Fabienne Peter (University of Warwick): From Objective Reasons to Public Reasons
The topic of this paper is the debate between defenders and critics of a public reason account of the justification of political authority. According to defenders of the Public Reason View, the practical justification of political authority is agreement-dependent. On the opposing view, the Objective Reason View, practical justification in this – or any – context is agreement-independent. I will grant that there are objective reasons and allow that they can affect practical justification. But I will show, focusing on the epistemic circumstances of practical justification in the political context, that granting this premise to the defenders of the Objective Reason View does not entail that the justification of political authority is necessarily agreement-independent. Agreement-based justification plays an important role in the justification of political authority even if one accepts that there are objective reasons.