Unpacking Public Justification

By Uriel Abulof and Markus Kornprobst

Abstract

This brief response to Greenfeld’s caveat submits that public justification is not omnipresent, but can extend, and has extended, beyond the modern, liberal, West. Subscribing to a thin, rather than thick, conceptualization of public justification, we chart the contested contours of public justification, and urge scholars of this emergent field to clarify their own take before advancing pertinent theories and case studies. We briefly expound the nature and historical roots of both “justification” and “the public,” suggesting that their amalgam into public justification transcends the modern, liberal west.

Keywords

• public justification
• communication
• moral reasoning
• modernity
• liberalism
• legitimacy
• basic beliefs

Last draft before final version and publication in Contemporary Politics 23/1 (2017) [with Uriel Abulof] {in special issue: The Politics of Public Justification, edited with Uriel Abulof}. Reprinted in Communication, Legitimation and Morality.

Bibliographical details: Abulof, Uriel, and Markus Kornprobst. „Unpacking public justification.“ Contemporary Politics 23.1 (2017): 126-133.