This paper explores the prospects of reasonableness as a civic virtue in the digital age, where the architecture of online platforms and the dynamics of information flow pose significant challenges to democratic life. Drawing on Rawlsian political liberalism, the paper revisits the concept of reasonableness, its role in public deliberation, and its vulnerability to phenomena such as epistemic bubbles, echo chambers, conspiracy thinking, and epistemic injustice. Arguing that ideal theory alone offers limited resources to address these challenges, the paper examines two neo-Aristotelian reconceptualizations of reasonableness: the reasonableness-as-phronesis view, grounded in practical wisdom, and the reasonableness-as-civility view, centered on civic benevolence and civil deliberation. It is argued that the civility-based account offers two key advantages: it provides clearer boundaries for the exercise of the relevant virtues and poses less demanding conditions for their cultivation. These features enhance the feasibility of developing educational strategies that promote reasonable civic engagement and counteract the harmful attitudes that undermine it.
Michel Croce (Wed,) studied this question.