EXCELLENCE DESPITE DISAGREEMENT. A REASONABLE CONCEPTION?

Rawls’s ‘public reason’ is the dominant political conception in contemporary liberal societies. It hinges on ideas of reciprocity and neutrality that may lead to unsatisfactory decisions in hard cases of disagreement, especially on religious issues. Taking the moves from a well-known religious controversial case decided by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), the “crucifix case”, I try to confront the views of some contemporary authors who move by and large within the Rawlsian paradigm of public reason. On the one hand, I try to discuss and emphasize their main theoretical features and conjecture in some cases what their positions with respect to the crucifix case might be. On the other hand, building to some extent some sketchy picture of a perfectionist alternative view, I propose some alternative arguments to support the ECHR’s arguments and conclude by opposing the Rawlsian ‘reasonableness as reciprocity’ view and a perfectionist-oriented view of reasonableness as ‘the right way of living’.