What Public Reason Liberals Do and Do Not Need to Say About Epistemology

ABSTRACT An important question regarding public reason liberalism is how much (if anything) it needs to say about epistemology. This paper presents an answer to this question, arguing that the theory does not require reasonable citizens to hold any particular epistemological commitments (contra David Enoch's important critique), but does need to offer an epistemological explanation for the fact of reasonable disagreement. However, that explanation can be sufficiently minimal to be compatible with a wide range of fuller epistemological views. Further, the paper argues that this account of the place of epistemology within public reason liberalism mirrors the theory's structure with respect to moral justification, and indeed its approach to various other philosophical domains.