Abstract

Over the past decade or so, the liberal principle of legitimacy, which requires the justification of coercive law based on public reason, has come under severe attack from all sides. Some have criticized what they see as the exclusion of religious reason from the public sphere. Still others argue that the liberal proviso assumes a too-narrowly secularist definition of public reason, which, in fact, is more restrictive than what the principle of separation of church and state demands. Critics argue that religious citizens’ participation in public debate should not be conditioned on whether they use public reason or not. Instead they should be free to use whatever reason they have—religious or not—in public deliberation on policy issues. While some political theorists have replied to these criticisms by engaging at the theoretical level with these arguments, I propose to assess them in practice. I start by granting the critics of public reason what they wish—namely to allow comprehensive reasons in discussion concerning justification of law—and examining the practical consequences of this measure. In assessing these consequences it will become apparent that, at the formal level of making and administering law, only those reasons that are accessible by all equally have a justificatory power.