A Perfectionist Critique of Public Reason Liberalism

The paper examines the relationship between public reason liberalism and one, historically important, conception of illiberal perfectionism. Public reason liberalism has always pursued the backing of various comprehensive doctrines, and therefore the question comes about as to whether it can also succeed in this with perfectionist authors belonging to the Thomistic tradition. Towards this goal, the author first delineates the basic concepts that he analyzes in the article - namely, liberalism, perfectionism and public reason liberalism. He subsequently elaborates in two steps why it is that the representatives of the Thomistic tradition must ultimately reject public reason liberalism. He first notes their critique of the unsatisfactory metaphysical assumptions of liberalism so that he can then break down the problematic relationship between natural law reasons and public reasons. The article offers an answer to the rarely asked question of why the representatives of this alternative tradition ultimately consider public reason liberalism to be unacceptable.