PUBLIC REASON AS A BASIS OF POLITICAL CULTURE IN LIBERAL DEMOCRACIES: IDEAS AND PROBLEMS
The main purpose of this work is to present the idea of public reason as we can find it in John Rawls’s Political Liberalism, partly from the perspective of Joseph Raz’s critique which he presented in his work “Facing Diversity: The Case of Epistemic Abstinence”. Raz critiqued Rawls, who tried to ground his political liberalism on the basis which does not need the truth – which means that his theory is epistemicаlly abstinent. Raz considers that this is not possible and that theory must have its foundation in some objective values. This paper will show a difference between objective values and values constituted by concord, in order to differentiate from the terminology of Joseph Raz and to point out his problematic assumptions. I will also represent standpoint from which Raz criticism of epistemic abstinence is justified, which means that Rawls has to find some objective values although that does not mean, as Raz concludes, that a theory of justice must be true to be a theory of justice.
