[1][2] It is an idea with roots in the work of Thomas Hobbes, Immanuel Kant, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and has become increasingly influential in contemporary moral and political philosophy as a result of its development in the work of John Rawls, Jürgen Habermas, and Gerald Gaus, among others.
[3] This Kantian conception was further developed by American philosopher John Rawls to refer to the common reason of all citizens in a pluralist society and identified it as a component of political liberalism.
[4] Although Rawls cited the Kantian origin of his concept, his understanding is distinguished by the way he explained how public reason embodies the shared fund of beliefs and reason of those who constitute a democratic polity—those who are concerned with the good of the public and matters of basic justice.
[5] In order to accomplish this, however, one must overcome what he refers to as the burdens of judgment, which can produce disagreement among reasonable citizens.
The former involves public reason of free and equal liberal peoples who debate their mutual relations while the latter involves equal citizens of domestic society debating political issues and justice concerning their government.