman, Political Liberalism and the Possibility of a Just Constitution, pp. :qq.oo, and
Public Reason and Political Justication, pp. ..:, ... M.J. Perry, Religion in Politics: Consti-
tutional and Moral Perspectives (Oxford UP, :qq), p. 8, argues that the principle of legitimacy just
is the criterion of reciprocity. Eberle endorses this claim.
12
Rawls, The Idea of Public Reason Revisited, in his Collected Papers (Harvard UP, :qqq),
p. q; cf. PL, p. li.

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the authority to make valid claims, not merely as obstacles to or tools for
attaining our own ends. This is the aspect of friendship which informs the
notion of civic friendship: we realize the ideal of civic friendship if we ex-
ercise the power of the state co-operatively with all reasonable citizens.
Commitment to public reason follows from this ideal. Co-operation
requires us to understand ourselves as reasoning with, not merely for, others.
This sets parameters on what counts as a good reason for the state to act: it
should act only on considerations which all reasonable citizens recognize as
reasons. Failing this, it fails to be a co-operative endeavour of all, and
becomes an exercise of power over those who do not recognize its reasons as
such. The aim of acting co-operatively with our fellow citizens thus gives us
reason not to support legislation which is justied only if our own worldview
is true. That is, the value of civic friendship provides reason to govern our-
selves by the ideal of public reason.
Rawls contrasts the co-operative understanding of the civic relationship
with another, which one might call the agonistic conception. On this concep-
tion, fellow citizens are, to the extent that they disagree with us, understood
as enemy combatants in a struggle to impose our views. We try to gain
control of the power of the state in order to override their claims and
accomplish our own ends. Rawls (The Idea of Public Reason Revisited,
p. ) associates the agonistic conception with those who want to embody
the whole truth in politics, that is, to use their own comprehensive doctrines
as a basis of reasons for political policies.
Given these options, it seems not only that we should prefer civic
friendship, but that to reject it would be unjust. Justice demands that we
recognize each citizens claims on the state; the agonistic conception does
not acknowledge any minority claims. However, there are two problems
with the contrast between civic friendship and the agonistic conception.
First, the contrast is not exhaustive. There is space between a commitment
to act only on considerations which are also acceptable to others, given their
worldview, and a total disregard for their claims. One thing in this space is
the belief that the interests of others give me reasons, without commitment
to act only on grounds they would recognize as reasons. This attitude need
not be paternalistic. I may acknowledge that important among their
interests is the ability to guide their own lives, including participation in
collective life, according to considerations they recognize as reasons. To the
extent that it acknowledges and highly values this interest, this attitude will
have much in common with civic friendship. But I might think that other
claims override the interest in self-determination in particular circum-
stances. When I vote in such circumstances, I may justify myself on grounds
which I know others reject. Believing that this is permissible is entirely
6 KYLA EBELS-DUGGAN
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compatible with rejecting the idea that others should be regarded as mere
obstacles to my ends.
13
Secondly, identied with wanting to impose the whole truth in politics,
the agonistic conception groups together attitudes which should be kept
distinct. Imposing the whole truth might involve using the power of govern-
ment to enforce ones own conception of the good, requiring everyone to
live in ways that acknowledge the values one recognizes. This conceptually,
and in most cases substantially, diers from wanting to organize political
relations in the way ones own worldview recommends. The two come apart
whenever someones worldview does not recommend using state power to
coerce people into living in accord with that very doctrine. Rawls own
comprehensive liberalism is like this, and so are many religious worldviews.
These views contain a distinction between considerations which count as
reasons in guiding ones own life, and those which count as reasons in
politics. Agents who want to impose the whole truth in this second sense
would think it proper to justify their policy positions by appeal to their own
worldview, the part of it that makes claims about how to set up the political
society. They thus would reject Rawls ideal of public reason. But they need
not endorse the objectionable view about state power embodied by the rst
attitude here. This too suggests the availability of attitudes that dier from
civic friendship, without falling into the agonistic conception.
The variety of possible attitudes towards our fellow citizens raises the
possibility of relations besides civic friendship which do not violate the ob-
ligations of liberal citizenship. We can arm this possibility, even while
agreeing with Rawls that civic friendship realizes values which these other
relations lack.
It is worth asking, though, why someone might group quite dierent
relationships between citizens together in a category eschewed as objection-
able. I think that some philosophers disregard the distinctions because they
are impressed by a common feature of the alternatives to co-operation. It
seems that there are only two options for state power: that it be exercised co-
operatively together, or coercively by some over others. Some might regard
the latter option as so objectionable that the distinctions among the attitudes
with which we might do it pale by comparison.
I agree that the alternatives to co-operation involve coercion of fellow
citizens, and that this counts rather heavily against them. But I am
nevertheless unsure that we must, or can, completely avoid them. I discuss
the reasons for these doubts in IV. But if I am right in thinking that we
POLITICS IN THE FACE OF DISAGREEMENT
.oo8 The Author Journal compilation .oo8 The Editors of The Philosophical Quarterly
13
Cf. Cohen, Procedure and Substance in Deliberative Democracy, on the aggregative
conception of democracy.

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cannot always achieve the ideal of co-operation, then the distinctions among
the remaining options become quite important.
I shall set aside for now the question whether co-operation is the only
acceptable way to interact with fellow citizens, and grant that it is at least
the guiding ideal for political relations in the face of persistent disagreement.
Other things being equal, it would be best if the state could be a co-
operative exercise of power by all reasonable citizens. This gives an answer
to the question why we need to agree on what would count as a reason for
political purposes: agreement is a necessary condition of the best civic
relationships. If this is right, then it would be valuable to achieve agreement
and we have reason to try. But it has not been shown that we have an
obligation to succeed.
14
In fact, nothing guarantees that success is always
possible. We may simply lack the common ground we need to settle all
important political issues.
We should thus understand Rawls position in Political Liberalism and
following articles as in part an expression of hope the hope that we shall
agree on enough to exercise state power co-operatively and so stand in
relations of civic friendship. Though I share Rawls sense that fair co-
operation is the ideal, I am somewhat less optimistic that we have enough
common ground to realize it across the board. I think that we are often far
more often than not able to overcome our disagreements, but I do not
think that this option is always available to us.
But before assessing the possibility of agreement, we need to know what
the relevant agreement looks like. This raises two questions: what exactly do
we need to agree on, and with whom do we need to agree to realize the
hope? The next two sections discuss these issues.
II. THE OBJECTS OF AGREEMENT
II.:. A reason for political purposes
Suppose we are able to act co-operatively if and only if we can justify our
actions to one another. Then co-operation requires agreement on what
counts as justifying the action. This explains why reasonable disagreement
among comprehensive doctrines is problematic. If As justication of funda-
mental policy proposals appeals to considerations which count as reasons
only if As own worldview is correct, A cannot co-operate with people who
8 KYLA EBELS-DUGGAN
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14
On the face of it, this looks much like Eberles view. But important dierences arise from
our respective emphases on respect and co-operation. On my view, we have reason not only
to try respectfully to justify to others the positions which we in any case hold, but also to shape
these positions in ways that allow for co-operation.

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dissent from this view. But considerations grounded in the truth of our own
worldview provide the natural source of reasons for us. What we recognize
as a reason often depends on the comprehensive doctrine we accept.
Comprehensive hedonistic consequentialists, for instance, take it that they
have reason always to maximize overall happiness. If we hold xed their
commitment to the doctrine of hedonistic consequentialism, we could not
expect them to think anything else.
Thus co-operation in the political sphere depends on circumscribing a
class of reasons which should be recognized by the state for the purpose of
political action. This category must take into account the value of agreement
in the political sphere, and the obstacles to it. Co-operation will be possible
if and only if we can agree on what should fall into this category.
I think that it is most helpful to understand Rawls term political conception
as referring to a persons view about the content of this category of
reasons.
15
A political conception takes as a parameter a view about what the
state is and is for, and in the light of this provides a way of conceiving of
what is good for or valuable to people, for the purposes of political delibera-
tion. Rawls holds (The Idea of Public Reason Revisited, pp. 8:.) that
what we need consensus on is which political conceptions count as reason-
able. We may disagree about which political conception is best, but if we
can agree about which are reasonable, then we agree about which consid-
erations it is reasonable to take into account for political purposes. This is
what we need in order to co-operate.
This view is that we need to agree on what counts as reasons for enacting
policies, but not on which policies would be best.
16
There are two worries
one might have about this characterization of the agreement which we
need. The rst is why we need to agree on what counts as reasons, if
we could agree about how to settle the substantive issue. If we have the same
view about what the state should do, why do we also need a shared view
about why the state should do it? Rawls is unhappy with this idea because it
leaves open the possibility of merely strategic agreement. We might, for
POLITICS IN THE FACE OF DISAGREEMENT q
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15
I am agnostic about this as an interpretation of Rawls. I suggest that it provides the best
way to make sense of the structure of the view, and see what could move someone who was
not antecedently sympathetic to accept it. On interpretation, cf. Freeman, who takes it (Public
Reason and Political Justication, p. .:q) to be part of the characterization of a political
conception that it is freestanding. Cohen, A More Democratic Liberalism, pp. :.:, treats
freestandingness as a desideratum for political conceptions, and has a reading closer to mine.
16
Rawls is very clear that he does not think that a commitment to public reason is sucient
to secure agreement on substantive issues. See PL, pp. liii., and The Idea of Public Reason
Revisited, pp. q., esp. 6o. Cohen, Procedure and Substance in Deliberative Demo-
cracy, holds that the procedures of deliberative democracy are sucient to settle some
substantive questions. But most of his examples have to do with securing basic liberties for all,
issues which Rawls settles by circumscribing the class of reasonable political conceptions.

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example, agree to a policy of religious toleration, but some might do so only
because they are members of a minority that lacks the power to impose its
views. In this case it is easy to see the worry about the reason supporting the
policy. If the less powerful faction gets the upper hand, its members will
reverse the policy of toleration. They do not see the fact that a policy is co-
ercive as any reason not to engage in it, and thus do not value co-operation
as such. They act co-operatively, for now, only to secure their interests.
Rawls calls this a modus vivendi. In order to move beyond a modus vivendi
citizens must value civic friendship, and thus take its potential realization as
a signicant reason to seek policies justiable on grounds which all can
accept as reasonable.
Secondly, one might worry that this way of characterizing the needed
agreement does not answer the problem generated by conicting reasonable
worldviews. The problem was that if we appeal to worldviews which are
reasonable, but not shared, we coerce our fellow citizens. But why is it any
dierent if we appeal to a political conception which all agree is reasonable,
even if they do not share this conception themselves?
The answer lies in what it means to agree that a political conception
is reasonable. This just is to agree that the considerations which it counts as
reasons for political purposes can be recognized as such by any reasonable
person. This is to concede the reasonableness of policies justied by the
political conception in question. That is, to agree that a political conception
is reasonable is to acknowledge that one could co-operate in policies which
it justies. The same does not follow from agreeing that a particular
worldview is reasonable. To agree to this is only to deny that disagreements
between oneself and others holding this view amount to failures in reasoning
on someones part. Nothing follows about how one thinks it is reasonable to
operate with this view in the political sphere. A political conception ad-
dresses precisely this latter question.
III. THE PARTIES TO AGREEMENT
So far I have discussed the fact and implications of reasonable disagreement.
It is important to distinguish this from the implications of unreasonable dis-
agreement. Unreasonable disagreement creates a dierent obstacle to ideal
civic relations, and requires a dierent response. Among reasonable people,
co-operation in the exercise of state power presents an ideal which drives the
search for common ground. But co-operating with the unreasonable is not a
value. Opposing those who make unreasonable demands, for example, those
who advocate routine violence against civilians in pursuit of political goals, is
6o KYLA EBELS-DUGGAN
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a legitimate, indeed necessary, use of state power. Even if such people
believe that they are justied, we do not need to craft our policies in ways
which respect this view. But if we should treat reasonable and unreasonable
disagreement dierently, we need some way of determining which is which.
This section attempts to draw the relevant distinction.
III.:. Three ways of being reasonable
In fact, there are three questions: what counts as a reasonable worldview?
What counts as a reasonable person? What counts as a reasonable political
conception? Answering these questions is not always an epistemic task. Since
the questions use the term reasonable, a term of art in epistemology, some
thinkers believe that Rawls owes us a worked-out epistemology.
17
But Rawls
lack of a complete epistemic position is no oversight. It results from an inten-
tional circumscription of these questions. (More on this below.)
Rawls says least about the rst question. He characterizes a reasonable
comprehensive doctrine as an exercise in both theoretical and practical
reason that covers the major religious, philosophical, and moral aspects of
human life in a more or less consistent and coherent manner.
18
He
deliberately makes the standards for reasonableness minimal and loose here,
because rather than defending a complete epistemology he aims to include
as many citizens as possible in the co-operative endeavour. In the light of
this aim, he treats (PL, p. 6o n. :) as potentially reasonable for political
purposes even doctrines which we may justiably regard as unreasonable
for purposes of deciding which to adopt. The permissiveness is unproblem-
atic because only political attitudes matter here. I can regard even people
with an apparently strange comprehensive doctrine as candidates for
valuable co-operative political relationships, so long as their view of what
the state is for and what it may do is suciently close to mine.
19
This is
important in the light of the mutual incomprehension displayed by many
religious and non-religious people.
Thus the best way to answer the second question, what makes people
reasonable, is with just two criteria, both dealing with their attitudes towards
political relations: they acknowledge the value of justifying policies on
grounds common among all reasonable views, and they recognize the exist-
ence of reasonable views in society besides their own. The rst of these
criteria is not epistemic at all. The second does demand a judgement about
POLITICS IN THE FACE OF DISAGREEMENT 6:
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17
See, e.g., Eberle, Religious Convictions in Liberal Politics, part III; Wolterstor, in Audi and
Wolterstor, Religion in the Public Square, pp. 6:.o, :66.
18
PL, p. q. Interestingly, he says (ibid.) that it normally belongs to and draws upon a
tradition of thought and doctrine.
19
On reasonableness as a moral rather than epistemic norm, cf. Freeman, Public Reason
and Political Justication, p. ..q.

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the epistemic status of views that are not ones own, but it does not require
any epistemic theory. It requires only a commitment to the negative claim
that the correct epistemic norms, whatever these are, do not determine a
single worldview. That is, it requires acknowledging that there are factors
which play the role of Rawls burdens of judgement.
20
Reasonable people thus guide themselves by the familiar and attractive
idea of trying to see things from, and to take account of, other reasonable
viewpoints. They also know that this requirement is non-trivial. They treat
anyone who shares their commitment to taking up other points of view like
this as a candidate for co-operative action, and believe that such co-
operation is valuable. This value gives them reason not to use the power of
the state to serve values they know others do not share. As far as I can tell,
Rawls oers no argument for this ideal of co-operation, that is, no argument
aiming to persuade someone to be, in his sense, reasonable. He simply
hopes that having seen the ideal, people who endorse various worldviews
will recognize its attraction. This hope does not seem unfounded.
Now for the third question, what counts as a reasonable political concep-
tion. Given Rawls account, this is the most pressing of the three questions,
because it is this on which we must agree. Rawls claims that three features
characterize all reasonable conceptions: each contains a list of basic rights,
assigns these priority over the enforcement of unshared worldviews, and
guarantees the fair value of liberties by ensuring that all citizens have
adequate all-purpose means to make eective use of their freedoms (PL,
pp. 8:.). Though he provides no detailed argument for these features, it is
not hard to see how at least the rst two follow from the commitments that
characterize reasonable people. The rights in question will be of two kinds:
rights that ensure participation in the political system, such as the right to
vote, hold oce, and engage freely in political speech; and rights that allow
us to live as our worldview demands provided this does not prevent others
from doing likewise, such as rights of freedom of religion, of assembly and of
speech generally. Reasonable people will include the former in their political
conception in virtue of valuing co-operation. The additional recognition of
the existence of reasonable disagreement yields a commitment to limit
strictly the power of the state to force others to live in ways which
acknowledge values they do not recognize. The limits to this are set by the
states obligation to make sure that all have similar freedoms. Defending
6. KYLA EBELS-DUGGAN
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20
Rawls, PL, pp. q, . Freeman believes that Rawls rightly refuses to put this or any other
characterization forward as a denition. I am concerned that without a denition independent
of whether people abide by the requirements of strict political liberalism, the view threatens to
be circular. Compare Freeman, Public Reason and Political Justication, pp. .., .8.
Joshua Cohen, A More Democratic Liberalism, discusses the worry about circularity: see
pp. :o, :.

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the claim that commitment to the fair value of rights is a feature of all
reasonable political conceptions is more dicult, and I shall not mount a
defence of this here.
Rawls must intend these features to characterize any given political
conception only partially. It is implausible to suppose that they would suce
to settle all fundamental political issues, and Rawls clearly requires the
political conception to do this work. Thus any political conception will
additionally have to acknowledge and somehow rank various political values
such as public health, safety, and protection of natural resources. Many
dierent views about this are compatible with recognizing the priority and
fair value of basic rights.
So reasonable citizens are those who accept the value of acting co-
operatively and recognize the existence of reasonable disagreement, those
who themselves aim to co-operate. We can achieve the ideal of co-operation
if we can agree with these people about which political conceptions are
reasonable views about the considerations on which the state should act.
Rawls thinks that we should regard as primary among these considerations
the protection of rights which ensure that we can participate in state power
and live as our own worldviews demand. All reasonable political
conceptions will agree on at least this much.
IV. THE PROSPECTS FOR AGREEMENT
I return now to the question deferred in the rst section: to what extent is
the hope of achieving co-operative relationships with all reasonable citizens
realizable? The hope is realizable if and only if everyone who values co-
operation can nd enough common ground with everyone else who does so
to be able to bring it about. All will be well so long as each reasonable
person can arm a political conception robust enough to settle all
fundamental political issues, and all can agree that those armed by others
also count as reasonable. I part company with Rawls here, for I see no
reason to suppose that we can always achieve this much agreement.
Rawls stakes his claim for the plausibility of nding the needed agreement
on the notion that a political conception can be presented as free-standing
(PL, p. :.). A free-standing political conception is constructed from ideas
in the political culture, and so is not reliant for its justication on any
particular worldview. Whether we can construct a suciently robust free-
standing political conception in any given society is a complicated empirical
question. It is unclear how to discern the likelihood that such a project could
POLITICS IN THE FACE OF DISAGREEMENT 6
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succeed prior to attempting to carry it out. Rawls suggests that we should
understand his own view of justice as fairness as such an attempt.
But this strategy is problematic in two ways. First, it is unduly con-
servative: only societies that inherit a robust liberal political culture enjoy
the possibility of civic friendship. I think the theory can aim higher.
Secondly and more importantly, Rawls strategy fails to explain why
individuals should grant a political conception formed as he envisages
authority. To answer this objection, one cannot avoid discussion of citizens
understanding of the justicatory relation between their worldviews and
their political conceptions. Rawls acknowledges that there will normally be
such a relationship, and that it can contribute to citizens commitment to the
freestanding political conception. But the relationship is bound to do more
than this. If ones own worldview supports the conception, then justication
from the political culture will be redundant. If the conception conicts with
ones worldview, then it will be unclear how one could make sense of giving
it overriding consideration. Indeed, in these circumstances it is unclear how
one can make sense of weighing justications available in the political cul-
ture at all. In both cases the free-standing aspect of any political conception
is normatively inert.
So the question how to nd the needed common ground remains, and I
believe it cannot always be answered satisfactorily. Some thinkers, seeing
this clearly, have wanted to throw the whole view out, claiming that we
should reject political liberalism across the board. But this is too drastic.
Even if we cannot always nd common ground, political liberalism can
provide questions which should guide our thinking on matters of basic
justice. In particular, it asks us to interrogate our positions in the light of the
proper role of the state. In this section I show how this might go in several
contentious cases. If I am right about these, then the ideal of civic friendship
has genuine practical value, but cannot do all that Rawls hopes. I conclude
with cases in which the ideal seems unattainable.
In discussing cases, it is important to remember that commitment to
public reason is not supposed to settle issues (cf. Rawls, The Idea of Public
Reason Revisited, pp. 6o:.). Arguments respecting the limits of public rea-
son are available on both sides of many controversies. Determining ones
position on these issues requires assessing competing arguments and making
a judgement. It is important to separate the possibility of continued dis-
agreement on particular issues, which strict political liberals can perfectly
well recognize, from the possibility that there is no way to settle some
issue without either appealing to or denying the truth of some worldview. In
this situation, co-operation is impossible; we must fall back on something
less ideal.
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Cases in which the ideal of co-operation is action-guiding have the
following structure: if all parties assume that all reasonable people arm
their worldview, they would settle the issue in one way. But, given the value
of co-operation and the existence of reasonable disagreement, it makes sense
from each persons own point of view to forgo the values each believes this
settlement would achieve. For instance, supporters of laws which attempt to
regulate homosexual practices usually justify them by appeal to a worldview
on which the practices are impermissible. But since many who arm the
value of exercising state power co-operatively do not share this view, it
cannot provide a basis for co-operation among all reasonable people.
Moreover, someone who arms a political conception which falls within the
range of the reasonable denies that it is the states role to determine a
particular way of life for its citizens, and so will not take convictions about
the impermissibility of a practice as settling the quite dierent question of
how the state should treat those who participate in it. Such a persons inter-
est in co-operative political relationships provides reason to oppose these
laws, and one can do so without revising or contradicting ones moral views.
As for state recognition of homosexual unions as of the same kind as
heterosexual marriages, it is harder to see how public reason could guide
this case, because it seems to require the state to take a stand on a value
about which citizens disagree. No view about the relative value of
homosexual and heterosexual relationships could by itself mark a citizen as
unreasonable in the relevant sense. Any view about this is compatible with
arming the reciprocity criterion, recognizing that other reasonable citizens
who arm it have other views, and endorsing a political conception which
prioritizes basic rights.
Given the disagreement, recognizing heterosexual unions while excluding
homosexual ones, on the ground that there is some morally signicant
dierence between them, cannot provide the basis for co-operation.
21
This
defence presumes the falsehood of the worldviews of some reasonable
citizens. Given their commitments, these citizens could not make sense of
co-operating in the policy, and could only understand it as exercising co-
ercive power over them. But if state recognition of both as of the same kind
relies on the claim that there is no moral dierence between them, then the
justication for this policy also appeals to a worldview not shared by all
citizens prepared to co-operate. Either way, the policy is not justiable to
some reasonable citizens.
POLITICS IN THE FACE OF DISAGREEMENT 6
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21
Some opponents of same-sex marriage base their arguments on its alleged undesirable
eects. These could, in principle, fall within the parameters of public reason. See
A. Koppleman, The Decline and Fall of the Case Against Same-Sex Marriage, University of
St Thomas Law Journal, . (.oo), pp. ., for analysis.

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So public reason cannot speak to this question, understood as a refer-
endum on the morality of certain sexual practices. Fortunately, it need not
be understood in this way. Rather, we should ask whether, in refusing to
recognize homosexual relationships on the same terms as heterosexual ones,
the state is according to some rights unfairly denied to others. Resolving this
debate thus involves separating the states granting of certain rights and
responsibilities to couples from value judgements about their relationships
arising from reasonable citizens worldviews. In order to mark this separa-
tion, some propose making all state-enforced rights and responsibilities
available to homosexual couples, but withholding the term marriage, with
its moral resonances. Against this, others object that by assigning this term
exclusively to heterosexual unions the state continues to arm a morally
signicant dierence. I believe the best response to this legitimate concern is
to get the state out of the marriage business altogether. The state should
simply dene a bundle of rights and responsibilities, call it something
other than marriage, and make it possible for any two competent adults
to enter reciprocally into such a relationship, making no presumptions
about the sexual nature, much less about the moral status, of these
relationships.
There are at least two kinds of objection to this view. Voices from the
right proclaim a need to maintain a long-standing consensus on the nature
and value of marriage and its role in society. Voices on the left claim that
the demand for homosexual marriage is not only about rights, but about
respect for relationships which homosexual people value and with which
they identify, respect which the term marriage importantly expresses. I be-
lieve that defenders of both positions want the same thing, viz a community
built on consensus about valuable ways of life. This is worth wanting, but as
I have argued above, it is not the appropriate aim of politics.
In these and many other cases, the value of co-operation may give people
sucient reason, from their own point of view, to support policies which do
not realize all of the values they recognize. They can forgo the realization of
these values in politics without denying their importance. But in other cases,
people will have from their own point of view signicant reasons not to co-
operate, even as they recognize the value of doing so. In these cases, to
ignore the countervailing values in considering the policy in question
could not but be to pretend that they are less important than the people in
question take them to be. Thus people see themselves as choosing between
using the power of the state to compel those who do not share their
worldview to live in a way which makes sense only if that worldview is right,
and denying the import of other values which they recognize. In cases
like this, public reason is silent. Public reason speaks only by endorsing
66 KYLA EBELS-DUGGAN
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settlements which do not deny the truth of any reasonable worldview held
by reasonable citizens. But here, by hypothesis, there is no such settlement.
People who believe that co-operative relations with their fellow citizens are
of great value must choose between forgoing one or another value. Some-
times they may judge that civic friendship is important enough to justify
action against their other reasons. But I see no reason to suppose that this
will always be the verdict. When very great values are involved on the other
side, sometimes we take ourselves to be warranted in coercing fellow
citizens.
Many supporters of the American civil rights movement understood their
demands for changes in civil rights law as supported by religious convictions.
Suppose they further thought that no non-religious argument could justify
these demands. Then they would, from their own point of view, face a
choice, either to coerce fellow citizens by imposing on them laws that
presume the truth of their religion, or to forgo justice for non-whites. Of
course contemporary strict political liberals hold that it was an error to think
they had to depend on religious views. But if we seek a view about how
citizens ought to conduct themselves in politics, then the availability of some
argument in public reason of which they were not aware is irrelevant. What
matters is how these religious supporters of the civil rights movement should
understand themselves. I claim both that they must understand themselves
as choosing to coerce fellow citizens, and that nevertheless they would do
the right thing in doing so.
Nevertheless, the fact that it seems so obvious that the arguments needed
were available in public reason may be a distraction here. Other cases may
establish the point. Suppose Annes religious commitments lead her to
favour a radical redistribution of wealth to the poor. She has considered
non-religious arguments for wealth redistribution and found them lacking.
Perhaps she too is wrong. Perhaps one of these arguments is sound, and thus
there are reasons to be given which all reasonable people could accept with-
out abandoning their own worldviews. But if she thinks not, then she must
understand herself as choosing between coercing others and forgoing justice
for the poor. If she places a high enough value on economic justice, she
cannot reasonably co-operate in a policy she takes to contravene it. Even
granting that co-operation gives her some reason to do this, she need not
judge this reason to be sucient. If she thinks not, she judges that her values
require one kind of policy, while alternatives would be supported if and only
if her worldview were false. Rawls hope for co-operative relationships
simply appears unrealizable to someone in this position.
The issue on the contemporary scene which strikes me as least likely to be
amenable to a solution endorsed by public reason is that of abortion. The
POLITICS IN THE FACE OF DISAGREEMENT 6
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political conception of a person, as Rawls understands it, remains silent
here. It indicates what kinds of considerations could justify a policy to
everyone, but it does not speak to the issue of who is owed justication. But
determining who counts as deserving state protection is crucial to settling
the abortion issue. Those who hold that even an early foetus deserves pro-
tection and those who do not can both meet the tests of being reasonable
people. But the two sides disagree not only over the content of the laws, but
also on what counts as a reasonable political conception as it applies to this
matter, viz one that includes or excludes human rights for foetuses. Those
who arm this status for the foetus cannot reasonably agree to any concep-
tion which supports permissive abortion policies. Those who deny it cannot
reasonably agree to conceptions which support restrictive ones. I cannot see
that we can expect anyone to do anything here other than advocate their
own convictions.
22
Some strict political liberals argue that the balance of
reasons which all could accept supports permissive policies on abortion.
23
They argue that considerations which all reasonable people can accept as
reasons, such as that women have a right to equality and liberty, count in
favour of these policies. Some very strong considerations would need to be
brought against these to justify restrictive policies. But the strongest claim
counting against permissive policies, that abortion kills an innocent human
being, is not one that all reasonable people agree applies to the case at hand.
So the balance of reasons accessible to all favours permissive policies.
But this argument fails to take seriously the insuciency of this
justication from some points of view. Those who hold that abortion is a
grave moral wrong cannot accept the balance of reasons proposed here
without abandoning or contradicting their own worldview. This is in part
because it is impossible to assess whether some consideration is an accept-
able reason independent of the position it purports to support. One might
accept the liberty and equality of women as important reasons in many
contexts, but nevertheless reject these considerations as reasons for doing
what is, as one might understand it, here proposed, namely, killing an
innocent. In comparison, that a policy increases the GNP could be a reason
to support it in some contexts, but will not count in favour of employing
slave labour. Arguments like the one above rely on making assessments
about reasons without reference to policies. Once we reject this method, we
can see why disagreement persists as to what considerations count as reasons
in the abortion debate.
68 KYLA EBELS-DUGGAN
.oo8 The Author Journal compilation .oo8 The Editors of The Philosophical Quarterly
22
Cf. Dworkin, Rawls and the Law, Fordham Legal Review, . (.oo), p. :q8; A. Guttman
and D. Thompson, Democracy and Disagreement (Harvard UP, :qq6), pp. 8.
23
See, e.g., Dombrowski, Rawls and Religion, ch. q; Cohen, A More Democratic Liberalism,
p. :q.

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On my view, since there is no settlement that all reasonable citizens can
accept without denying an important tenet of their worldviews, public rea-
son remains silent here. Compare Samuel Freemans reading (Public
Reason and Political Justication, pp. .6) of the role and authority of
public reason with respect to abortion. He interprets the debate quite
dierently, holding that public reason does speak, providing a more or less
denite settlement, despite the fact that not all reasonable people can agree
to this settlement. In particular, he thinks that public reason dictates that
abortion should be legal and available, at least in the rst trimester, but
recognizes that some reasonable citizens cannot regard this resolution as
justied. So he distinguishes the question whether public reason can provide
a resolution from the question whether all reasonable people can accept its
settlement. On my view, these two questions cannot come apart.
The dierence arises because Freeman interprets public reason as
addressed to free and equal citizens as such. He thus interprets the
reciprocity criterion as requiring reasons which others can accept qua
citizens, not, as on my view, those they could accept without denying the
truth of their worldview. This limits us to appealing only to interests
characteristic of free and equal citizens as such on fundamental questions.
24
Freeman holds that these include an interest in developing what Rawls calls
citizens moral powers and in the conditions needed to secure and maintain
their freedom.
Freemans reading has the advantages of establishing a well dened
content for public reason, and avoiding the worry that false worldviews will
inuence government policy. But it also has a distinct disadvantage: it does
not guarantee that reasonable citizens can make sense of a justication in
public reason as justifying the policy in question to themselves. Freeman
addresses this worry with respect to abortion, but only to explain why we
can reasonably hope that the remaining dissent will not destabilize the
society. In so doing, he ignores the point of defending ones views in public
reason, on both my account and his own.
Freeman (pp. .:q, ..:) suggests that the requirement to limit ourselves to
public reason in defending fundamental political views is based on the
obligation to respect our fellow citizens liberty of conscience. This makes his
view look similar to my own, since we cannot co-operate with people while
requiring them to act against their consciences. But Freemans treatment of
dissent in the abortion issue brings out a tension. By his own lights, it is
unclear how pro-life citizens who sincerely regard abortion as tantamount to
murder can understand this policy as not violating their consciences. These
POLITICS IN THE FACE OF DISAGREEMENT 6q
.oo8 The Author Journal compilation .oo8 The Editors of The Philosophical Quarterly
24
Freeman, Public Reason and Political Justication, pp. ..., .6, .q.

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citizens understand themselves as implicated in the most serious of moral
wrongs when they pay taxes to support a government that permits abortion.
If such outcomes are possible even when all citizens respect the limits of
public reason, then respecting these limits is no guarantee of protection for
liberty of conscience, or, in my terms, of co-operation. But then these values
cannot provide a justication for limiting ourselves to public reason in our
own policy deliberations.
The lesson from the cases that I have discussed is that the value of co-
operative relationships should often move people not to use state power
simply to force others compliance with their values, or to bring about more
consensus on those values. But the value of co-operation should not be
thought sucient to move them to violate a perceived obligation to protect
some members of society from injustice. In cases where reasonable people
have conicting views about what these obligations are, agreement about
which policies could be justied will be dicult and perhaps impossible to
achieve. On such cases, contra strict political liberals, I hold that citizens have
no better option than to support the policy they think best.
Though the ideal of co-operation is out of reach in such cases, other
Rawlsian characterizations of possible relations between citizens do not
describe them well either. They do not necessarily result in a modus vivendi,
since this is characterized by merely strategic commitment to a policy,
contingent on the balance of power among competing factions. In contrast,
in the cases at hand citizens support a given policy precisely because
they have a moral commitment to it, not because they think that it best
promotes their interests or the interests of their group. Nor need these
situations cause anyone to think that fellow citizens interests do not count
in making policy.
So while we cannot stand in the relationship of civic friendship that
Rawls hopes for without sucient agreement among reasonable people,
neither must we stand in the relation of civic enemies. The distinctions
among possible relationships I drew in I come into their own here. Even if
civic friendship is the ideal for political relationships, there are better and
worse ways to construct our relationships when we cannot attain it.
Standing in co-operative relationships with fellow citizens is of great
value, and all reasonable people recognize this. Finding considerations
which all reasonable people can recognize as reasons bearing on the issue at
hand allows us to exercise state power co-operatively, an outcome all should
welcome. The value of co-operation thus provides reason to ground
fundamental policies in this way, and so explains how one could reasonably
forgo enacting a policy that recognizes all the values of ones worldview,
without denying that these are values.
o KYLA EBELS-DUGGAN
.oo8 The Author Journal compilation .oo8 The Editors of The Philosophical Quarterly

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But there is no reason to think in advance that the necessary agreement is
always available. It is not available when people committed to the ideal of
co-operation nevertheless have conicting views about what justice requires.
When forced to choose between fullling perceived obligations of justice and
co-operating with their fellow citizens in policies that do not meet these
obligations, reasonable people may opt for coercion. Given their commit-
ment to the value of co-operation, they will regret that this is the best they
can do.
I have not seen any argument which could convince people that in such
cases they must violate their perceived obligations to maintain co-operative
relationships. This is the case which must be made if the theory is to have
practical import for the citizens whose reasoning it aims to guide. But if I am
right that Rawls hope is unrealizable in some cases, then the task for us is to
discern which these are, and what justice demands in each.
25
Northwestern University, Illinois
POLITICS IN THE FACE OF DISAGREEMENT :
.oo8 The Author Journal compilation .oo8 The Editors of The Philosophical Quarterly
25
Thanks to the many people who read and commented on previous drafts. These include
Eric Anderson, Arthur Applbaum, Michael Blake, Samuel Fleischacker, Jon Gartho,
Waheed Hussain, Niko Kolodny, Andrew Koppelman, Ian MacMullen, Bryan McGraw and
Japa Pallikkathayil.

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