Mixed Loyalties: A Roycean Interpretation of Public Reason

Jon Moran, Missouri State University

A crucial part of the traditional liberal view of the state is the notion that a just state will be neutral in regard to different conceptions of the good. It is thought that in order to allow people to discover and follow ideas of the good life, society must not favor particular conceptions over others. As conceived by John Rawls, for example, a choice of principles of justice should abstract from individual conceptions of a good life in order to allow for the selection of principles that can regulate actions by individuals with differing life choices. In order to allow for this sort of pluralism, we must conduct public, political debate concerning laws and other policies using a neutral variety of reasoning that does not rely on a particular conception of the good life. The result often is a "public square" devoid of commitments to any values other than the, admittedly important, views of the right. In the pages that follow I will explore a view of the