I argue that advocates of moderate epistemic idealization need some standards against which they can determine whether a particular individual P has a responsibility to acquire some specific piece of information α. Such a specification is necessary for the purpose of determining whether a reason R, the recognition of which depends on accounting for α, can legitimately be ascribed to P. To this end, I propose an initial sketch of a criterion that may be helpful in illuminating the conditions in which P might be said to have a responsibility to take α into account when searching for reasons to act or believe. I worry that reason ascriptions that are based on information acquisition expectations which are not captured by this criterion (and, hence, not legitimate reason ascriptions) may be open to charges of authoritarianism, especially when such a reason ascription prompts one person to demand that another act in a way that is responsive to the ascribed reason(s).

In Liberalism without Perfection, Jonathan Quong develops what is perhaps the most comprehensive defense of the consensus model of public reasona model which incorporates both a public-reasons-only requirement and an accessibility requirement framed in terms of shared evaluative standards. While the consensus model arguably predominates amongst public reason liberals, it is criticized by convergence theorists who reject both the public-reasons-only requirement and the accessibility requirement. In this paper, I argue that while we have good reason to reject Quong's call for a public-reasons-only requirement, all public reason liberals should endorse at least some shared evaluative standards and, hence, an accessibility requirement.

In this article, I develop a conception of multiculturalism that is compatible with Mill's liberal framework. I argue, drawing from Mill's conception of the nation-state, that he would expect cultural minorities to assimilate fully into the political sphere of the dominant culture, but to assimilate only minimally, if at all, into the cultural sphere. I also argue that while Mill cannot permit cultural accommodations in the form of self-government rights, he would allow for certain accommodation rights (construed as individual rights) which assist cultural minorities in preserving their cultural particularity. While this is indeed a modest multiculturalism, it helps to demonstrate that Mill was not as hostile towards custom or minority groups as certain passages may appear to suggest.

In morally grounding a public justification requirement, public reason liberals frequently invoke the idea that persons should be construed as "free and equal." But this tells us little with regard to what it is about us that makes us free or how a claim about our status as persons can ultimately ground a requirement of public justification. In light of this worry, I argue that a public justification requirement can be grounded in a Nozick-inspired argument from the separateness of persons (one that is consistent with the idea that individuals are free and equal). As I claim, one particular feature of the fact of our separateness -the possession of a basic psychology consisting of beliefs, intentions, sentiments, and a variety of desire-like psychological states -does the most work in grounding both a principle of liberty (PL) and a requirement of public justification (RPJ). Together, PL and RPJ provide the basic framework for a theory of public reason liberalism.In locating a possible moral basis for a requirement of public justification, public reason liberals frequently invoke the idea that persons should be construed as free and equal.1 On such a conception, individuals are said to be free insofar as we are not naturally subject to the authority of others; and we are equal to one another with regard to our free status (Quong 2013; Gaus 2007, p. 90). But this tells us little with respect to what it is about us that makes us free.Consequently, it remains unclear how a general claim about our status as free and equal persons acquires the normative punch needed to underwrite a requirement of public justification.Perhaps one plausible way to normatively prop up the claim that individuals are free and equal is to appeal to our separateness as individuals. After all, it is a fact of life that individuals are metaphysically distinct from one another. This fact has a weighty influence on how many of us view our place in the world. We conceive of ourselves as having our own life to live and, typically, we care deeply about how that life goes. We want to be free to pursue our own conception of the good life and to revise that conception as we see fit. Understandably, then, we are not usually eager to ignore or transcend our metaphysical separateness from others.