@inbook{2a861b3b3c024561899dbe7e96a1de85,
title = "Europe's Path to Public Reason",
abstract = "Chapter 7 highlights how addressing public issues publicly is a main target of European institutions, considering their commitment to the identification of shared values and the protection of rights. In consideration of this, it is reasonable to ask whether the {"}Public Reason{"} set forth by Rawls can be somehow applied to Europe's current perspective, understanding it to be the ruling criterion governing public issues. A major obstacle is to be found in the anti-pluralistic attitude which is widespread across the European states. However, constitutionalism, which is nowadays widely rooted on a global scale, makes contemporary political commu¬nities to characterize by disagreement and by the need of a new order of liberties, which is essential for the existence of any political community. In such a context, Rawlsian {"}Public Reason{"} does not show up as a useful tool, while Habermas' {"}Discourse Ethics{"} seems to be more promising, considering its openness to learning evolutionary processes. Nonetheless, this appeal to public reason needs to maintain its practical character, and should not lead to a philosophical or theoretical dispute, in order not to revive the anti-pluralistic and intolerant attitudes of the European cultural tradition. A European public consciousness should stick to two conditions: respecting the varieties of national cultures and distancing itself from the forms of the national state.",
keywords = "Discourse Ethics, Europe, Pluralism, Public Reason, Discourse Ethics, Europe, Pluralism, Public Reason",
author = "Francesco Viola",
year = "2012",
language = "English",
isbn = "978-94-007-4019-8",
series = "Ius Gentium: Comparative Perspectives on Law and Justice",
pages = "159--177",
booktitle = "Globalization and Human Rights. Challenges and Answers from a European Perspective",
}