In this essay I discuss one of the objections raised by David Enoch in his recent Against Public Reason. According to Enoch, public-reason theorists misinterpret the role that rea-sons for the action play in the political sphere. Treating the most deeply held beliefs as mere preferences, public-reason theorists end up supporting a paternalistic view that vio-lates people’s freedom and equality. In this essay I try to dismiss this charge, without de-fending the idea of public reason.
The essay is divided into six parts. §1 introduces the problem with an example. §2 lays out the general idea of public reason. §3 illustrates Enoch’s objection. §4 briefly introduces standard responses to the objection and Enoch’s possible counter-arguments. §5, with the help of some formalization, explains how non-public reasons work, addresses Enoch’s ob-jection, and present some doubt on the idea of public reason. §6 concludes.
