John Rawls and those sympathetic to his views defend a moral principle called the criterion of reciprocity. Some argue that the moral reasons for complying with the criterion of reciprocity are derived from civic friendship, a valuable relationship of collective agency that one can sustain with one's fellow citizens. In this article, I pose what I call the knowledge problem for civic friendship. I argue that citizens have only limited information about whether others are complying with the criterion of reciprocity. Furthermore, I argue that this fact means that citizens only have weak moral reasons to comply with the criterion of reciprocity.
BadiolaCB (2018) Science as public reason: a restatement. Res Publica (Liverpool, England)24: 415–432.
2.
BasuR (2019) Radical moral encroachment: the moral stakes of racist beliefs. Philosophical Issues29(1): 9–23.
3.
BrinkerhoffA (2021) Prejudiced beliefs based on the evidence: responding to a challenge for evidentialism. Synthese199(5-6): 14317–14331.
4.
Ebels-DugganK (2010) The beginning of community: politics in the face of disagreement. The Philosophical Quarterly60(238): 50–71.
5.
EberleCJ (2005) What does respect require? In: T Cuneo (ed.) Religion in the Liberal Polity. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 173–194.
6.
FrickerM (2007) Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
7.
GausG (2021) Respect for persons and public justification. In: Dean R and Sensen O (eds) Respect: Philosophical Essays. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 55–76.
8.
HadfieldGMacedoS (2012) Rational reasonableness: toward a positive theory of public reason. Law & Ethics of Human Rights6(1): 7–46.
9.
KappelK (2021) Science as public reason and the controversiality objection. Res Publica (Liverpool, England)4: 619–639.
10.
LarmoreC (1996) The Morals of Modernity. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
11.
LarmoreC (2020) What is Political Philosophy?Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
12.
LelandRJ (2019) Civic friendship, public reason. Philosophy and Public Affairs47(1): 72–103.
13.
LelandRJvan WietmarschenH (2016) Political liberalism and political community. Journal of Moral Philosophy14(2): 142–167.
14.
ListerA (2013) Public Reason and Political Community. New York, NY: Bloomsbury.
15.
ListerA (2017) Public reason and reciprocity. Journal of Political Philosophy25(2): 155–172.
16.
NeufeldB (2019) Shared intentions, public reason, and political autonomy. Canadian Journal of Philosophy49(6): 776–804.
17.
NeufeldB (2022) Public Reason and Political Autonomy: Realizing the Ideal of a Civic People. New York, NY: Routledge.
18.
NussbaumMC (2011) Perfectionist liberalism and political liberalism. Philosophy and Public Affairs39(1): 3–45.
19.
QuongJ (2011) Liberalism without Perfection. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
20.
RawlsJ (2005) Political Liberalism. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.
21.
WallS (2016) The pure theory of public justification. Social Philosophy and Policy32(2): 204–226.
22.
WeithmanP (2011) Why Political Liberalism? On Rawls’s Political Turn. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
23.
WeithmanP (2015) Inclusivism, stability, and assurance. In: BaileyTGentileV (eds) Rawls and Religion. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 75–96.
24.
WongBLiM (2024) Talk may be cheap, but deeds seldom cheat: on political liberalism and the assurance problem. American Journal of Political Science68(4): 1353–1365.
