2. Ibid.,18.

3. John Rawls, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993).

4. Thomas Hurka, Perfectionism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 190.

5. See Robert J. Nash, Answering the "Virtuecrats" (New York: Teachers College Press, 1997).

6. Rawls, Political Liberalism, xviii.

7. It is appropriate to say a few words about why it is proper for me to use Rawls to talk about liberalism in educational policy. A principal question is whether it is fair to associate Rawls with the move to banish conceptions of the good to the margins of political debate. For example, Rawls does not say appeals to conceptions of the good are inappropriate to all political debates but only to those concerned with constitutional essentials (excepting a few special cases). Perhaps a case can be made that schooling is not a constitutional essential, and if it can, then Rawls need not object to perfectionism in public deliberations about schooling. However, constitutional essentials - such as religious and speech rights - often are the issues in debates about educational policy. Rawls acknowledges that "fundamental matters" can be involved in deliberations that are not explicitly about constitutional essentials. Where this is the case, Rawls says his restrictions of public reason still apply. So, even if there is an issue of just what the proper scope of public reason is in public deliberations about education, Rawls still makes public reason central. I want to question its centrality, or at least the centrality of Rawls's conception of public reason. Beyond that, this issue of the status of educational deliberations (and other examples) prompts questions about the practical usefulness of Rawls's distinction between issues of constitutional essentials and other issues. See Kent Greenawalt, Private Consciences and Public Reasons (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 117-19.

8. Hurka, Perfectionism, 56.

9. Michael Stocker, Plural and Conflicting Values (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 331.

10. A number of the points made in what follows are drawn from Hurka. He provides more thorough arguments.

11. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), 330.

12. Rawls, Political Liberalism, 217.

13. Greenawalt, Private Conscience and Public Reason, 77.

14. Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson, Democracy and Disagreement (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996). On relevant issues, Gutmann and Thompson take a position similar to Rawls, so I do not think this shift is problematic. Part of the need for the shift is that Rawls simply does not do much to discuss the conduct of actual deliberation. This is the principal advantage Gutmann and Thompson see in their "deliberative" approach as compared to Rawls's.

15. Gutmann and Thompson, Democracy and Disagreement, 64. I rely on Gutmann and Thompson's account of the incident.

16. Ibid., 65.

17. Ibid.

18. Rawls, Political Liberalism, 248-51.

19. Greenawalt, Private Conscience and Public Reason, 40.

20. Ibid., 41.

21. It might be objected that my recommendations simply confirm Rawls's claim that appeals to the good are acceptable if they serve public reason. Surely, what I am recommending serves public reason to the extent that reciprocity is a central concern. However, the idea of "public reason" which I am advocating is rather different than Rawls's.

22. Rawls, Political Liberalism, 162.