Reasonable people disagree deeply about the nature of the good life. But reasonable
people also disagree fundamentally about principles of justice. If this is true,
then why does political liberalism permit the state to act on reasons of justice,
but not for reasons grounded in conceptions of the good life? There appears to be an
indefensible asymmetry in the way political liberalism treats disagreements about
justice and disagreements about the good life. This is the asymmetry
objection to political liberalism. The principal aim of this article is to show
that the asymmetry objection can be refuted. This is done by drawing a distinction
between two different types of reasonable disagreement that can occur between
citizens. The first type is foundational disagreement. Disagreements of
this type are characterized by the fact that the participants do not share any
premises which can serve as a mutually acceptable standard of justification. The
second type of disagreement, justificatory disagreement, occurs when
participants do share premises that serve as a mutually acceptable standard of
justification, but they nevertheless disagree about certain substantive conclusions.
Making this distinction allows me to show why political liberalism’s
asymmetric treatment of justice and the good life is both defensible and desirable.
