Gina Schouten's book is full of nuanced, original arguments, sensitive to the difficulties of the issues involved, and fueled by a set of attractive commitments. Her attention to the persistent injustice constituted by the gendered division of labor is welcome, and her final take-away point—that the persistence of such division is a matter not merely of justice but of legitimacy—is important and, I think, right. Any political philosopher would be proud to have written this book. And yet, at the end of it, Schouten expresses a worry about what, in fact, she has accomplished.

She worries that her argument is of the wrong sort to achieve her ends, that it is “a philosopher's argument,” and not one she can imagine “being articulated in public discourse” (231). The problem, she suggests, is not with its strength or soundness. Rather, it lacks a further virtue she thinks arguments need “to be fully in the spirit of political liberalism” (232). That virtue goes beyond the argument being merely “available, whether or not anyone can track it” (231). “Available” here means something like, “existing in logical space”: it is there for the taking if anyone wants to be bothered to pick it up and deploy it in a political setting. A couple of paragraphs later, however, she uses the “availability” of arguments in a different way, as requiring something more: “Political arguments are meant to be available for public deliberation. I have offered an argument that I take to be sound and to rely only on premises that are available for public deliberation—those based on political reasons. But maybe that doesn't suffice to make the argument available for public deliberation” (232). So, the worry persists: “It remains difficult to imagine [the argument] actually being articulated, in public deliberation, offered by a feminist to a gender traditionalist or small government conservative” (232). Since I both admire Schouten's book and share her worry, I try here to diagnose the root of the problem and offer a suggestion of how to repurpose some of her arguments in a more fully political register.

Within a certain strand of ordinary language philosophy, “philosopher's arguments” are also found to be wanting.1 There, what marks arguments as “philosopher's arguments” is an aspiration towards universality that manifests itself in a project of giving generic characterizations of, for instance, the meaning or force of normative terms. A philosopher's argument traces a path from some set of propositions (its premises) to a different proposition (its conclusion) by way of allowable inferences. It thus makes this path “available.” In a world where people take “positions” in the sense of affirming a set of propositions or theoretical commitments—as “feminists” or “gender traditionalists” or “small government conservatives”—the point of a philosopher's argument is to show that people who hold certain positions are rationally committed to affirm certain conclusions. The philosopher's holy grail, then, is an argument of the most general sort: one that starts from premises that all can or do or must accept.

Political liberalism is often thought of as engaging in such a project: it aims to uncover a limited stock of premises that all citizens of a liberal democratic society can be expected to affirm. It finds these by articulating an idea of citizenship, from which it derives a set of common interests we have as citizens. These interests then ground the premises of legitimate (philosopher's) arguments about politics and policy. It labels these premises as “public reasons,” and then claims that only arguments that are based on public reasons are legitimacy-conferring. Schouten sees her own project in something like these terms.2

Ordinary language philosophers criticize “philosopher's arguments” for pulling the words they analyze out of any context in which there would be a point in uttering them, and which might give them a meaning. This observation, for instance, lies at the crux of Austin's diagnosis of the skeptic's analysis of “know.”3 They point out that in ordinary contexts, expressing a moral (or political) judgment, or justifying such a judgment with a particular argument or set of reasons is itself a moral (political) act. It involves taking a moral stand: taking responsibility for one's position—where one stands and perhaps who stands with you—and acknowledging the position of one's interlocutor.4 Both the meaning of what I say and what I do in and by saying it depend on these contexts. If, for instance, I claim in the course of debating economic policy or our joint division of household chores that the gendered division of labor harms you, when you have not claimed this yourself, then in addition to making a point about the effects of a given policy or social structure, I have also asserted or assumed a kind of epistemic authority over your life, and perhaps thereby denied or ignored your authority in the process.5 In some cases, my doing so might constitute as big an affront to our equality as the policy I am arguing against, even if my argument validly connects its conclusion to true premises.

We can say that an argument is politically “available” in the sense I am developing here if, beyond it being valid and sound, there is a point in offering it in a given context to others. It is politically available in the course of legitimate democratic deliberation if there is a point in uttering it as a citizen to one's fellow citizens. So understood, the position of “citizen” is not captured by a set of common interests or premises affirmed, but by the relationship in which we stand (or aim to stand) as fellow citizens, for which we each take responsibility, and to which we hold each other accountable. One point of articulating my position to you is to make clear to you what I am willing to take responsibility for qua citizen, or to confront you with the responsibility you bear for your own position. In doing so, I might invite you to join me in a particular conception of our relationship as citizens, or perhaps to decline what I understand to be your (perhaps implicit) invitation. Each of these moves is itself a political act. Each can (re)-constitute (or not) our relations to one another as just (or not), as that between citizens (or not).

To read the project of political liberalism as grounding political arguments in this sense is to see it as articulating what is required to deliberate publicly and reasonably with our fellow citizens, given the fact of reasonable pluralism. So understood, political liberalism offers criteria for judging the reasonableness of political arguments. It does this, in part, by spelling out what is required to relate to our fellow citizens as free and equal participants in a fair scheme of social cooperation. Very roughly, it holds that we relate to our fellow citizens as free and equal participants in our shared project by engaging with them through public reasoning and accepting that they hold us accountable to that standard. Public reasoning, then, is not reasoning that starts from publicly affirmed premises, a pathway to good philosopher's arguments, but reasoning engaged in politically in a manner that shows respect for my fellow citizens.6 Political liberalism thus offers us a way to evaluate the justice and legitimacy of acts of reasoning rather than chains of reasoning.

From the perspective of those who treat political liberalism as a theory of legitimate philosopher's arguments, this distinction between philosophical and political arguments collapses: if all that matters about an argument is whether its conclusions follow from its premises and whether the premises are true, then there is no significant difference between chains of reasoning and acts of reasoning. Acts of reasoning are nothing more than laying out in words or speech a particular chain of reasoning.

We can see what more about acts of reasoning might be important to political liberalism if we turn to Rawls's criterion of reciprocity, which “requires that when those terms are proposed as the most reasonable terms of fair cooperation, those proposing them must also think it at least reasonable for others to accept them, as free and equal citizens, and not as dominated or manipulated, or under pressure of an inferior political or social position.”7

On the reading of political liberalism as a filter for assessing philosopher's arguments about politics, the criterion of reciprocity enunciates a principle for distinguishing genuine public reasons arguments in terms of the acceptability of their premises. In contrast, if we understand political liberalism as undertaking a political project, the criterion of reciprocity will govern acts of reasoning rather than chains of reasoning. So understood, it articulates an ideal of mutual respect to guide our interactions with our fellow citizens when we are discussing and arguing for political and social policies. To see its force as a political constraint, consider the political contexts in which citizens make such proposals to one another. Such contexts include various norms and institutions that define our positions vis-à-vis one another. Certain political arguments implicitly rely on features of those contexts as presuppositions.8 In other words, those making such arguments rely on these features to support their assumption that the arguments can be reasonably accepted by their fellow citizens. So, for instance, arguments against police reform in the context of widespread police brutality in communities of color rest on a presupposition that Black lives don't matter. One need not assert that Black lives do not matter in political debate. It is enough that one's assumption that a defense of the status quo could be reasonably accepted, that there is no real problem here, relies on accepting differential social values accorded to white and non-white people in our society. We can then understand the criterion of reciprocity as ruling out an argument that manifested such complacency or relied on it: one could not reasonably expect a fellow citizen who thought that Black lives do matter to accept such an argument in favor of the status quo unless they occupied an inferior social position or had been dominated or manipulated.

She then bases her arguments for gender egalitarian policies on an account of citizens’ common interests.

Cashing out the idea of citizens as free and equal in terms of a set of interests shapes which threats to both freedom and equality we pay attention to, however, and thus how we argue for egalitarian and freedom-supporting policies. It is here, I think, that Schouten ends up on a path towards the philosopher's arguments she worries about in her conclusion. Deploying the criterion of reciprocity as it is understood on a political interpretation of political liberalism offers us a different path.

Start with equality. Asking whose interests are not met by a distributive scheme or social structure focuses our attention on inequality that shows up as deprivation: of ways that some people are deprived of or hindered in the pursuit of their common interests. This draws our attention to the role policies can play in raising the floor rather than lowering the ceiling. With regard to sex inequality, this focus directs us to the condition of women, and how to improve it, perhaps by increasing women's access to education and remunerative and dignified work, perhaps by relieving them of burdens that place obstacles in those paths (norms around who does domestic labor and the absence of subsidies to contract it out or pay adequately for it). At the same time, it diverts our attention away from the injustice constituted by high ceilings. With regard to sex inequality, it tends to ignore the injustice constituted by men occupying a dominant or superior social position that gives them the ability to opt out of necessary care-work and count on its being done nevertheless.10

If we miss this feature of sex inequality, we miss a more direct path to argue for the particular sorts of policies aimed at the gendered division of labor that Schouten supports. Consider policies that require or encourage fathers to take paid parental leave in order for mothers to be entitled to it or require or encourage employers to structure work to remove the option to over-work because such over-work generates the need for someone else to do a worker's share of care-work. These may indirectly expand opportunities for women and thus raise their floor, but they are more directly understood as lowering men's ceiling, by removing supports men have to avoid care work. Understood this way, such policies are actually more intrusive than Schouten sometimes gives them credit for (they directly limit men's current options). If, however, we can see inequality as a problem of high ceilings as well as low floors, there is nevertheless a strong, direct and politically available argument to be made for them: We can't assume our fellow citizens will reasonably accept arguments against such policies except by assuming things about them that violate the criterion of reciprocity.

Turn, then, to freedom. Schouten goes beyond Hartley and Watson in arguing that the criterion of reciprocity can support feminist policies via an appeal to citizens’ freedom as well. As she puts it, the gendered division of labor is a problem of both “stacking” and “steering” (162), of raising the value of some work and lowering that of others (stacking) but also pushing some people (women) towards one kind of work and other people (men) towards a different kind of work (steering). She claims that steering doesn't on its own create hierarchies, but it nevertheless interferes with our civic interests because of its effects on freedom. She thinks political liberalism faces a real problem in making this argument, however. Any civic interest in freedom that goes beyond an interest in the protection of basic liberties risks relying on a comprehensive moral doctrine that, for instance, values the exercise of autonomy. An interest in comprehensive autonomy is not common to all citizens, and so cannot ground a public reason.

To square this circle, Schouten argues that we have a public political interest (tied to stability) in their being sufficiently visible examples of citizens who value and embody comprehensive autonomy. Thus, systematic blocks to some people developing into those examples threaten all citizens’ interest in stability. Since policies that discourage gender egalitarian households systematically block the development of a significant form of autonomy, we can oppose them based on public reasons. It is this argument that involves the somersaults that Schouten worries make it a “philosopher's argument.”

There is, however, a more direct path to anti-steering policies within political liberalism understood politically: The criterion of reciprocity tells us not to make arguments to our fellow citizens that rest on a presupposition that denies their status as free. It says that we can legitimately reject such arguments when made by our fellow citizens. The question we need to ask, then, is whether the seeming reasonableness of arguments made against policies that support the gendered division of labor rests on presuppositions that deny that women are free. Rawls says that, “As free persons, citizens claim the right to view their persons as independent from and not identified with any particular such conception [of the good] with its scheme of final ends.”11 In the course of laying out why policies that support the gendered division of labor fall prey to her positive argument, Schouten makes a compelling case that “the high costs of gender egalitarianism result from gendered assumptions about who is most fit to do what kind of work: an institutionalized assumption that effectively constrains individuals to populate the roles in question whether or not they endorse those roles” (203). A citizen can only assume that arguments defending policies that support a gendered division of labor will meet with reasonable acceptance if he also (implicitly) presupposes that his fellow citizens accept the gendered roles they adopt. But if this acceptance of their gendered roles is constrained by the institutionalized gendered assumptions Schouten points to, then our imagined citizen's argument relies on the presupposition that his fellow citizens are not free. He thus violates the criterion of reciprocity. In defending the status quo, he takes responsibility for a position that is incompatible with his regarding us as free and equal citizens with him, and that is why we should reject his arguments, and why policies that can only be defended using such arguments are illegitimate.

In closing, note that Schouten's exemplary discussions of just why the gendered division of labor creates various sorts of inequality, how it rests on constraining assumptions, and thus why it persists despite changes in attitudes towards and opportunities for women provide the key steps in the political arguments suggested above. It thus turns out that she has given us more than a philosopher's argument after all. She has helpfully distilled the tools we need to make our own political arguments. And that, I think, is precisely what we should hope philosophers, and their arguments, can do for us.

吉娜·舒腾的书充满了细致入微的原创论点，对所涉及问题的困难很敏感，并由一系列有吸引力的承诺推动。她对性别劳动分工所造成的持续不公正现象的关注值得欢迎，她的最后要点——这种分工的持续存在不仅是正义问题，而且是合法性问题——很重要，而且我认为是正确的。任何政治哲学家都会为写这本书而感到自豪。然而，在文章的最后，舒顿表达了对她实际上所取得的成就的担忧。

她担心她的论点是错误的，无法实现她的目的，这是“哲学家的论点”，而不是她可以想象的“在公共话语中阐明的”（231）。她认为，问题不在于其强度或健全性。相反，它缺乏她认为论证需要“完全本着政治自由主义精神”的进一步美德（232）。这种美德超越了仅仅“可用”的论点，无论是否有人可以追踪它”（231）。这里的“可用”意味着“存在于逻辑空间中”：如果有人愿意费心拿起它并在政治环境中部署它，那么它就在那里可供使用。然而，在几段之后，她以不同的方式使用了论点的“可用性”，因为需要更多的东西：“政治论点意味着可供公众审议。我提出了一个我认为合理的论点，并且仅依赖于可供公众审议的前提——基于政治原因的前提。但也许这还不足以论证可供公众审议”（232）。因此，这种担忧依然存在：“仍然很难想象[论点]实际上是在公共审议中由女权主义者向性别传统主义者或小政府保守派提出的”（232）。由于我既欣赏舒顿的书，又和她一样担心，所以我在这里尝试诊断问题的根源，并提出如何在更全面的政治领域重新利用她的一些论点的建议。

在日常语言哲学的某一部分中，“哲学家的论证”也被发现是有缺陷的。1在那里，将论证标记为“哲学家的论证”的是对普遍性的渴望，这种渴望表现在给予通用特征的项目中，例如，规范术语的含义或效力。哲学家的论证通过允许的推论追踪从一组命题（其前提）到另一个命题（其结论）的路径。因此，它使这条道路“可用”。在一个人们以肯定一系列命题或理论承诺的意义上采取“立场”的世界中——作为“女权主义者”或“性别传统主义者”或“小政府保守派”——哲学家论证的要点是表明人们持有某些立场的人会理性地致力于肯定某些结论。那么，哲学家的圣杯就是一种最普遍的论证：一种从所有人都可以、做或必须接受的前提出发的论证。

政治自由主义通常被认为参与了这样一个项目：它的目的是揭示自由民主社会的所有公民都应该确认的有限前提。它通过阐明公民观念来发现这些，并从中得出我们作为公民所拥有的一系列共同利益。这些利益为有关政治和政策的合法（哲学家）论证奠定了前提。它将这些前提标记为“公共理由”，然后声称只有基于公共理由的论点才具有合法性。Schouten 是这样看待她自己的项目的。2

普通语言哲学家批评“哲学家的论证”，因为他们将他们分析的词语从任何语境中拉出来，在语境中说出这些词是有道理的，并且可能赋予它们意义。例如，这一观察是奥斯汀对怀疑论者对“知道”分析的诊断的关键。3他们指出，在普通情况下，表达道德（或政治）判断，或用特定的论点或证据来证明这种判断的合理性。一系列原因本身就是一种道德（政治）行为。它涉及采取道德立场：对自己的立场负责——自己的立场，也许还有谁与你站在一起——并承认对话者的立场。4我所说的话和我所做的事情的含义都取决于这些背景。举例来说，如果

我们可以说，一个论点在我在这里所阐述的意义上在政治上是“可用的”，如果它除了有效和合理之外，还有在特定背景下向其他人提供它的意义。如果有必要作为公民向自己的同胞说出这一点，那么在合法的民主审议过程中，它在政治上是可行的。如此理解，“公民”的地位并不是由一系列共同利益或所确认的前提所决定的，而是由我们作为公民同胞所站立（或旨在站立）的关系所决定的，我们每个人都对此承担责任，并且对这种关系负有责任。我们互相问责。向您阐明我的立场的一点是向您明确我愿意为以下事项承担什么责任：公民，或者让你面对你为自己的立场所承担的责任。这样做时，我可能会邀请您与我一起讨论我们作为公民的关系的特定概念，或者可能拒绝我所理解的您的（可能是隐含的）邀请。这些举动中的每一个本身都是一种政治行为。每个人都可以（重新）构建（或不）我们彼此之间的公正（或不公正）关系，就像公民之间（或不公正）的关系一样。

在这个意义上，将政治自由主义的计划解读为政治论证的基础，就是将其视为在考虑到合理多元化这一事实的情况下，阐明与我们的同胞进行公开和合理商议所需要的内容。如此理解，政治自由主义提供了判断政治论点合理性的标准。它在一定程度上是通过阐明我们的同胞作为社会合作的公平计划中的自由和平等参与者所需要的条件来做到这一点的。粗略地说，它认为我们将我们的同胞作为我们共同项目的自由和平等的参与者，通过公共推理与他们接触，并接受他们要求我们对这一标准负责。那么，公共推理并不是从公开肯定的前提出发的推理，

从那些将政治自由主义视为合法哲学家论证理论的人看来，哲学论证与政治论证之间的这种区别崩溃了：如果一个论证最重要的是它的结论是否从其前提得出以及前提是否正确，那么推理链和推理行为之间没有显着差异。推理行为只不过是用文字或言语阐述特定的推理链。

如果我们转向罗尔斯的互惠标准，我们可以看到推理行为对政治自由主义可能有多重要，该标准“要求当这些条款被提出作为公平合作的最合理条款时，提出这些条款的人也必须认为它是最合理的”。对于其他人来说，接受他们作为自由平等的公民，而不是受统治或操纵，或处于劣等政治或社会地位的压力下，是最不合理的。”7

将政治自由主义解读为评估哲学家关于政治的论证的过滤器时，互惠标准阐明了根据其前提的可接受性来区分真正的公共理性论证的原则。相反，如果我们将政治自由主义理解为一项政治计划，那么互惠标准将支配推理行为而不是推理链。如此理解，它阐明了一种相互尊重的理想，以指导我们在讨论和争论政治和社会政策时与同胞的互动。要将其力量视为一种政治约束，请考虑公民相互提出此类建议的政治背景。这些背景包括定义我们相对立场的各种规范和机构另一个。某些政治论点隐含地依赖于这些背景的特征作为前提。8换句话说，提出此类论点的人依赖这些特征来支持他们的假设，即这些论点可以被其同胞合理地接受。因此，举例来说，在有色人种社区普遍存在警察暴行的背景下，反对警察改革的论点基于这样一个前提：黑人的生命并不重要。人们不必断言黑人的生命在政治辩论中并不重要。一个人假设对现状的捍卫可以被合理地接受，这里没有真正的问题，依赖于接受我们社会中白人和非白人的不同社会价值观就足够了。

然后，她将性别平等政策的论点建立在公民共同利益的基础上。

然而，从一系列利益的角度兑现公民自由和平等的理念，决定了我们关注哪些对自由和平等的威胁，从而决定了我们如何主张平等和支持自由的政策。我认为正是在这里，舒顿最终走上了一条通向她在结论中所担心的哲学家论证的道路。在政治自由主义的政治解释中运用互惠标准为我们提供了一条不同的道路。

从平等开始。询问谁的利益没有得到分配计划或社会结构的满足，将我们的注意力集中在表现为剥夺的不平等上：一些人在追求共同利益的过程中被剥夺或受到阻碍。这让我们注意到政策在提高下限而不是降低上限方面可以发挥的作用。关于性别不平等，这一焦点引导我们关注妇女的状况，以及如何改善这种状况，也许通过增加妇女接受教育和有报酬、有尊严的工作的机会，也许通过减轻她们在这些道路上设置障碍的负担（围绕性别不平等的规范）谁从事家务劳动，并且没有补贴将其外包或支付足够的费用）。同时，它也将我们的注意力从高天花板造成的不公正现象上转移开。

如果我们忽视了性别不平等的这一特征，我们就错过了一条更直接的途径来论证舒顿所支持的旨在实现性别分工的特定政策。考虑制定政策，要求或鼓励父亲休带薪育儿假，以便母亲有权享受带薪育儿假，或者要求或鼓励雇主安排工作以消除过度工作的选择，因为这种过度工作会产生需要其他人来做的事情工人分担的护理工作。这些可能间接地扩大了女性的机会，从而提高了她们的上限，但它们更直接地被理解为降低了男性的上限，因为它们消除了男性必须避免护理工作的支持。从这个角度来看，此类政策实际上比舒顿有时所认为的更具侵入性（它们直接限制了男性当前的选择）。然而，如果

那么，转向自由吧。舒顿超越了哈特利和沃森，认为互惠标准也可以通过呼吁公民自由来支持女权主义政策。正如她所说，性别分工既是“堆叠”又是“引导”的问题（162），即提高某些工作的价值并降低其他工作的价值（堆叠），但也推动某些人（女性）走向一种工作，而其他人（男性）则从事另一种工作（指导）。她声称，指导本身并不会产生等级制度，但由于它对自由的影响，它仍然干扰了我们的公民利益。然而，她认为政治自由主义在提出这一论点时面临着真正的问题。任何超出保护基本自由利益的公民自由利益都有可能依赖于全面的道德学说，例如重视自治的行使。对全面自治的兴趣并不是所有公民都共有的，因此不能成为公共理性的基础。

为了解决这个问题，舒顿认为，我们有公共政治利益（与稳定相关），因为他们是重视和体现全面自治的公民的充分可见的例子。因此，系统性地阻止某些人发展成为这些例子会威胁到所有公民的稳定利益。由于阻碍性别平等家庭的政策系统性地阻碍了重要形式的自治的发展，我们可以基于公共理由反对它们。舒顿担心，正是这种涉及翻筋斗的论证使其成为“哲学家的论证”。

然而，在政治自由主义内部有一条更直接的反转向政策路径：互惠标准告诉我们不要向我们的同胞提出基于否认其自由地位的预设的论点。它说我们可以合法地拒绝我们的同胞提出的此类论点。那么，我们需要问的问题是，反对支持性别劳动分工政策的论点看似合理，是否建立在否认妇女自由的前提之上。罗尔斯说：“作为自由人，公民主张有权将自己的人视为独立于任何特定的[善]及其最终目标计划的概念，并且不认同任何特定的[善]概念。制度化假设有效地限制个人填充相关角色，无论他们是否认可这些角色”（203）。公民只能假设，如果他也（隐含地）预设他的同胞接受他们所采用的性别角色，那么捍卫支持性别劳动分工的政策的论点就会得到合理的接受。但如果这种对性别角色的接受受到舒顿指出的制度化性别假设的限制，那么我们想象中的公民的论点就依赖于他的公民同胞不自由的前提。因此，他违反了互惠标准。在捍卫现状时，他的立场与他将我们视为与他一样自由平等的公民的立场不相容，这就是为什么我们应该拒绝他的论点，

最后，请注意，舒顿对性别劳动分工为何会造成各种不平等、它是如何建立在限制性假设之上以及为何尽管对妇女的态度和机会发生了变化但这种不平等仍然存在的典型讨论提供了政治上的关键步骤。上面提出的论点。事实证明，她给我们提供的不仅仅是哲学家的论证。她帮助我们提炼出了提出自己的政治观点所需的工具。我认为，这正是我们应该希望哲学家及其论证能够为我们做的事情。