Partisanship and public reason

In the large body of literature concerning John Rawls’s Political Liberalism (1993) and his conception of public reason, little attention has been paid to the implications that the constraints of public reason have for partisans, i.e. citizens who participate in politics through political parties. This paper argues that even on the basis of a ‘mild’ understanding of Rawls’s conception of the constraints of public reason, which takes into account the various stipulations Rawls provided throughout his later work, when applied to partisans the constraints of public reason lose none or little of their hindering force. This seriously undermines the contribution that parties and partisans can provide to the change and the varieties of public reason that Rawls himself advocates as a response to social change and, therefore, to political justification and legitimacy. Parties articulate, coordinate and enhance societal demands which, without their support, may remain unheard and fail to change the acceptable terms of public reason and political justification. If the political speech of partisans is restrained, this potential for change (and, therefore, its contribution to political legitimacy) is seriously undermined.     

The Scope of Public Reason

This paper presents two conceptions of the scope of public reason. The narrow view asserts that the ideal of public reason must regulate questions of constitutional essentials and matters of basic justice, but should not apply beyond this limited domain. The broad view claims that the ideal of public reason ought to be applied, whenever possible, to all political decisions where citizens exercise coercive power over one another. The paper questions whether there are any good grounds for accepting the narrow view. I survey and reject three potential reasons. The priority argument for the narrow view claims that constitutional essentials and matters of basic justice are the only proper subjects of public reason because they have a special moral priority for our reasoning about justice. The basic interests argument supports the narrow view by arguing that public reasons only exist at the level of constitutional essentials and matters of basic justice. Finally, the completeness argument defends the narrow view on the grounds that public reason can only be complete if it abstains from most legislative questions. I conclude that there are no good reasons for accepting the narrow view of the scope of public reason, whereas there are several reasons to prefer the broad view.     

Does justice stand alone?

A common feature of leading liberal-egalitarian political theories is the sharp priority they attribute to justice, and to distributive justice in particular. In this article, I argue that liberal egalitarians have yet to offer a persuasive argument for prioritizing justice, and distributive justice in particular, in this way. I focus on assessing arguments advanced in the seminal work of John Rawls and employ the pluralist liberalism of Isaiah Berlin to illustrate that Rawls’ arguments are not even persuasive for reasonable liberals like Berlin, let alone for non-liberals. The upshot of my argument is not that liberals should abandon the pursuit of greater equality of wealth and income, but only that such goals should still be balanced against the claims of other fundamental values, such as individual liberty and the common good (contrary to those who want to give sharp priority to distributive justice).     

Liberal equality: political not erinaceous

Ronald Dworkin’s Justice for Hedgehogs defends liberal political morality on the basis of a rich account of dignity as constitutive of living well. This article raises the Rawlsian concern that making political morality dependent on ethics threatens citizens’ political autonomy. Thereafter, it addresses whether the abandonment of (erinaceous) ethical foundations signals the demise of Dworkin’s liberalism and explores the possibility of laundering his conception so as to facilitate a marriage between the political philosophies of Rawls and Dworkin. The article finishes by rebutting some objections Dworkin raises against Rawls’s account of public reason.     

Changing the Culture of Health: One Public Health Misstep at a Time

In this article, I argue that public health regulations are a necessary component of changing the culture of health in the US. After considering libertarian critiques of public health interventions, I maintain that many of the interventions critiqued are not in fact coercive. Looking forward, I do not envision an either/or between the nanny state vs. a libertarian polity. Instead, a middle ground will emerge that respects individual choice and personal responsibility while accepting that government has a legitimate interest in securing the population’s health. Better health helps people make better choices and enjoy freedom; being free from poor health status is as important to liberty as free choice.     

“人民自由”何以可能--从消极自由理论说起

贡斯当的“古代人的自由与现代人的自由”是近现代西方消极自由理论的重要基础;伯林的“消极自由与积极自由”以个人自由为出发点,落脚到制约国家权力的宪法制度设计上;德沃金和罗尔斯的自由理论返回法的形而下,试图寻找国家权力在个人自由实现中发挥积极作用的可行路径;中国传统自由观强调权力与自由的关系,以严复为代表的近现代自由话语开始触及自由的主体性、平等性等法治要素。中国共产党从人民立场出发的自由理论及其实践表明,“人民自由”吸收借鉴经验自由主义和理性自由主义合理因素,吸取中国传统自由观优秀基因,整合自由与平等、自由与公正、自由与法治的关系,形成了个人自由与国家权力同生共在、相互促进、共同发展的有序格局。     

Political legitimacy

These comments take issue with two aspects of the treatment of Rawls in On The People’s Terms. First, I criticize the characterization of Rawls as downplaying political liberties and focusing instead on social justice. Second, I take issue with the claim that Pettit provides a more robust conception of legitimacy than Rawls. The basis for this claim is that Rawls, along with others in the Kantian tradition, downplays the question of legitimacy by ‘going hypothetical’. Yet in common with Rawls, Pettit’s republican conception of legitimacy imposes a stringent test of legitimacy that many democratic regimes would not pass. This leads him to propose a weaker standard of ‘legitimizability’ that appears to involve the same kind of counterfactual judgment for which Rawls is criticized.     

John Locke and the Limits of Religious Liberty: Marriage License Refusal,Religious Freedom Laws,Vaccine Refusal,Contraception Mandate Exemptions,and Ultrasound Requirements

Nearly two hundred fifty years into its existence, the American polity faces a conundrum over a core founding principle: religious liberty. Multiple debates have emerged over the extent and limits of religious liberty, including arguments over how far any one person’s religious liberty extends into the public sphere as well as into the private lives of other citizens. Highly influential on James Madison’s crafting of the First Amendment, John Locke’s Letter Concerning Toleration outlines a strong conception of both religious toleration and of religious liberty. In the “Letter,” Locke’s reasoning is sympathetic to the concerns and convictions of believers while remaining cognizant of the calamities to which religious differences can give rise. Further, he provides a robust explication of the mutually exclusive domains of ecclesiastical and civil authorities, now known more colloquially as the division of church and state. In the following article, I illustrate how the principles put forth by Locke offer guidance in adjudicating religious liberty claims in the cases of Kim Davis, religious freedom laws, vaccine refusal, contraception mandate exemptions, and ultrasound requirements.     

Why should we care about competition?

Abstract

Most people believe that competitive institutions are morally acceptable, but that there are limits: a friendly competition is one thing; a life or death struggle is another. How should we think about the moral limits on competition? I argue that the limits stem from the value of human sociability, and in particular from the noninstrumental value of a form of social connectedness that I call ‘mutual affirmation.’ I contrast this idea with Rawls’s account of social union and stability. Finally, I show how these ideas provide the basis for a powerful argument in favour of social provisions for public goods: for example, a strong public health care system moderates the stakes in labour market competition, preventing the competition from descending into a life or death struggle.     

Ideals of justice: goals vs. constraints

Amartya Sen describes John Rawls’s ‘justice as fairness’ as ‘transcendental institutionalism’ and develops his realization-focused approach in contrast. But Rawls is no transcendental institutionalist, and Sen’s construal of their opposition occludes a third, relation-based position and a valuable and practical form of ideal theory. What Sen calls transcendental institutionalism and realization-focused comparative theory each treat justice as something to bring about, a problem for experts. A third position treats justice in terms of how we relate to one another rather than of achievement. This position, called ‘justice as reciprocity,’ is consistent with Rawls’s ‘justice as fairness’ and Sen’s normative aspirations, and might form the basis of new and fruitful dialogue between them. By treating justice as a question of how we relate to one another, and treating relation-based ideals as the basis of respectful behavioral constraints (rather than of ends to pursue), ‘justice as reciprocity’ grounds an everyday form of just democratic citizenship.     

Justice as fairness and bad luck

Abstract

One major way of arguing for the moral attractiveness of luck egalitarianism is indirect; it consists in showing that the view follows from competing views on distributive justice which one actually endorses. Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen (KLR) claims that luck egalitarianism is indirectly supported in this way by Rawls’s intuitive argument for the difference principle. That argument begins by asserting that the impact of social and natural contingencies on distributive shares is unjust. After clarifying the notion of indirect support, I argue against KLR’s claim. Whether the argument goes on to support luck egalitarianism is a matter of interpretation which can only be decided by looking closer at what Rawls has to say about the difference principle than KLR’s own treatment of the argument allows. In its most plausible reading, the intuitive argument veers away from luck egalitarianism in favor of a non-egalitarian view of the difference principle as a principle of compensating advantage. On this view, inequality due to bad luck is not in any respect unjust when the least advantaged cannot be made better off under alternative arrangements. In conclusion I explain why there are good reasons of fairness to understand the difference principle in this way.     

Recognition as Redistribution

Abstract

This paper aims to explore and examine the implied commitment to the premises of recognition in Rawls’s account of redistributive justice. It attempts to find out whether or not recognition relations that produce humiliation and cultural injustice can be followed to their logical conclusion in his theory of redistribution. This paper makes two claims. Firstly, although Rawls does not disregard the harms of misrecognition as demonstrated in his notion of self-respect being the most important primary good, he cannot liberally accommodate the idea of humiliation as a case of injustice without compromising the basic premises of his theory. Secondly, while resource distribution produces indirect side effects that can impact upon cultural injustice, addressing recognition issues through the prism of redistribution can inadvertently result in further misrecognition. The paper concludes that in the final analysis Rawls wrongly takes redistribution as the overarching principle of justice to which recognition is but a subservient principle.     

From the rule of law to the rule of rules: technocracy and the crisis of EU governance

This article focuses on two trends emerging through the eurozone crisis, both of which diminish the quality of democracy in the EU and its member states. Firstly, the crisis has led to an increased reliance on non-majoritarian institutions, such as the ECB, at the expense of democratic accountability. Secondly, the crisis has led to a new emphasis on coercive enforcement at the expense of the voluntary cooperation that previously characterised (and sustained) the EU as a community of law. Thus, the ECB’s (over-)empowerment is a synecdoche of a wider problem: The EU’s tendency to resort to technocratic governance in the face of challenges that require political contestation. In the absence of opportunities for democratic contestation, EU emergency governance – Integration through Crisis – oscillates between moments of heightened politicisation, in which ad hoc decisions are justified as necessary, and the (sometimes coercive) appeal to the depoliticised rule of rules.     

Freedom,Equality and Fraternity in Kant’s Critique of Judgement*

At least during his critical period, all of Kant’s philosophical works have a secret political dimension. Among other things, following the analysis of Hannah Arendt, the Critique of Judgment – paragraph 40 in particular – became a main text of political philosophy. In looking at the Critique of Judgement from a political perspective, I shall refer not to paragraph 40 but to the Kantian discussion of pure aesthetic judgement. In my opinion, one can understand Kant’s remarks on aesthetic judgement, and especially transcendental anthropology, as meaning that Kant philosophically attributes the three political ideas of the French Revolution (liberty, fraternity and equality) to the whole human being as such, and not just to the intelligible man.     

Reconciliation Arguments in John Rawls’s Political Philosophy

Abstract

Recently debates about the worth of “ideal theory” have directed attention to the functions that an account of a perfectly just society can serve. One function is that of “reconciliation”: learning that a seemingly undesirable feature of the social world would exist even in the perfectly just society can show us the value that it has in the present as well. John Rawls has emphasized reconciliation as among the roles of political philosophy. For instance, Rawls claims that his theory of justice can reconcile us to the pluralism of liberal democracies. In this essay, I argue that Rawls’s political theory also can reconcile the inhabitants of liberal democratic societies to the fact that such societies may be cognitively confusing on account of their complexity. Then I contend that Rawls’s work offers valuable theoretical resources for analysing a society’s transparency or lack thereof.     

William Talbott’s Which Rights Should be Universal?

In this review essay, I first set out and then subject to criticism the main claims advanced by William Talbott in his excellent recent book, “Which Rights Should be Universal?”. Talbott offers a conception of basic universal human rights as the minimally necessary and sufficient conditions to political legitimacy. I argue that his conception is at once too robustly liberal and democratic and too inattentive to key features of the rule of law to play this role. I suggest that John Rawls’s conception of human rights comes closer to hitting the mark Talbott sets for himself and that Talbott incorrectly rejects Rawls’s view. I conclude that what likely divides Talbott and Rawls is that Rawls, but not Talbott, explicitly frames the inquiry into the minimally necessary and sufficient conditions to political legitimacy in terms of a liberal democratic people attempting to determine, as a matter of its just foreign policy, whether or not to recognize other organized polities as independent and self-determining within the international order.     

Can my religion influence my conception of justice? Political liberalism and the role of comprehensive doctrines

In his last works, John Rawls explicitly argued for an overlapping consensus on a family of reasonable liberal political conceptions of justice, rather than just one. This ‘Deep Version’ of political liberalism opens up new questions about the relationship between citizens’ political conceptions, from which they must draw and offer public reasons in their political advocacy, and their comprehensive doctrines. These questions centre on whether a reasonable citizen’s choice of political conception can be influenced by her comprehensive doctrine. In this paper I present two models of the relationship, which give contrasting answers to these questions, and defend the model that is more permissive with regard to the influence of comprehensive doctrines. This has important implications for our understanding of Rawlsian political liberalism, and reduces the force of objections that have been offered by theorists sympathetic to religion.     

Without Regret: The Comprehensive Nature of Non-domination

In this article I examine Rawls's claim that there is no fundamental opposition between political liberalism and republicanism. I contend that Rawls's position is untenable in light of the necessary values and virtues that must accompany republican liberty as non-domination. Furthermore, I examine the 'regret' Rawls has toward some of the 'political virtues' of his approach and argue that if republicans were to have the same attitude, republican liberty as non-domination would be undermined. I conclude that republicanism is likely to be accompanied by values and virtues that affect the whole of an individual's life and therefore can be said to be a comprehensive doctrine.     

Voters should not be in prison! The rights of prisoners in a democracy

In Hirst v UK, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the UK must end its blanket ban on convicted prisoners voting. In this paper I argue that the court’s reasoning undermines collective political self-determination by assuming away the essential connection between political citizenship and civil liberty in a representative democracy. I outline a democratic theory of imprisonment and argue that the democratic citizenship of imprisoned offenders is suspended not by their disenfranchisement but by their imprisonment. While many aspects of the UK’s penal practice are inconsistent with democratic self-government, the voting ban is not one of them. I conclude by outlining the numerous rights that prisoners should enjoy in a democracy.