The paper advances a novel reading of the role of the constructivist idea of legitimacy at the systematic heart of Rawls-type political liberalism. This idea accords full discursive standing only to people who are reasonable in a highly substantive sense. The paper explains how this renders political liberalism both dogmatic and exclusivist at the higher-order level of arguments for or against theories of justice. The paper then outlines aspects of a view of political justification that is more aligned with the (...) inclusivist aspirations of justificatory liberalism that political liberalism shares but fails to successfully discharge. The paper follows the intuition that constructivist political justification should build on a widely sharable idea of reasonableness, outlines aspects of such an idea, and considers a method of inclusive abstraction by which such an idea could be enriched in content to become fruitful for the justification of liberal principles of justice. As the paper suggests, however, the move toward inclusivism faces constructivism with two important challenges. First, inclusivism about the scope of constructivist political justification can avoid dogmatism only if it invokes perfectionist considerations; and second, the authority of a suitably rich idea of reasonableness partly depends on whether we suitably value wide acceptability. (shrink)

Is there an approach to human rights that justifies rights-allocating moral-political principles as principles that are equally acceptable by everyone to whom they apply, while grounding them in categorical, reasonably non-rejectable foundations? The paper examines Rainer Forst’s constructivist attempt to provide such an approach. I argue that his view, far from providing an alternative to “ethical” approaches, depends for its own reasonableness on a reasonably contestable conception of the good, namely, the good of constitutive discursive standing. This suggests a way (...) in which constructivism about human rights might be able to coherently and plausibly negotiate the tension between the scope, the depth and the strength of discursive inclusion: the justification of rights-allocating moral-political principles needs to be premised on an “ethical”, perfectionist defense of the good of constitutive discursive standing. (shrink)

The dissertation defends that the often-assumed link between constructivism and universalism builds on non-constructivist, perfectionist grounds. To this end, I argue that an exemplary form of universalist constructivism – i.e., O’Neill’s Kantian constructivism – can defend its universalist commitments against an influential particularist form of constructivism – i.e., political liberalism as advanced by Rawls, Macedo, and Larmore (I show why this is a particularist form of constructivism) – only if it invokes a perfectionist view of the good. Contrary to what (...) is often assumed, then, at the level of a vindication of the very project of a universalist constructivism, universalist constructivists should construe perfectionists not as their opponents, but as partial, though uneasy, allies. (shrink)

(In German.) The book addresses Rawls's post-1985 political liberalism. His justification of political liberalism -- as reflected in his arguments from overlapping consensus -- faces the problem that liberal content can be justified as reciprocally acceptable only if the addressees of such a justification already endorse points of view that suitably support liberal ideas. Rawls responds to this legitimacy-theoretical problem by restricting public justification's scope to include reasonable people only, while implicitly defining reasonableness as a substantive liberal virtue. But this (...) virtue-ethical grounding of political liberalism is itself unreasonable. The phenomenon of disharmony of practical reason gives the reasonable reasons to take it that political legitimacy does not obtain if and where moral-political principles are acceptable from their point of view only. (shrink)

Political judgment is notoriously hard to theorise, and in the recent debates surrounding Habermas's discourse ethics we encounter classic disagreements around the nature, operation and validity of such judgments. This paper evaluates Habermas's account of political judgment and explores the problems raised by his critics. It then focuses on the contentious role played by universals within his account. What emerges is a reformulated theory of judgment based on the thin universalism of fair deliberation, and a description of a sub-set of (...) judgments, termed ``democratic judgments'', which are oriented to the preservation of democracy. (shrink)

A polity is grounded in a modus vivendi (MV) when its main features can be presented as the outcome of a virtually unrestricted bargaining process. Is MV compatible with the consensus-based account of liberal legitimacy, i.e. the view that political authority is well grounded only if the citizenry have in some sense freely consented to its exercise? I show that the attraction of MV for consensus theorists lies mainly in the thought that a MV can be presented as legitimated through (...) a realist account of public justification. Yet I argue that, because of persistent ethical diversity, that realism problematically conflicts with the liberal commitments that underpin the very ideas of consensus and public justification. Thus, despite the interest it has recently attracted from critics of political liberalism and deliberative democracy, MV is not an option for those wishing to ground liberal political authority in some form of consensus. So if realist and agonistic critiques are on target, then the fact that modus vivendi is not an option casts some serious doubt on the viability of the consensus view of liberal legitimacy. (shrink)