ABSTRACT
For Rawls, public reason is the reason of democratic citizens, who share the status of equal citizenship, on the subject of the good of the public. Public reason helps to specify an ideal conception of citizenship for a constitutional democratic regime. In Political Liberalism, Rawls distinguishes between the exclusive view and the inclusive view of public reason. It must be acknowledged that Rawls's position has become more inclusive as a result of the substitution of the wide view of public political culture for the inclusive view of public reason. Rawls is candid about the ways in which the ideal of public reason is supposed to constrain discussion in the public forum. It asks citizens to submit to the discipline of working up and being prepared to defend a political conception of justice. In "The Idea of Public Reason Revisited", Rawls signals a change of mind when he replaces the inclusive view with the wide view of public political culture.
