The review of the theories of public reason espoused by Audi, Rawls, and Larmore demonstrates the ways in which arguments from consequences, fairness, and epistemology are woven together into narratives characterized by appeals to “equal respect.” But, as I have already suggested, there are reasons to be skeptical of this neat interweaving of arguments, in particular the equation of arguments from fairness and arguments from epistemology. In this chapter I continue to examine the problems associated with these and other prominent theories of public reason and, in the process, begin developing and laying out the case for a theory of public justification unencumbered by the politics of authenticity.

As was noted in the Introduction, there are three main characteristics of the theory I am developing that distinguish it, in varying degrees, from earlier theories. First, although I agree that the epistemological standards for inclusion turn on some conception of accessibility, in this chapter I argue that the governing standard for accessibility must be couched in terms of objective rather than subjective standards, meaning an evaluation of actions rather than subjective motivations or mental states. This commitment to objective standards is closely related to an argument that the constraints of public justification must focus on what I call “the unwilling listener” rather than on “the constrained speaker.” In particular, I argue that the tendency toward subjectivism and a focus on the speaker rather than the listener has led earlier theories to become unduly perfectionist, a trend exemplified in the development of deliberative democratic theory. In asserting that a well-constructed theory of public justification is properly concerned with objective rather than subjective standards of accessibility, therefore, I am equally arguing in favor of a more neutralist, thinner version of liberal constraints.