Autonomy for Free and Equal Citizens. A Civic Model of Autonomy for Just Societies

Can we live freely in a society whose conception of political justice we do not endorse? Drawing on Rawls’s political ideas, this thesis advances a model of civic autonomy that answers that question affirmatively. The model has three main intertwined features: (i) the idea of normative competences, (ii) public reasoning, and (iii) the demand for political liberties and primary goods. The idea of normative competences refers to the capacity of citizens to identify and affirm – before other fellow citizens – their conceptions of the good. Public reasoning is the public expression of citizens’ normative competences. The demand for political liberties and primary goods is the content of the public reasoning through which they engage their fellow citizens who exercise political power.