Science and Public Reason

Science and Public Reason PDF Author: Sheila Jasanoff
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136288406
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 306

Get Book Here

Book Description
This collection of essays by Sheila Jasanoff explores how democratic governments construct public reason, that is, the forms of evidence and argument used in making state decisions accountable to citizens. The term public reason as used here is not simply a matter of deploying principled arguments that respect the norms of democratic deliberation. Jasanoff investigates what states do in practice when they claim to be reasoning in the public interest. Reason, from this perspective, comprises the institutional practices, discourses, techniques and instruments through which governments claim legitimacy in an era of potentially unbounded risks—physical, political, and moral. Those legitimating efforts, in turn, depend on citizens’ acceptance of the forms of reasoning that governments offer. Included here therefore is an inquiry into the conditions that lead citizens of democratic societies to accept policy justification as being reasonable. These modes of public knowing, or “civic epistemologies,” are integral to the constitution of contemporary political cultures. Methodologically, the book is grounded in the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS). It uses in-depth qualitative studies of legal and political practices to shed light on divergent cross-cultural constructions of public reason and the reasoning political subject. The collection as a whole contributes to democratic theory, legal studies, comparative politics, geography, and ethnographies of modernity, as well as STS.

Science and Public Reason

Science and Public Reason PDF Author: Sheila Jasanoff
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136288406
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 306

Get Book Here

Book Description
This collection of essays by Sheila Jasanoff explores how democratic governments construct public reason, that is, the forms of evidence and argument used in making state decisions accountable to citizens. The term public reason as used here is not simply a matter of deploying principled arguments that respect the norms of democratic deliberation. Jasanoff investigates what states do in practice when they claim to be reasoning in the public interest. Reason, from this perspective, comprises the institutional practices, discourses, techniques and instruments through which governments claim legitimacy in an era of potentially unbounded risks—physical, political, and moral. Those legitimating efforts, in turn, depend on citizens’ acceptance of the forms of reasoning that governments offer. Included here therefore is an inquiry into the conditions that lead citizens of democratic societies to accept policy justification as being reasonable. These modes of public knowing, or “civic epistemologies,” are integral to the constitution of contemporary political cultures. Methodologically, the book is grounded in the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS). It uses in-depth qualitative studies of legal and political practices to shed light on divergent cross-cultural constructions of public reason and the reasoning political subject. The collection as a whole contributes to democratic theory, legal studies, comparative politics, geography, and ethnographies of modernity, as well as STS.

Public Reason and Bioethics

Public Reason and Bioethics PDF Author: Hon-Lam Li
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030611701
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 431

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book explores and elaborates three theories of public reason, drawn from Rawlsian political liberalism, natural law theory, and Confucianism. Drawing together academics from these separate approaches, the volume explores how the three theories critique each other, as well as how each one brings its theoretical arsenal to bear on the urgent contemporary debate of medical assistance in dying. The volume is structured in two parts: an exploration of the three traditions, followed by an in-depth overview of the conceptual and historical background. In Part I, the three comprehensive opening chapters are supplemented by six dynamic chapters in dialogue with each other, each author responding to the other two traditions, and subsequently reflecting on the possible deficiencies of their own theories. The chapters in Part II cover a broad range of subjects, from an overview of the history of bioethics to the nature of autonomy and its status as a moral and political value. In its entirety, the volume provides a vibrant and exemplary collaborative resource to scholars interested in the role of public reason and its relevance in bioethical debate.

Reconstructing Public Reason

Reconstructing Public Reason PDF Author: Eric MacGilvray
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674015425
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 278

Get Book Here

Book Description
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.

Natural Law and Public Reason

Natural Law and Public Reason PDF Author: Robert P. George
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
ISBN: 9780878407668
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 220

Get Book Here

Book Description
"Public reason" is one of the central concepts in modern liberal political theory. As articulated by John Rawls, it presents a way to overcome the difficulties created by intractable differences among citizens' religious and moral beliefs by strictly confining the place of such convictions in the public sphere. Identifying this conception as a key point of conflict, this book presents a debate among contemporary natural law and liberal political theorists on the definition and validity of the idea of public reason. Its distinguished contributors examine the consequences of interpreting public reason more broadly as "right reason," according to natural law theory, versus understanding it in the narrower sense in which Rawls intended. They test public reason by examining its implications for current issues, confronting the questions of abortion and slavery and matters relating to citizenship. This energetic exchange advances our understanding of both Rawls's contribution to political philosophy and the lasting relevance of natural law. It provides new insights into crucial issues facing society today as it points to new ways of thinking about political theory and practice.

Public Reason and Courts

Public Reason and Courts PDF Author: Silje A. Langvatn
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108487351
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 397

Get Book Here

Book Description
A comprehensive study of public reason for courts, with contributions from leading scholars in philosophy, political science and law.

Science and Public Reason

Science and Public Reason PDF Author: Sheila Jasanoff
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0415524865
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 306

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book offers an empirically detailed, cross-nationally comparative account of the institutional logics and practices through which modern democratic governments construct public reason, that is, the forms of evidence and argument designed to persuade publics that legal and policy decisions are founded on reliable knowledge and expertise.

Public Reason

Public Reason PDF Author: Fred D'Agostino
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 502

Get Book Here

Book Description
The essays that make up this volume, explore the idea of public reason. The task of identifying a distinctively public reason has become pressing in our deeply pluralistic society, just because doubt has arisen whether what is good reasoning for one must be good reasoning for all. Examining the theories of Hobbes and Kant, and also using more recent work such as the comments and theories of John Rawls and David Gauthier, this book explores aspects of the idea of public reason. It explains public reason, and discusses areas such as pluralism, reasonable disagreement, moral conflict, political legitimacy, public justification and post-modernism.

Free Public Reason

Free Public Reason PDF Author: Fred D'Agostino
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0195097610
Category : Justification (Theory of knowledge)
Languages : en
Pages : 216

Get Book Here

Book Description
Free Public Reason examines the idea of public justification, stressing its importance but also questioning the coherence of the concept itself. Although public justification is employed in the work of theorists such as John Rawls, Jeremy Waldron, Thomas Nagel, and others, it has received little attention on its own as a philosophical concept. D'Agostino shows that the ideal behind this concept is constituted by many, sometimes competing, demands and that no formal way of weighing these demands can be identified. The notion of public justification itself is thus shown to be contestable. In demonstrating this, D'Agostino questions many current political theories that rely on this concept. Having broken down the foundations of public justification, D'Agostino then draws on the ideas of Dworkin and Kuhn as well as insights from feminism and post-modernism to offer an alternative model of how a workable consensus on its meaning might be reached through the interactions of a community of interpreters or delegates at a constitutional convention.

Public Reason and Political Community

Public Reason and Political Community PDF Author: Andrew Lister
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1780938012
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 243

Get Book Here

Book Description
Public Reason and Political Community defends the liberal ideal of public reason against its critics, but as a form of moral compromise for the sake of civic friendship rather than as a consequence of respect for persons as moral agents. At the heart of the principle of public justification is an idealized unanimity requirement, which can be framed in at least two different ways. Is it our reasons for political decisions that have to be unanimously acceptable to qualified points of view, otherwise we exclude them from deliberation, or is it coercive state action that must be unanimously acceptable, otherwise we default to not having a common rule or policy, on the issue at hand? Andrew Lister explores the 'anti-perfectionist dilemma' that results from this ambiguity. He defends the reasons model on grounds of the value of political community, and applies it to recent debates about marriage.

The Law of Peoples

The Law of Peoples PDF Author: John Rawls
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674005426
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 212

Get Book Here

Book Description
This work consists of two parts: The Idea of Public Reason Revisited and The Law of Peoples. Taken together, they are the culmination of more than 50 years of reflection on liberalism and on some pressing problems of our times.