According to public reason liberals, laws, policies, and political institutions need to be justifiable to those who are subject to them. This entails that the reasons given in favor of a political arrangement are normatively relevant for all sufficiently idealized citizens. These reasons are public reasons. Since political deliberation is intimately connected with the resulting law or policy, the view often also incorporates a moral duty for citizens not to rely on nonpublic reasoning in the public political forum. According to virtually all proponents of such deliberative public reason requirements, these demands are symmetrical.^{1 1} I am concerned with, in Aurélia Bardon’s words, the question: “Do citizens have the moral right to refer to [only] religious reasons to support or oppose particular political decisions?” Aurélia Bardon, “Two Misunderstandings About Public Justification and Religious Reasons,” Law and Philosophy 37, no. 6 (2018): 639–69, p. 646. Public reason liberalisms that do not include a requirement for individual citizens to give public reasons are beyond the scope of this article. The argument does not apply to those who believe that only “public officials”, such as legislators and judges, are bound by the requirement to give public reasons. However, since it is “widely thought” that public reason liberalism does entail that ordinary citizens need to give public reasons, the subset of views that I focus on is rather significant. On this, see Kevin Vallier, “Public justification Versus Public Deliberation: The Case for Divorce,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 45, no. 2 (2015): 139–58, 139; see also Micah Schwartzman, “The Sincerity of Public Reason.” The Journal of Political Philosophy 19, no. 4 (2011): 375–98.
If there is a moral duty to give public reasons in favor of a law or a policy, those who are opposed to the proposal will always have a corresponding duty to provide public reasons against it.

This position has yet to be put to critical scrutiny. In this paper, I reject it. I argue that there is a class of cases where the public‐reason‐giving requirement should be relaxed for some participants in the public political forum—cases where the public‐reason‐giving requirements should be asymmetric. A person opposing an “invasive law” is under no obligation to give public reasons. A proponent of the law is. It is morally acceptable to provide only nonpublic reasons against invasive laws, but not in favor of them.

To explicate the benefits of this asymmetric view of public reason, I apply it to the public debates around European so‐called “burqa bans.” Empirical research suggests that some niqab wearers believe that they have a religious obligation to cover their faces. Assuming some degree of noncompliance to the norms of public reason under nonideal circumstances, a subset of these women will not be prepared to give public reasons against the bans. On the symmetric view of public reason, they would be excluded from the public political forum. Those niqab wearers who are willing to give public reasons are susceptible to another cost. If they believe that the religious reasons against banning the niqab are what truly motivates their opposition, they have to “split themselves.” They are unable to debate as their full selves when defending their comprehensive practice.

I do not intend to offer a comprehensive account of burqa bans or the question of religious clothing. Instead, the niqab case merely serves as a way of making the advantages of the asymmetric view explicit. Further, this article will only briefly address the question of whether public reason liberalism is preferable to perfectionist liberalisms, or non‐liberal ways of justifying state power. However, the view presented here incorporates some worries from public‐reason sceptics, and so it may appear superior to the standard view also for someone who does not share some of the fundamental commitments.

I will begin by outlining how the public‐reason‐giving requirements are traditionally understood (1), after which I present the main features of the asymmetric view (2). I then show how the view functions by discussing it against the debate around burqa bans (3), concluding that the view is less costly than symmetric views of public reason (4). Finally, I defend the view against a series of objections, concluding that it is a distinct and plausible implication of commitments that public reason liberals typically already hold (5).

根据公共原因，自由主义者，法律，政策和政治机构必须对受其约束的人们有正当理由。这就意味着支持政治安排的理由在规范上与所有充分理想化的公民有关。这些原因是公众原因。由于政治审议与由此产生的法律或政策密切相关，因此，这种观点通常还包含着道义上的义务，要求公民不要在公共政治论坛中依赖非公共推理。实际上，根据所有这种考虑性公共理由要求的支持者，这些要求是对称的。^{1个 1} 用奥雷利亚·巴顿（AuréliaBardon）的话来说，我关心的一个问题是：“公民是否有道德权利（仅）提及宗教理由来支持或反对某些政治决定？” AuréliaBardon，“关于公共理由和宗教原因的两个误解”，《法律与哲学》第37期，第1期。6（2018）：639–69，第 646.不包括要求个人公民提供公共理由的公共理由自由主义不在本条的范围之内。该论点不适用于那些认为只有“公职人员”（例如立法者和法官）受提供公共理由的要求所约束的人。但是，由于公共理性自由主义确实“被广泛认为”由于普通公民需要给出公共理由，因此我关注的观点子集相当重要。关于这一点，请参见凯文·瓦利埃（Kevin Vallier），“公共理由与公众审议：离婚的情况”，《加拿大哲学杂志》第45期，第1期。2（2015）：139-58、139；另请参见Micah Schwartzman，“公共理性的诚意”。政治哲学杂志19，没有。4（2011）：375-98。
如果在道德上有义务向公众提供有利于法律或政策的理由，那么反对该建议的人将始终有相应的义务向公众提供反对该建议的理由。

这一立场尚未受到严格审查。在本文中，我拒绝了。我认为，在某些情况下，对于公共政治论坛中的某些参与者，应该放宽对公共理由的要求，在这种情况下，公共理由的要求应该是不对称的。反对“侵入性法律”的人没有义务提供公共理由。法律的拥护者是。从道德上讲，仅提供非公开的理由来反对侵入性法律是可以接受的，但不赞成这样做。

为了说明这种不对称的公共理性观点的益处，我将其应用于围绕欧洲所谓的“布尔卡禁令”的公开辩论中。实证研究表明，一些佩戴尼卡布的人认为，他们有宗教义务遮盖脸孔。假设在非理想情况下某种程度上不符合公共理性规范，则这些妇女中的一部分将不准备针对反对禁令提供公共理由。基于公共理性的对称观点，它们将被排除在公共政治论坛之外。那些愿意公开陈述理由的穿戴者很容易受到另一笔费用的影响。如果他们认为反对禁酒的宗教原因才是真正促使他们反对的理由，那么他们就必须“分裂自己”。

我无意全面介绍布卡禁令或宗教服装问题。取而代之的是，niqab情况仅是使非对称视图的优点明确化的一种方式。此外，本文将仅简要讨论公共理性自由主义比完美主义自由主义更可取，还是为国家政权辩护的非自由方式更可取的问题。但是，这里提出的观点包含了一些公共理性怀疑者的担忧，因此对于不认同某些基本承诺的人来说，它似乎也比标准观点更好。

首先，我将概述传统上如何理解公众给予的要求（1），然后介绍非对称视图的主要特征（2）。然后，通过与围绕布尔卡禁令的辩论进行讨论，我将展示这种观点的作用，认为该观点比公共理性的对称观点便宜（4）。最后，我反对一系列反对意见，认为这是公共理性自由主义者通常已经持有的承诺的独特而合理的暗示（5）。