Political liberalism is a feminist liberalism. This is the central claim of Lori Watson and Christie Hartley's book, the aim of which is to show not just that political liberalism can be feminist, but that its core normative features are already equipped to deliver substantive equality for marginalized groups. The book is divided into two parts: in part 1 the authors defend their interpretation of political liberalism with a substantive notion of free and equal citizenship as its normative core, and in part 2 they use this interpretation to demonstrate the theory's feminist commitments. Along the way, they offer responses to both mainstream liberal critics—who are concerned with various aspects of public reason liberalism's content and methodology—and feminist critics who worry that the theory does not have enough normative heft to achieve real equality.
In order to make their case in part 2, the authors utilize both ideal and nonideal theorizing to examine issues to which any feminist political theory must respond: prostitution (chapter 7), the gendered division of labor and social structuring of women's choices (chapter 8), and marriage (chapter 9). Although they offer a convincing defense of ideal theory in chapter 1, it is their extensive treatment of these topics in later chapters which shows that, though political liberalism engages in ideal theory, it can still address women's oppression; in other words, rather than simply promising that political liberalism has feminist tools, they make good on their promise and put these tools to use.
Central to their project is a morally robust understanding of free and equal citizenship; Watson and Hartley argue that it is political liberalism's normative core that allows the theory to yield substantive moral outcomes. In chapters 2 and 3 they defend an exclusive account of public reason according to which matters of basic justice and constitutional essentials must be justified by reasons that are shared among reasonable citizens understood as free and equal (40). Public reasons must be shared because political liberalism offers a particular understanding of liberal democracy as “the shared cooperative project of persons who value living on terms of mutual respect with others viewed as free and equal citizens and who understand themselves to have shared values and beliefs about the interests of persons as citizens” (42). This account requires that citizens never appeal to their comprehensive doctrines when discussing matters of basic justice and constitutional essentials (63).
To appeal to one's comprehensive doctrine would be to violate Rawls's criterion of reciprocity. Watson and Hartley argue that the criterion of reciprocity mandates, first, “the eradication of social conditions of domination and subordination relevant to democratic deliberation and participation among equal citizens,” and second, “the provision of the social conditions of recognition respect” (143). In other words, abiding by the criterion of reciprocity requires exclusive public reason, since only exclusive public reason can insure that “persons as citizens can enjoy a certain standing relative to each other” (68). Thus, even though the scope of public reason is narrow, its principles of exclusion and restraint are demanding. This demandingness sets Watson and Hartley's view apart from convergence accounts of public justification (53–56), consensus accounts that require only intelligibility (56–60), and Rawls's own public reason proviso. Nevertheless, Watson and Hartley argue that the requirements of public reason must be demanding in order to be consistent with the normative foundations of political liberalism—free and equal citizenship and the criterion of reciprocity—and the idea of democracy as a shared project among equals. Political liberalism, on their view, is not primarily a theory of distributive justice, but rather a theory in which “the relationship of citizens is fundamental” (70). If we wish to stand in relationships of equality with our co-citizens and conceptualize our democracy as a cooperative project with “distinct goods that can only be realized together” (44), we must acknowledge the strict moral demands of exclusive public reason.
An objection often raised against public reason liberalisms is that certain citizens will not be able to abide by these moral demands while retaining their integrity. All formulations of the Integrity Objection share the concern that some citizens, owing to their comprehensive worldviews, must either distance themselves from their deeply held commitments or silence their sincerely held opinions if they wish to engage politically. Features of Watson and Hartley's account, including its exclusivity, expand the number of citizens who may be rendered dis-integrated by public reason requirements. For example, the authors argue that comprehensive doctrines may contain “gender norms and roles, even ones that lead to hierarchical social positions” without thereby failing to be reasonable (37), since these norms and roles could operate in the background culture without threatening citizens’ ability to function as free and equal. Accordingly, it is possible for there to be reasonable citizens whose comprehensive doctrines contain hierarchical views about social identities who will not be able to express these views in democratic deliberation. These citizens might raise the Integrity Objection.
Although Watson and Hartley offer a response to this objection, one might worry that their response is not sufficient. Briefly, Watson and Hartley respond to the Integrity Objection by noting that the objection utilizes a merely formal understanding of integrity, according to which “there are no substantive constraints on the content of either the desires or the commitments and projects one has relative to assessing integrity” (94); this means reasonable and unreasonable citizens could level the objection. But since we are not required to assuage concerns of the unreasonable, we can dismiss the objection (95).
There are two potential problems with their response. First, it is unclear why integrity, itself, must be substantively defined in order to weed out unreasonable concerns. The liberal state is capable of distinguishing between integrity concerns that matter and those that do not by appealing to reasonableness. One subset of integrity claims may be raised by reasonable citizens and a second subset may be raised by the unreasonable; we should be concerned with the former and not the latter. But it is reasonableness doing the moral work here, not integrity. We simply do not need integrity to be substantively defined, and so its formalness is not grounds for dismissal.
Second, one appeal of Watson and Hartley's account is that it stresses the importance of standing in relationships of equality and “civic friendship” with our co-citizens (68); no reasonable citizen should be denied basic citizenship goods like the “ability to participate in the various spheres of social life central to citizenship” (202). Arguably, then, Watson and Hartley's vision of democracy, which requires deciding upon political principles based on “reasons that count for us because we can affirm them together” (48), contains an expressive element; living in a democracy is about living in a certain kind of community. One might worry that a version of the Integrity Objection is especially troubling for this sort of account. Reasonable citizens who are rendered dis-integrated may charge that they are unfairly denied a basic citizenship good—the ability to participate wholeheartedly in democratic deliberation—while other reasonable citizens are not similarly burdened. Further, they might charge that this expresses something about them as citizens that endangers their ability to exist in democratic community with their co-citizens.
Given their focus on relational equality, one might want Watson and Hartley to develop a more sustained response to the Integrity Objection that similarly centralizes this expressive element of liberal democracy, especially since, as they note, this objection “goes to the heart of political liberalism” (91).
