ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines accounts of reasonableness from John Rawls and Thomas Scanlon and discusses how this can be used in the project of creating a test for social justice in contemporary social policy. It begins by outlining the approaches both theorists take to the concept and describes how the concept can be understood to have a regulatory function. The chapter argues that the idea of reasonableness should be extended beyond individual decision-making to be used in a structural context based on an account of political legitimacy. The liberal accounts characterised by Scanlon and Rawls, however, place the commitment to public justification at the core. Both Rawls' and Scanlon's accounts can be seen to use the concept of 'reasonable' within a regulatory context. Both Scanlon and Rawls provide accounts of motivation as an alternative to utilitarianism. Within Political Liberalism Rawls draws a distinction between comprehensive doctrines and a political conception of society.
