The legitimacy and the law from the perspective of public

Public reason is a fundamental concept that accounts for the grounds on which political and legal authority can be considered legitimate in modern liberal democratic societies. In pluralistic contexts, where individuals hold diverse moral, religious, and philosophical views, public reason addresses the question of how a shared social order can be sustained. It maintains that binding political and legal decisions must be justified by reasons that all citizens can reasonably accept, rather than by reference to any particular comprehensive doctrine. In this respect, public reason constitutes a justificatory framework that requires law not only to be valid, but also to be legitimate. Public reason provides a common ground for the justification of political and legal decisions while simultaneously functioning as a principled constraint against their arbitrary imposition. Accordingly, it structures the justificatory processes underlying judicial, legislative, and administrative decision-making. This study aims to examine the concept of public reason in its conceptual, historical, and theoretical dimensions; to elucidate its relationship with legitimacy and to assess its role within the domain of law. In this context, the study analyzes different theoretical approaches to public reason and explores its function in justifying legal authority.