Institutional dialogue and public reason: revisiting the debate between John Rawls and Jeremy Waldron

Abstract

this article investigates how public reason can contribute to institutional dialogue in resolving political morality disagreements. It starts from the premise that institutional dialogue promotes equality between the participating institutions, not establishing the protagonism of one of the branches. As a methodology, a bibliographic study is carried out, especially of two authors who disagree deeply about the content and scope of application of public reason: John Rawls, who defends a special role for the Supreme Court; and Jeremy Waldron, who advocates the legislative role in resolving moral disagreements. Analyzing the authors’ arguments, it is possible to emphasize two conclusions that contribute to an isonomic institutional dialogue: first, that the Constitutional Courts, despite their special contribution to institutional dialogue, do not have exclusive access to public reason, not serving as a superior reference to other branches; second, that although constitutional argumentation is an important element of public reasoning, there are other equally relevant arguments that can be better examined by the Legislative and the Executive.