One of the major differences between political liberalism and the theory of communicative action lies in the fundamentation offered by those who have formulated them regarding the neutrality of the procedures to be used in reaching the principles that should guide institutional practices and policies, in the face of the plurality of doctrines in societies marked by great social and cultural heterogeneity. These distinct bases appear quite clearly in the notion of public reason, a central theme of the famous debate in which Rawls advances his idea of "overlapping consensus" in order to produce a political conception of justice acceptable to the different doctrines that co-existe within an ordered democratic society. In turn, Habermas' ideal procedure is deliberation, which presumes associative forms that are capable of impartial regulation of social conditions of conviviality, and for these purposes makes use of a procedural rationality for moral justification. Thus, our purpose here is to elucidate and debate two distinct bases (objective neutrality and rationally justifiable principle) for the notion of public reason.
Rawls; Habermas; Pluralism; Democracy; Deliberation; Public Reason