society’s conception of political justice, and conducted open to view on that basis.” (Rawls
1993: 213)
The political conception of justice is underwritten by the “two moral powers” that
democratic citizens are assumed to possess: (i) their capacity to form, revise and pursue a
conception of the good; and (ii) their ability to comprehend and form a “public conception of
justice which characterizes the fair terms of cooperation.” (Rawls 1993: 219) Citizens are free
in that they are free to have a conception of the good, they are the self-authenticating sources
of their moral claims and they can take responsibility for their actions. It is on the basis that
they all hold these powers that they are equal. The rational, autonomous citizen is thus one
who is free and has the ability “to form, to revise, and to pursue a conception of the good, and
to deliberate in accordance with it.” (Rawls 1993: 72)
Inasmuch as the content of public reason is articulated by a political conception of
justice that specifies basic rights, liberties and opportunities that have a non-negotiable
priority, public reason is inextricably linked to the political conception of justice. It is the
publicness of democratic politics that legitimates coercive power which may only be
“exercised in accordance with a constitution the essentials of which all citizens may
reasonably be expected to endorse in the light of principles and ideals acceptable to them as
reasonable and rational.” (Rawls 1993: 217) Thus, democracy is to be understood as the
exercise of public reason and it “involves an equal share in the coercive political power that
citizens exercise over one another.” Further, “[a]s reasonable and rational … [citizens] should
be ready to explain the basis of their actions to one another in terms each could reasonably
expect that others might endorse as consistent with their freedom and equality.”
Rawls
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In this sense, democracy is instrumentally valuable in that citizens participate in order to understand the views
of others and to explain their own views so as to determine the principles that will regulate the basic structure of
society. It is also intrinsically valuable in that democratic participation is “an activity enjoyable in itself that
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Convention