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How should we make common decisions when we disagree sharply in worldviews? An important and much discussed version of this question concerns what place religion should be accorded in the public sphere. There is, however, a parallel, but rather neglected question regarding the role of science in public reason. Just as one may ask what role religious views should be permitted in the public sphere, one may wonder why scientific views should be accorded a privileged role, if indeed they should. We disagree, for example, about factual questions in climate policy, complementary alternative medicine and creationism. These disagreements are in part disagreements about proper sources of belief: how to identify good reason and evidence as well as reliable epistemic authorities and worthy interlocutors. This is exactly parallel to the nature of religious disagreements. At times factual disagreements such as those mentioned will involve conflicts between science and non-science. What do we do when important policy questions feature this kind of disagreement? Should we be allowed to deviate from established scientific facts and methods when deliberating on matters of public concern?
These questions are partly in social epistemology and partly in political philosophy, and the course will address the issue from both perspectives. Currently, no comprehensive body of work addresses these issues. The course will cover main readings on the question of religion in public reason, public reason theories, the social epistemology of disagreement, and questions concerning the place of science in public reason.
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Course readings:
Audi, Robert (1997) ‘Liberal Democracy and the Place of Religious Argument in Politics’, in Robert Audi and Nicholas Wolterstorff (eds.) Religion in the Public Square: The Place of Religious Convictions in Political Debate (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997).
Christensen, David (2007), ‘Epistemology of Disagreement: The Good News’, Philosophical Review 116 .
Barry, Brian (1995), Justice as Impartiality, Oxford: Oxford University Press, chapter 7, 'Justifying impartial justice', pp. 160-188.
D’Agostino, Fred (1996), Free Public Reason: Making it Up as We Go, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Feldman, R. (2006). Epistemological Puzzles about Disagreement. In S. Hetherington (Ed.), Epistemology Futures (pp. 216-236): Oxford Clarendon Press.
Goldman, Alvin (2010) ‘Epistemic Relativism and Reasonable Disagreement’, in R. Feldman and T. Warfield, eds., Disagreement, Oxford University Press, 2010
Habermas, Jürgen (1995) ‘Reconciliation Through the Public Use of Reason’, The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 92, No. 3, pp. 109-131
Horton J. (2009). ‘Reasonable Disagreement’, In Multiculturalism and Moral Conflict Dimova-Cookson M and Stirk P (Eds.). London: Routledge.
Nagel, Thomas (2008), 'Public Education and Intelligent Design', Philosophy & Public Affairs 36, no. 2.
Nicholas Wolterstorff (1997) ‘The Role of Religion in Political Issues’, in Robert Audi and Nicholas Wolterstorff (eds) Religion in the Public Square: The Place of Religious Convictions in Political Debate (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997).
Rawls, J. (2001) ‘The Idea of Public Reason Revisited’, in John Rawls, Collected
Papers, ed. Samuel Freeman, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
2001, 573–615
Rawls, J. (1993), Political liberalism. New York, Columbia University Press.
A highly recommended general overview of public reason theories is D'Agostino 1996.
Other recommended readings:
Nagel, Thomas (1987) ‘Moral Conflict and Political Legitimacy’, Philosophy & Public Affairs, Vol. 16, No. 3, 215-240.
Cohen, Joshua (2009) 'Truth and Public Reason', Philosophy & Public Affairs 37, no. 1
Gaus, Gerald F.; Vallier, Kevin (2009) 'The roles of religious conviction in a publicly justified polity : The implications of convergence, asymmetry and political institutions', Philosophy & Social Criticism, Vol. 35, No. 1–2, 51–76.
Greenawalt, Kent (2007), 'What are Public Reasons', Journal of Law, Philosophy and Culture, Vol. I, No. 1, 79-105.
Lynch, Michael P. (2012) 'Democracy as a Space of Reasons', Forthcoming in J. Elkins and A. Norris (eds) Truth and Democracy(University of Pennsylvania Press).
Wall, Stephen (2002), 'Is Public Justification Self-Defeating?', American Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 39, No. 4, 385-394.
Wall, Steven (2010) 'On justificatory liberalism', Politics Philosophy Economics 2010, Vol. 9, No. 2, 123-149.
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