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The popularity of conspiracy theories poses a clear challenge for contemporary liberal democracies. Conspiracy theories undermine rational debate, spread dangerous falsehoods and threaten social cohesion. However, any possible public policy response, which would try to contain their spread, needs to respect the liberal commitment to protect pluralism and free speech. A successful justification of such a policy must therefore: 1) clearly identify the problematic class of conspiracy theories; and 2) clarify the grounds on which the state is justified in acting against them. This article argues that the prevailing epistemic approaches to conspiracy theorizing cannot fulfil these criteria. Defining conspiracy theories by their flaws in reasoning, questionable coherence or factual mistakes can neither sharply distinguish problematic conspiracy theories from other, non-problematic worldviews nor justify state action. Thus, we propose to understand conspiracy theories through their ethical unreasonableness. We hold that containment of conspiracy theories is justifiable insofar as they undermine the liberal-democratic ideals of mutual respect, freedom and equality. We then show that such 'ethical' criteria for conspiracy theories can be sufficiently robust and clear-cut so that they can serve as a useful guide for public policy.

After presenting some of Cerovac's theses (2020), the article explains some challenges to the criticism of all forms of epistocracy that he developed. The objections are expressed through the employment of some elements of Rawls's conception of public justification, more precisely of public reason. It is remarked that Rawls's theory of public reason has two sides. One is rep-resented by the characterization of reasonable disagreement. The other side is represented by the fact that disagreement is not reasonable in all cases. In such situations, limited forms of so-phisticated epistocracy are justified.

Abstract
Moderate Confucian perfectionism aims to take advantage of both the capacity of liberalism to accommodate reasonable pluralism and the richness of Confucianism to endorse shared values without much controversy. Drawing from John Rawls's proviso, Franz Mang offers an internal critique of moderate Confucian perfectionism by constructing a "wide view of moderate perfectionism" according to which active promotion of Confucianism or Confucian values violates the liberal condition to accommodate reasonable pluralism. In this article, I will argue that Mang's internal critique not only reveals the weakness of moderate Confucian perfectionism but also pushes moderate perfectionism closer to neutrality, which can be demonstrated by adopting a pluralistic understanding of liberal neutrality. Furthermore, the pluralistic understanding of liberal neutrality leads to a convergent view of the relationship between political liberalism and moderate perfectionism, on the basis of which a modified proviso can be constructed to take advantage of both freestanding political reasons and freestanding perfectionist reasons. This modified proviso not only meets the liberal condition to accommodate reasonable pluralism but also strengthens the case for political liberalism.

The later Rawls attempts to offer a non-comprehensive, but nonetheless moral justification in political philosophy. Many critics of political liberalism doubt that this is successful, but Rawlsians often complain that such criticisms rely on the unwarranted assumption that one cannot offer a moral justification other than by taking a philosophically comprehensive route. In this article, I internally criticize the justification strategy employed by the later Rawls. I show that he cannot offer us good grounds for the rational hope that citizens will assign political values priority over non-political values in cases of conflict about political matters. I also suggest an alternative approach to justification in political philosophy (that is, a weak realist, Williams-inspired account) that better respects the later Rawls's concern with non-comprehensiveness and pluralism than either his own view or more comprehensive approaches. Thus, if we take reasonable pluralism seriously, then we should adopt what Shklar aptly called 'liberalism of fear'.

Abstract
In this article I argue that G.A. Cohen is mistaken in his belief that the concept of justice needs to be rescued from constructivist theorists of justice. In doing so, I rely on insights of John Rawls' later work Political Liberalism and Rainer Forst's discourse theory of justice. Such critical engagement with Cohen's critique of constructivism is needed, because Cohen bases his critique of constructivism almost exclusively on Rawls's arguments and positions in A Theory of Justice. He thus neglects - at least by and large - that Rawls had further developed his constructivist method of justification in his later work Political Liberalism, as well as that Forst's discourse-theoretical works offer elaborate versions of constructivism. These refined versions of constructivism recognize a plurality of reasonable conceptions of ideal justice and draw an important distinction between moral and political constructivism. Because of these features these advanced constructivist theories are not in need of Cohen's rescue.

Liberalism is a distinctively modern political conception. Only in modern times do we find, as the object of both systematic reflection and widespread allegiance and institutionalization, the idea that the principles of political association, being coercive, should be justifiable to all whom they are to bind. And so only here do we find the idea that these principles should rest, so far as possible, on a core, minimal morality which reasonable people can share, given their expectably divergent religious convictions and conceptions of the meaning of life. No longer does it seem evident—as it did, let us say, before the seventeenth century—that the aim of political association must be to bring man into harmony with God's purposes or to serve some comprehensive vision of the good life. The causes of this transformation are various, and not all of them lie at the level of moral principle. But a change in moral consciousness has certainly been one of the factors involved. As Hegel observed, modern culture is inherently areflectiveone: notions of principle are essential to our self-understanding and thus to the stability of the social forms in which we participate. Modern culture has no room for a dichotomy between "in principle" and "in practice." It is worth determining, then, what new moral conceptions have been responsible for the emergence of modern liberalism. Not only will we thereby better understand how we have become who we are, we will also have a surer grasp of the principles that sustain our political life.

Pluralism is an inescapable feature of contemporary liberal societies and it raises the demand for a normative strategy to face the disagreement it generates. Contemporary debates in normative political theory deal with pluralism by proposing a variety of solutions to prevent it from degenerating into unmanageable conflicts. The most prominent and dominant theoretical paradigm is John Rawls's theory of political liberalism, that dissolves the dangerous potential of political disagreement by imposing a discipline of pluralism. This work is guided by the question: is there a way to govern the undesirable consequences of pluralism that does not imply a disciplining of pluralism itself? The goal is to find a solution to the problem of pluralism, a strategy for its management able to preserve its features without putting order, peace and stability at risk. Along with modus vivendi scholars and contrary to the Rawls outlook on modus vivendi, this work is committed to show that modus vivendi contains the potential to give an answer to the pluralism of beliefs and not just to the plurality of goals. Modus vivendi is here regarded as an independent political project, capable of providing an answer to pluralism whilst representing a valuable alternative to political liberalism. I commence my analysis challenging the Rawlsian paradigm of political liberalism, starting with an assessment of his version of pluralism, reasonable pluralism, and of what I call the "tools" that political liberalism puts in place to contain the effects of reasonable pluralism and to attain a form of strong and enduring consensus. I then turn to the appraisal of modus vivendi solutions. I define the Rawlsian understanding of modus vivendi (which I called "Rawlsian modus vivendi", RMV) as the black mirror of political liberalism since it is entirely thought out to perform an ancillary role with respect to the purposes of it. The pars construens on this work is dedicated to the project of re-thinking modus vivendi along the dynamics of compromise, a model that I call "compromise modus vivendi" (CMV). I argue that CMV should fall within the scope of non-ideal realist political theory and that it is normative as it demands that citizens have an attitude to compromise, specified by a list of requirements. I observe how the dynamics of CMV result in a specific form of consensus that does not require any selection of reasons and a specific form of stability (light stability) that mirrors such openness to plural reasons. I conclude that CMV has the virtue of being a desirable and practicable solution while respecting pluralism in its actual form.

The state that we inhabit plays a significant role in shaping
our lives. For not only do its institutions constrain the kinds
of lives we can lead, but it also claims the right to punish
us if our choices take us beyond what it deems to be appropriate
limits. Political philosophers have traditionally tried to justify
the state's power by appealing to their preferred theories
of justice, as articulated in complex and wide-ranging moral
theories—utilitarianism, Kantianism, and the like. One
of John Rawls's greatest contributions to political philosophy
has been his recognition that this is the wrong way for this
field to approach its task. He points to what he calls "the
fact of reasonable pluralism," which is the incontestable
fact that in a free society people striving to lead their lives
ethically will subscribe to conflicting moral and religious
doctrines, many of which will be "reasonable" in
the special sense of leaving their adherents willing to cooperate
with those with whom they have moral disagreements. And this means
that political philosophers can no longer rely on any particular
"comprehensive" doctrine in their attempts to justify
the state. For doing so would be unfair to those who subscribe
to a conflicting reasonable doctrine; it would mean that the
coercive power of the state would not be justified to them
in terms they can accept, even while they were forced
to abide by its terms.