The Mutability of Public Reason

Rawls's “public reason” has not been without its critics. One criticism is that public reason is “conservative.” Public reason must rely on those beliefs that are “widely shared” among citizens. But if public reason relies on widely shared beliefs, how can it change without departing from those beliefs, thus violating public reason? In part one of my essay, I introduce the conservatism objection and describe two unsatisfactory responses to it. Part two argues that there are aspects of public reason which diminish the force of the conservatism objection: first, that public reason is historical, and second, that it is mutable.     

Punishment,Liberalism, and Public Reason

The article argues for a conception of the justification of punishment that is compatible with a modern, politically liberal regime. Section I deals with what some have thought are the obvious social interests society has in punishing criminals, and tries to develop those possible interests somewhat sympathetically. Section II suggests that many of those reasons are not good ones if punishment is regarded (as it should be) from the perspective of political philosophy. Social responses to bad things happening to people cannot be grounded in controversial metaphysical views about what is good for people or what people deserve, but many reasons proffered for punishment are in fact grounded in such views. This constraint, accordingly, limits what individuals can expect in terms of a societal response to crime. Section III develops the appropriate reasons for punishment in a modern, liberal regime. Here the article relies on a—largely undefended—conception of public reason as the most plausible theory of what reasons for punishment are available to liberals. Section IV offers some closing thoughts on why people might adopt a politically liberal view about punishment as their own, personal view about how they should relate to others.     

The Truth about Public Reason

Public reason is supposed to enable the enforcement of the conditions of a distinctively liberal ideal of autonomy on grounds acceptable to all citizens. After sketching the abstract concept of public reason, this paper sets out several conceptions of that ideal, in order to show that the logic of the public reason project carries it toward the sectarian politics it seeks to avoid.     

Two Misunderstandings About Public Justification and Religious Reasons

Two important objections have been raised against exclusivist public reason (EPR). First, it has been argued that EPR entails an unjust burden for citizens who want to appeal to non-public reasons, especially religious reasons. Second, it has been argued that EPR is based on a problematic conception of religious reasons and that it ignores the fact that religious reasons can be public as well. I defend EPR against both objections. I show that the first objection conflates two ideas of public justification (public justification as a conception of political legitimacy and public justification as an ideal of civility) and that the second objection conflates two ways to understand and identify religious reasons. Ultimately, it turns out that those who defend such objections actually share the concerns that justified EPR in the first place. In other words, if we are clear about the idea of public justification and the kind of religious reasons that EPR is really about, it appears that justificatory liberals are in fact all exclusivists.     

“需要国家干预说”的法哲学分析

“需要国家干预说”是 20世纪中国经济法学最重要的学说之一。有限理性假设、国家适度干预、经济民主、社会公平、经济法治是其基本的法哲学叙事立场。国家是干预需要的满足者,“需要”是通过干预重建经济自由秩序的法律理由。国家超越市场利益关系对经济进行干预调节,国家干预由此构成经济法的基本哲学范畴与法理标志。经济宪政哲学是国家干预经济的法哲学进路,通过经济民主机制设定的干预才能避免经济专制,国家与社会成员共同分享经济权力才能保障干预的社会性与民主性,干预的达成并非一定为了公共,公共中的个体主义是结成公共的价值指引。     

Philosophy in Law? A Legal‐Philosophical Inquiry

Going beyond the debate between positivists and proponents of natural law, there is a controversy over whether there can or ought to be “philosophy in law” (i.e., whether anything within the subject‐matter of philosophy can also become part of the subject‐matter of law). According to Luhmann's autopoietic theory, law is a normatively closed system and accordingly remains completely independent from philosophy. Dworkin, on the other hand, asserts that constitutional law depends for its coherence and integrity on being encompassed within a particular political philosophy. This essay approaches “philosophy in law” from a functional rather than a legitimating perspective, and concludes against both Luhmann and Dworkin that the integration of philosophy in law is interstitial and limited. The consequence of this for law's validity and legitimacy is a likely increase in contestation and contestability. The essay concludes that by embracing pluralism as a philosophy, one can reduce and better manage contestability without ever becoming able to eliminate it.     

The Idea of “Free Public Reason”

Abstract. In this paper the nature and the role of Rawls's idea of a “free public reason” are examined with an emphasis on the divide between the private and the public spheres, a divide which is the hallmark of a liberal democracy. Criticisms from both the so-called Continental tradition and the Communitarian opponents to liberalism insist on the ineffectiveness of such a conception, on its inability to establish a political consensus on democracy. But it would be a mistake to see a contractarian theory of justice, such as Rawls's justice as fairness, as grounding the social contract in a public use of reason. Such a contract would indeed be susceptible to endless conflicts and renegotiations and would never achieve consensus. Therefore, a distinction must be made between the values of justice that are present in and through the “original” contractual position and the that regulate the public sphere and guarantee its stability.     

Legitimate Force in a Particularistic Democracy: Street Police and Outlaw Legislators in the Republic of China on Taiwan

This article explores a “particularistic” concept of legitimacy important to Taiwanese democracy. This form of legitimacy, I suggest, has been instrumental for Taiwan's successful democratic consolidation in the absence of the rule of law. As evidence, I combine ethnographic observation of neighborhood police work with historical consideration of a type of political figure emergent in the process of democratic reform, which I call the “outlaw legislator.” I focus my analysis on the institutional and ideological processes articulating local policing into the wider political field. The center of these processes is a mode of popular representation that positions the outlaw legislator as a crucial hinge articulating the particularistic local order with central state powers. By analyzing the cultural content of the dramaturgical work used to reconcile low policing with higher‐level state operations, this article shows how a particularistic idiom of legitimacy helps hold Taiwanese democracy together.     

Tolerance and Liberal Justice

Tolerance, the mere “putting up” with disapproved behaviour and practices, is often considered a too negative and passive engagement with difference in the liberal constitutional state. In response, liberal thinkers have either discarded tolerance, or assimilated it to the moral and legal precepts of liberal justice. In contradistinction to these approaches I argue that there is something distinctive and valuable about tolerance that should not be undermined by more ambitious, rights‐based models of social cooperation. I develop a conception of tolerance as a complementary principle and an interim value that is neither incompatible with, nor reducible to, rights‐based liberalism. Tolerance represents a particular, non‐communitarian expression of the general dictum that the liberal state, having released its citizens into liberty, rests on social presuppositions it cannot itself guarantee.     

Is Secularism Neutral?

This article argues that secularism is not neutral. Secularization is a process, the secular state is a structure, whereas secularism is a political philosophy. Secularism takes two main forms: first, a “benevolent” secularism that endeavours to treat all religious and nonreligious belief systems even‐handedly, and, second, a “hostile” kind that privileges unbelief and excludes religion from the public sphere. I analyze the European Court of Human Rights decision in Lautsi v Italy, which illustrates these types. The article concludes that secularism as a political philosophy cannot be neutral, and the secular state is not neutral in its effects, standpoint, governing assumptions or treatment of religious truth claims.     

An Experimental Investigation of How Judicial Elections Affect Public Faith in the Judicial System

Judicial scholars have often speculated about the impact of elections on the administration of justice in the state courts. Yet relatively little research has concerned itself with public perceptions of state court selection methods. Of particular interest is the concept of legitimacy. Do elections negatively affect public perceptions of judicial legitimacy? Bonneau and Hall (2009) and Gibson (2012) answer this question with an emphatic “No.” Judicial elections, these studies show, are not uniquely troublesome for perceptions of institutional legitimacy. This article aims to extend the findings of Bonneau and Hall and Gibson via a laboratory experiment on the effects of elections on public perceptions of judicial legitimacy. In the end, we find that because elections preempt the use of the other main selection method—appointment—they actually enhance perceptions of judicial legitimacy rather than diminish them.     

Public Reason,Neutrality and Civic Virtues

In this paper I argue that political liberalism is not the “minimalist liberalism” characterised by Michael Sandel and that it does not support the vision of public life characteristic of the procedural republic. I defend this claim by developing two points. The first concerns Rawls's account of public reason. Drawing from examples in Canadian free speech jurisprudence I show how restrictions on commercial advertising, obscenity and hate propaganda can be justified by political values. Secondly, political liberalism also attends to the identity, and not just the interests, of its citizens. It attempts to cultivate certain virtues of character. But it does so in a way that does not entail the acceptance of a comprehensive or perfectionist doctrine. Rawls's defence of neutrality of aim does not mean the state should be neutral towards all the views its citizens espouse. I conclude that political liberalism shares little with the doctrine Sandel claims is embedded in American law.     

The Difference between Obedience Assumed and Obedience Accepted*

Abstract. The analysis of legal statements that are made from an “internal point of view” must distinguish statements where legal obedience is accepted from statements where legal obedience is only assumed. Statements that are based on accepted obedience supply reasons for action, but statements where obedience is merely assumed can never provide reasons for action. It is argued in this paper that John Searle neglects this distinction. Searle claims that a statement from the internal point of view provides the speaker with reasons for actions that are “self‐sufficient” in the sense that they are independent of the speaker's beliefs and desires. This claim is mistaken. A statement that is based on assumed obedience is self‐sufficient, but does not give reasons for action. A statement that is based on accepted obedience gives reasons for action, but these reasons are not self‐sufficient.     

On Law and Disagreement. Some Comments on "Interpretative Pluralism"

Abstract This paper focuses on the question: Do persisting disagreements in constitutional interpretation affect the legitimacy of “the democratic system as a whole”? According to both Michelman and Waldron, the epistemic indeterminacy of interpretation—that is, the fact that principles do not possess stable meanings beyond, and independent of, their application to concrete cases—puts its finger on a point of the contractualist and prevailing political theory. But, if neither the legitimacy of any democratic order nor the standard of internal criticism can be founded on a broad background consensus on constitutional essentials, “what else makes a deliberative process of legislation and adjudication a generator of legitimacy so that citizens are induced to accept controversial results as ‘worthy of respect’?” The route pursued goes beyond all views that require legitimacy to be based on sharing a set of “thick” ethical beliefs. In this perspective, the author argues that the performative meaning of constitution‐making “provides a thin yet sufficiently strong base,” which corresponds to the minimal requirements inherent in the very practice of framing a constitution.     

Rawls's Political Liberalism. A Reassessment

Since Rawls's Political Liberalism is by now the subject of a wide and deep philosophical literature, much of it excellent in quality, it would be foolhardy to attempt to say something about each of the major issues of the work, or to sort through debates that can easily be located elsewhere. I have therefore decided to focus on a small number of issues where there is at least some chance that a fresh approach may yield some new understanding of the text: Rawls's distinction between “reasonable” and “unreasonable” comprehensive doctrines; the psychological underpinnings of political liberalism; and the possibility that political liberalism might be extended beyond the small group of modern Western societies that Rawls's historical remarks suggest as its primary focus. I also include a discussion of the much‐debated issue of civility and public reason, which could hardly be avoided given its prominence in the book's reception. This paper should therefore be read not as a comprehensive account of the work but as one person's attempt to grapple, very incompletely and imperfectly, with a book that is as great as any philosophy has seen on this topic of great human urgency.     

裁量基准的制度定位:理由的规范化

《行政处罚法》的新规并未直接揭示裁量基准的制度定位,学界目前依然存在着“依据论”与“理由论”两种观点。实际上,依据裁量基准的形式外观与现行立法的规范用语并不能证明裁量基准属于裁量行为的“依据”,相反,根据权源性标准和拘束性标准,可以得知裁量基准并非“依据”。同时,通过对裁量基准与裁量理由的实质分析,可以发现二者之间不仅有着理论上的同质性,而且存在着内容上的同构性。不仅如此,裁量基准的运行机制也进一步验证了裁量基准属于“理由”的判断。不过,裁量基准绝不是“理由”的等同概念,而是“理由”的一种规范化表达,“规范”的形式赋予了裁量基准独立的制度定位。     

法人与行政主体理论的再探讨——以公法人概念为重点

公法人和私法人的区分是大陆法系对法人的基本分类,具有重要的理论和实践意义。我国应当重新塑造行政主体理论,特别应当采用公法人概念。在法人一般理论上,则应当修正法人的一般定义,并且在将来的民法典中以更加合理的方式规定公法人问题。国家机关不应当具有法人和行政主体地位,国家才是法人和行政主体。     

马克思主义哲学与马克思哲学

用诠释学的观点解读马克思的文本 ,是文本和解读者之间的“主体间性”的活动。马克思文本的“原意”是一个不可把握的概念 ,也许有但不可知。马克思主义哲学和马克思哲学在内容上有区分 ,但在意义上完全没有必要。“走进马克思”仅是对不看马克思文本而妄谈马克思的人的规劝。马克思主义哲学本身就是一种意识形态 ,用意识形态性来指责马克思主义哲学是对意识形态的偏见 ;但马克思主义哲学也确实在某种程度上被误解为政治理论 ,剥去马克思主义哲学的政治外衣是发展马克思主义哲学的必要。     

作为实践理性的法律

理性是法理学的永恒主题。现代法理学的理性话语经历了从“理性法”向“法律理性”的转向,这实际上是法理学从理论理性向实践理性的转向。法律与实践理性的关系体现为“法律是实践理性的体现”、“法律是行为的正当理由”、“法律是实践性信息”等命题。同时,作为实践理性的法律也具有客观性,其客观性基础在于实践商谈。     

论比例原则在经济法中的适用

被誉为“公法皇冠”的比例原则在经济法中的适用具有可行性和必要性。比例原则的“相对普适性”为其在经济法中的适用提供了法理基础,引入比例原则不仅可以回应经济法现代性的内在诉求,还是贯彻经济法理念和基本原则的必然要求。比例原则在经济法中的适用范围涵盖“权力—权利”和“权利—权利”二元法律关系结构,但是,特殊紧急状态和合意行为应排除比例原则的适用。囿于比例原则的抽象性,有必要构建其在经济法中的类型化适用路径:以法律关系结构为划分依据,通过“目的正当性—适当性—必要性—均衡性”的差异化认定标准,塑造“宽松”和“相对严格”的审查基准模型。