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This chapter addresses the task of explicating the normativity of deliberative contractualist principles – how and why deliberative contractualist agreements are supposed to be capable of providing us with normative reasons. It begins by discussing three familiar approaches, instrumentalism, substantivism, rational formalism, and argues that none of these appears to be successful. It then proposes a different account, relational formalism. This holds that to have the capacities constitutive of deliberative agency presupposes that we have the capacity to adopt what this chapter calls the interpersonal point of view, which in turn presupposes that we stand in a certain normatively significant relation to others, what this chapter calls deliberative citizenship. The reasons that deliberative contractualist agreements give us are reasons of this kind, reasons of deliberative citizenship.

This chapter argues that a consistently conscientious person owes epistemic trust to others. What is called here epistemic egoism is not possible for a conscientious person. If we think of ourselves as basically trustworthy in our epistemic faculties, we should think of all other persons as basically trustworthy as well. We owe particular trust to those others whose conscientiousness we conscientiously discover. The rational requirement to trust others who have the properties we trust in ourselves supports a form of common consent arguments, often treated as fallacious in informal logic books. The chapter concludes by distinguishing two kinds of epistemic reasons: third person, or theoretical reasons, and first person, or deliberative reasons. Self-trust is a reason of the second kind.

This chapter moves from a defense of the authority of another person's belief to the authority of testimony. The chapter distinguishes the trust model of testimony the chapter defends from the evidence model of testimony. The former permits testimony to give us first person, deliberative reasons for belief, whereas the latter permits testimony to give us only third person, theoretical reasons. The chapter then argues that belief on authoritative testimony can be defended by principles modeled on Razian principles of authority.

This chapter begins by distinguishing two kinds of epistemic reasons, one irreducibly first personal, and the other third personal. Here the kinds of reasons that are irreducibly first personal are called “deliberative reasons,” and the kinds of reasons that are third personal are called “theoretical reasons.” The use of the terms “deliberative” and “theoretical” is not essential to the distinction being made, but these terms draw attention to the different functions of the two kinds of reasons in psychology. Epistemic self-trust is an irreducibly first personal epistemic reason, and it is the most basic reason of either kind. Attacks on religious belief are sometimes third personal, but sometimes they are first personal attacks on self-trust or trust in religious communities. Attacks on self-trust require a different kind of response than attacks on third person reasons.

This chapter evaluates Marcus's theory of affective intelligence, noting some inconsistencies in his account of how the different systems of neural processes are related to one another. In his essay, Marcus aims to “provide a unified account of how preconscious and conscious neural processes serve democratic politics.” However, the relationship between these two processes is ambiguous. What is needed is a clearer, more coherent account of human agency. To sustain its significance for politics and morality, the theory of affective intelligence needs to show how a potent, nonmechanistic form of human agency is possible without the sovereign subject. In particular, the theory needs a clearer account of how deliberation can involve preconscious processes without being strictly determined by them, both with respect to stimulating deliberation and to the activity of deliberative reasoning itself.