Democratic Authority

La tesis central de este trabajo es que la tradicional tensión entre substancia y procedimiento socava las estabilidad de la justificación de la concepción liberal más extendida de la legitimidad (la Democracia Deliberativa). Dicha concepciones enfrentan problemas serios a la hora de articular de manera consistente dos dimensiones que parecen ir naturalmente asociadas a la idea de legitimidad: la dimensión procedimental, vinculada a la equidad del procedimiento, y la dimensión epistémica, asociada a la corrección de los resultados. En este trabajo (...) sostengo que a) esa tensión surge de la adopción de una concepción epistemológica social de tipo "veritativo-consecuencialista; b) es posible manejar dicha tensión mediante el remplazo de la epistemología subyacente por una concepción epistemológica social de tipo procedimentalista de orientación pragmatista y c) dicha operación orienta el diseño institucional en una dirección experimentalista. (shrink)

Political actions by Fridays for Future, Extinction Rebellion, and other climate activists often involve violations of legal regulations – such as compulsory education requirements or traffic laws – and have been criticized for this in the public sphere. In this essay, I defend the view that these violations of the law constitute a form of morally justified civil disobedience against climate policies. I first show that these actions satisfy the criteria of civil disobedience even on relatively strict conceptions of civil (...) disobedience. I then argue that they meet plausible justification conditions for civil disobedience because they are directed against serious and clear injustices, which legal means of influence have failed to remedy for decades. Finally, I reject the objection that civil disobedience against climate policy violates basic democratic principles because it claims authority to override democratically enacted agreements. When addressed to Fridays for Future activists, the objection misfires for the reason alone that these activists are largely minors that are excluded from democratic participation. Moreover, disobedience even by adult activists is justified by the existence of serious democratic deficits in our climate policies, especially since it can help to correct them. Such deficits include the lack of representation of the interests of people affected by climate change in the future and globally. (shrink)

In order for democratic deliberative interactions in educational settings to fruitfully occur, certain favorable conditions must obtain. In this chapter I chiefly concern myself with one of these putative conditions, namely that of school integration, believed by many liberal scholars to be necessary for consensus-building and legitimate decision-making. I provide a critical assessment of the belief that integration is a necessary facilitative condition for democratic deliberation in the classroom. I demonstrate that liberal versions of democratic deliberation predicated on this condition (...) are puzzlingly inattentive both to the inevitability of segregation, as well as the inequities occasioned by ‘school integration’. I then move to probe the possibilities for democratic education in the absence of integration. I argue that neither the possibilities for deliberation nor the cultivation of civic virtue turn on an environment being ‘integrated’. Indeed some kinds of segregation may be more conducive to fostering both deliberation and civic virtue. (shrink)

Review of 'What is Political Philosophy?' by Charles Larmore, Princeton University Press 2020.

Scientists are frequently called upon to “democratize” science, by bringing the public into scientific research. One appealing point for public involvement concerns the non-epistemic values involved in science. Suppose, though, a scientist invites the public to participate in making such value-laden determinations, but finds that the public holds values the scientist considers morally unacceptable. Does the argument for democratizing science commit the scientist to accepting the public’s objectionable values, or may she veto them? I argue that there are a limited (...) set of cases where scientists can, consistently with a commitment to democratized science, set aside the public’s judgments. (shrink)

The first part of this book contains a selection of Leszek Nowak’s (1943-2009) works on non-Marxian historical materialism, which are published here in English for the first time. In these papers, Nowak constructs a dynamic model of religious community, reconstructs historiosophical assumptions of liberalism and considers the methodological status of prognosis of totalitarization of capitalist society. In the second part of the book, new contributions to non-Marxian historical materialism are presented. Their authors analyze mechanisms of the oligarchization of liberal democracy, (...) the democratization of real socialism, and the development of early modern Ottoman and post-war Chinese societies. The volume will be of interest to graduate and undergraduate students, as well as specialists who deal with the development of capitalist society, philosophy of history, the philosophy of social sciences and the political philosophy of liberalism. (shrink)

This book advances a novel justification for the idea of "public reason": citizens within diverse societies can realize the ideal of shared political autonomy, despite their adherence to different religious and philosophical views, by deciding fundamental political questions with "public reasons." Public reasons draw upon or are derived from ecumenical political ideas, such as toleration and equal citizenship, and mutually acceptable forms of reasoning, like those of the sciences. This book explains that if citizens share equal political autonomy—and thereby constitute (...) "a civic people"—they will not suffer from alienation or domination and can enjoy relations of civic friendship. Moreover, it contends that the ideal of shared political autonomy cannot be realized by alternative accounts of public justification that eschew any necessary role for public reasons. In addition to explaining how the ideal of political autonomy justifies the idea of public reason, this book presents a new analysis of the relation between public reason and "ideal theory": by engaging in "public reasoning," citizens help create a just society that can secure the free compliance of all. It also explores the distinctive policy implications of the ideal of political autonomy for gender equality, families, children, and education. (shrink)

Resistance is a puzzle for politics. Its presence is perceived as the sign of a healthy political culture, yet the controversies it raises cannot always be resolved without changing the fabric of the political community. In this, some see it as a fundamental danger, a risk within democracy. Resistance is thought of as a problem to solve, a matter to handle, an irritant to quell, a brake on progress and development. Yet there exists a strong current in political theory, and (...) practice, that stood this perspective on its head. This tradition assigns to resistance the role of prime mover in social ontology, and of creative drive in political relations. This paper discusses this contribution and its legacy. (shrink)

Quality of democratic arrangements does matter. This kind of conceptual breakthrough has been made through painfully engagement with the nonphilosophical area of inquiry arisen by the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic has dramatically emphasized that health is a highly political domain. No surprise then that it made possible to challenge common thought about democratic procedures in political theory that considers procedure-independent standards suspicious. Therefore it is fair to state that the COVID-19 pandemic has taken the quality of democratic outcomes back on (...) center stage in the debate in political theory, which has been dominated by fair proceduralism’s claim not to refer to any procedure-independent standards of good political decisions. Procedural values have traditionally been seen as a defining element of fair deliberation and essential for democracy. They have been extolled in social choice theory that claims that democracy does not exhibit any particular disposition to lead to good or just political arrangements. They are the focus of attention in Jürgen Habermas’ procedural rationality, though philosophers are now more skeptical about the divorce between procedures and substantive standards. Overall, issues surrounding the topic of ensuring citizens’ health make the topic politically central and philosophically interesting for epistemic theories and impartial proceduralism theories of democracy alike. The aim of this paper is to justify the legitimacy and authority of public health policies on the basis of arguments that do not simply are a matter of their being democratic. In the first part, I want to display and criticize the idea that proceduralism’s not getting one’s hands dirty with the substance of decisions and remaining neutrally adherent only to procedures is untenable in the present case. Having criticized democratic theories that want to restrict themselves to purely procedural values, in the second part I will focus on the idea of knowledge and make explicit its characters of being practical and shared. Eventually, it will help to have one example. M-Health will show that many valuable insights would be incompatible with the restrictions of the proceduralism. Philosophical consideration of health will combine epistemic issues with political ones triggered by technology and sharpened by the COVID-19 pandemic. (shrink)

Several scholars have recently entertained proposals for "epistocracy," a political regime in which decision-making power is concentrated in the hands of a society's most informed and competent citizens. These proposals rest on the claim that we can expect better political outcomes if we exclude incompetent citizens from participating in political decisions because competent voters are more likely to vote "correctly" than incompetent voters. We develop what we call the objection from selection bias to epistocracy: a procedure that selects voters on (...) the basis of their observed competence---as epistocracy does---will often be "biased" in the sense that competent voters will be, on average, more likely than incompetent voters to possess certain attributes that reduce the probability of voting correctly. Our objection generalizes the "demographic objection" discussed in previous literature, showing that the range of realistic scenarios in which epistocracy is vulnerable to selection bias is substantially broader than previous discussions appreciate. Our discussion also shows that previous discussions have obscured the force of the threat of selection bias. Since we lack reasons to believe that epistocratic proposals can avoid selection bias, we have no reason to seriously entertain epistocracy as a practical proposal. (shrink)

What obligations are there on voters? This paper argues that voters should make their electoral decision competently, and does so by developing on a recent proposal for democratic legitimacy. It then explores three problems arising from this ‘competency obligation’. First, how should voters be competent? I propose three conditions required for voter competence. Second, how competent should voters be? I argue that the competency required tracks the significance of the consequences of the vote. Third, if the electorate are unlikely to (...) deliver a competent decision, should suffrage be restricted to the competent alone? I defend unrestricted suffrage on the grounds that restricting suffrage cannot guarantee a competently made electoral decision. Instead, obligations on voters should be minimised by political parties satisfying their obligations to be politically sound; if they are sound, then the obligation to be competent can be easily satisfied by voters. (shrink)

In dit artikel onderzoek ik of de standaardbenaderingen van burgerschapsonderwijs in de Lage Landen geschikt zijn om jonge mensen voor te bereiden om de huidige politieke realiteiten tegemoet te treden, laat staan om onrecht te bestrijden. Ik laat zien waarom een nadruk op ‘democratische principes’ of de rechtsstaat de status quo waarschijnlijk niet zal veranderen zolang opvoeders er niet in slagen de aandacht voor de waarheid te cultiveren die nodig is om te kunnen oordelen over rivaliserende normatieve claims. Met name (...) op tolerantie gebaseerde interpretaties van burgerschap zullen weinig bereiken in afwezigheid van burgerlijke deugden – vooral moreel oordelen en morele moed – die nodig zijn voor dissent. Dissent omvat minimaal een bereidheid om de waarheid te spreken tegen de macht. Maar het ernstigste probleem betreffende burgerschapsonderwijs op school betreft de legitimiteit ervan, gegeven dat dat onderwijs gebaseerd is op een door de overheid opgelegd curriculum met als doel een gewenste respons op de boodschap ervan op te leggen en te conditioneren. Daardoor staat het per definitie vijandig tegenover dissent. (shrink)

Is the web out to get us, or is it a force for autonomy and flourishing? Is it another instrument for the governing elite to channel the masses for political or business purposes? Is it a means for our baser nature to entrench everlasting fake news stories, political narratives, and even whole ideologies? -/- In her tome Surveillance Capitalism, Shoshana Zuboff details what she regards as the dangers of losing our freedom, dignity, and democratic control to business by being “conditioned”, (...) “tuned”, “nudged” and otherwise shaped in unconscious ways to serve big-tech and its business associates. -/- Echoing many of her fears, the popular documentary The Social Dilemma portrays algorithmic tracking of our behaviour by Facebook and Google as a Frankenstein monster. The documentary has the endorsement of the historian Yuval Noah Harari, best known for his Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. He argues that the web has become a tool to further reinforce the survival of fake news, to which he thinks humans already have a strong proclivity. Who is going to tame this Frankenstein? (shrink)

Since at least 2016, many have worried that social media enables authoritarians to meddle in democratic politics. The concern is that trolls and bots amplify deceptive content. In this chapter I argue that these tactics have a more insidious anti-democratic purpose. Lies implanted in democratic discourse by authoritarians are often intended to be caught. Their primary goal is not to successfully deceive, but rather to undermine the democratic value of testimony. In well-functioning democracies, our mutual reliance on testimony also generates (...) a distinctively democratic value: decentralized testimonial networks evade control by the state or powerful actors. The deliberate exposure of deception in democratic testimonial networks undermines this value by implicating citizens in their own epistemic corruption, weakening the resilience of democratic society against authoritarian pressure. In this chapter I illustrate that danger through a close reading of recent Russian social media interference operations, showing both their epistemic underpinnings and their ongoing political threat. (shrink)

This paper critiques the All-Subjected Principle. The All-Subjected Principle is one of the most prominent answers to the Boundary Problem, which consists in determining who should be entitled to participate in which democratic decision. The All-Subjected Principle comes in many versions, but the general idea is that all people who are subjected in a relevant sense with regard to a democratic decision should be entitled to participate in that decision. One respect in which versions of the All-Subjected Principle differ concerns (...) how to best understand ‘subjectedness’. One view spells out ‘subjectedness’ in terms of legal bindingness. Another view understands ‘subjectedness’ in terms of coercion. I argue that the All-Subjected Principle is extensionally inadequate on both views in that it yields verdicts that are at odds with our considered judgements about certain cases. These cases involve legal norms of referral or international administrative assistance. (shrink)

In this brief article, I will raise some challenges to each of Pablo Gilabert’s arguments for a human right to democracy (HRD). First, I will question whether the instrumental case for affirming a HRD is as strong as Gilabert and others have suggested. I will then call into question the argument from moral risk, arguing that, for any particular country, we should not operate with a strong presumption that they should pursue further democratization as a high-priority goal. Finally, I will (...) consider the strength of our intuitive support for a stringent human right to democracy. As Gilabert points out, there could be a genuine HRD, even if it did not always provide us with an overriding reason to call for the implementation of democracy. I will explore how much normative priority claims to respect democratic decisions have by considering what we have reason to do when democratic decisions would lead to violations of other, noncontroversial human rights. (shrink)

Democratic governance is under increasing scrutiny as a result of waning trust in political institutions, and a widening gap between public aspirations and government performance. The purpose of this paper is to address what is currently diagnosed as a democratic deficit by calling into question the notion of consent, procedures advocated in its pursuit, and its relationship with democracy. To this purpose, the paper reviews seminal works that have investigated the nexus of democracy and consent over time: The Calculus of (...) Consent, The Engineering of Consent and Manufacturing Consent. In this, it presents different understandings of the processes whereby consent is arrived at, and questions whether they support or undermine democratic aspirations. (shrink)

The chapter explores the ways in which philosophical thinking about public reason and public justification can shed light on some deep issues regarding the legitimacy or purpose of law, as well as shallower yet no less important questions of constitutional engineering and institutional desing.

In this article I provide a Spinozist perspective on popular power. It is written as a blog post for a popular audience, and draws on my book, Potentia: Hobbes and Spinoza on Power and Popular Politics (OUP: 2020).

In recent years, scepticism about democracy’s ability to deliver good political decisions has resurfaced. In response, some political philosophers have argued that we should replace democracy with epistocracy. In this political system, the exercise of political decision-making powers – including the exercise of the right to vote – is made formally conditional on a sufficient degree of political competence. The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate the normative justifiability of epistocracy. Whereas most political philosophers firmly reject epistocracy and support (...) democracy, I will instead defend an uncommon middle-ground view. More precisely, I will defend what I call the civic argument for epistemic constraints on voting. According to this argument, voters have a civic duty to uphold the demands associated with their role in political decision making practices and owe each other compliance with this duty. Given the distinctively epistemic dimension that characterizes their role, the civic duty of voters is to act in an epistemically responsible way by exercising a cluster of epistemic capacities. I then contend that some limited constraints on participation in voting can be normatively justified as a way to ensure, as much as possible, that voters act in an epistemically responsible way. This view provides a novel contribution to the debate, one that can resist some standard egalitarian objections to epistocracy and yet avoid some of the most radical conclusions of standard accounts of epistocracy. (shrink)

"Populism" has long been a dirty word. To some, it suggests the tyranny of the mob, to others, a xenophobic nativism. It is sometimes considered conducive to (if not simply identical to) fascism. In this timely book, Walter Horn acquits populism by "distilling" it, in order to finally give the people the power to govern themselves, free from constraints imposed either by conservatives (or libertarians) on the right or liberals (or Marxists) on the left. Beginning with explanations of what it (...) means to vote and what makes one society better off than another, Horn progresses to issues involving what makes for fair aggregation and appropriate, deliberative representation. From suggesting solutions to contemporary problems like gerrymandering, immigration control, and campaign finance, to offering answers to age-old questions like why dissenters should want to obey the majority and who should have the right to vote in various elections, Horn, using his new theory of "CHOICE Voluntarism," provides solutions to some of the most perplexing problems in the history of democratic theory. -/- The Introduction and first chapter can now be read free at Amazon. (shrink)

In this essay, I address several questions and challenges brought about by the contributors to the special issue on my book Democracy without Shortcuts. In particular, I address some implications of my critique of deep pluralism; distinguish between three senses of ‘blind deference’: political, reflective, and informational; draw a critical parallelism between the populist conception of representation as embodiment and the conception of ‘citizen-representatives’ often ascribed to participants in deliberative minipublics; defend the democratic attractiveness of participatory uses over empowered uses (...) of deliberative minipublics; clarify why accepting public reason constraints does not imply limiting deliberation to questions about constitutional rights, and argue that overcoming a state-centric conception of democracy does not require replacing the ‘all subjected’ principle with the ‘all affected’ principle. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer a solution to the Capacity/Equality Puzzle. The puzzle holds that an account of the franchise may adequately capture at most two of the following: (1) a political equality-based account of the franchise, (2) a capacity-based account of disenfranchising children, and (3) universal adult enfranchisement. To resolve the puzzle, I provide a complex liberal egalitarian justification of a moral requirement to disenfranchise children. I show that disenfranchising children is permitted by both the proper political liberal and (...) the proper political egalitarian understandings of the relationship between cognitive capacity and the franchise. Further, I argue, disenfranchising children is required by a minimalistic, procedural principle of collective competence in political decision-making. At the same time, I show that political equality requires the enfranchisement of all adults, regardless of cognitive capacities, and that the collective competence principle does not ground adult disenfranchisement. This justifies the progressive legal trend that holds the capacity-based disenfranchisement of adults to be incompatible with liberal democratic principles. (shrink)

Америка и мир находятся в процессе краха от чрезмерного роста населения, большинство из них за последнее столетие, и теперь все это, из-за третьего мира людей. Потребление ресурсов и добавление еще 4 миллиардов, около 2100 года, обрушит индустриальную цивилизацию и приведет к голоду, болезням, насилию и войне в ошеломляющих масштабах. Земля теряет по крайней мере 1% своего верхнего слоя почвы каждый год, так как она приближается к 2100, большая часть его потенциала выращивания продуктов питания исчезнет. Миллиарды погибнут, и ядерная война почти (...) наверняка. В Америке это значительно ускоряется благодаря массовой иммиграции и воспроизводству иммигрантов в сочетании со злоупотреблениями, которые стали возможными благодаря демократии. Развратная человеческая природа неумолимо превращает мечту о демократии и разнообразии в кошмар преступности и нищеты. Китай будет продолжать подавлять Америку и весь мир, пока он поддерживает диктатуру, которая ограничивает эгоизм. Коренной причиной краха является неспособность нашей врожденной психологии адаптироваться к современному миру, что заставляет людей относиться к неродственным людям так, как будто у них были общие интересы. Идея прав человека является злой фантазией, пропагандируемой левыми, чтобы отвлечь внимание от беспощадного разрушения земли безудержным 3-м мировым материнством. Это, а также незнание базовой биологии и психологии, приводит к заблуждению социальной инженерии частично образованных, которые контролируют демократические общества. Немногие понимают, что если вы помогаете одному человеку, вы вредите кому-то другому – нет бесплатного обеда, и каждый предмет, который кто-то потребляет, разрушает землю не подлежит ремонту. Следовательно, социальная политика во всем мире является неустойчивой, и один за одним все общества без строгого контроля над эгоизмом рухнет в анархию или диктатуру. Самые основные факты, почти никогда не упоминаемые, таковы, что в Америке или мире не хватает ресурсов для того, чтобы вывести значительную часть бедного населения из нищеты и удержать их там. Попытка сделать это обанкротила Америку и разрушила мир. Способность Земли производить пищу уменьшается с каждым днем, как и наше генетическое качество. И теперь, как всегда, самым большим врагом бедных являются другие бедные, а не богатые. Без драматических и немедленных изменений нет надежды на предотвращение распада Америки или любой страны, которая следует демократической системе. (shrink)

Democratic theorists have proposed a number of competing justifications for democratic order, but no theory has achieved a consensus. While expecting consensus may be unrealistic, I nonetheless contend that we can make progress in justifying democratic order by applying competing democratic theories to different stages of the democratic process. In particular, I argue that the selection of political officials should be governed in accord with aggregative democracy. This process should prize widespread participation, political equality, and proper preference aggregation. I then (...) argue that the selection of public policies by political officials should be governed in accord with deliberative democracy. This process should prize high quality deliberation and political equality. A process democracy is a democracy that joins an aggregative process for selecting officials with a deliberative process for selecting policies. Democracy is justified and legitimate when it is structured in this way. (shrink)

Employing the framework of conflicting goals in democracy promotion as departure point, the paper addresses the issue of arms exports to non-democratic countries as an important research topic which points to a reconsideration of certain fundamental conceptual and normative commitments underpinning democracy promotion. Empirically, we remind of the lingering hypocrisy of Western arms exporters, knowing that exports to non-democratic countries often hinder or block democratisation. This is not easily circumvented, because of the many conflicting objectives both internal and external to (...) democracy promotion itself. Yet democracy and human rights promotion remain, ethically and pragmatically, important policy goals. Noting that the self-evident character of the state-based liberal democratic model is being increasingly questioned in the literature, we then critically explore a radical if surprisingly natural alternative vision: Namely that if the commitment to democracy and human rights is to be genuine, only global democracy remains a viable way of resolving the many dilemmas, as it aspires to deal both with regulating arms exports and building of accountable decision-making structures. Although we ultimately reject the globalist solution and lean towards a less radical constructivist approach, we endorse the underlying rationale, namely that democracy promotion needs to sincerely embrace normative democratic theory. (shrink)

L’idéal démocratique est accusé d’être irréaliste. Le gouvernement du peuple par le peuple et pour le peuple serait une chimère dans les sociétés contemporaines. Il faudrait lui préférer les visées plus modestes associées à l’élection : un droit de vote égal et la satisfaction du plus grand nombre. La démocratie ne se laisse pourtant pas réduire à la compétition électorale. Les acteurs et les institutions politiques qui s’en réclament invoquent non seulement un marché, où rivalisent des intérêts privés, mais un (...) forum, où s’affrontent des visions adverses de la justice. Ils attendent de la délibération collective qu’elle serve l’autonomie politique et le bien commun, mais savent aussi qu’elle peut les menacer, lorsque la liberté, l’égalité ou la publicité lui font défaut. Cette enquête philosophique interroge la pertinence de l’idéal démocratique pour des sociétés complexes, dotées d’institutions représentatives et soumises à la communication de masse. Elle montre à quelles conditions cet idéal peut aujourd’hui orienter la critique et l’action. Les citoyens peuvent encore aspirer à se gouverner eux-mêmes, donc à délibérer en égaux. -/- The democratic ideal is accused of being unrealistic. Government of the people by the people and for the people would be a chimera in contemporary societies. The more modest aims associated with election should be preferred: equal suffrage and the satisfaction of the greatest number. But democracy cannot be reduced to electoral competition. The political actors and institutions that claim it invoke not only a market, where private interests compete, but also a forum, where opposing visions of justice confront each other. They expect collective deliberation to serve political autonomy and the common good, but they also know that it can threaten them when it lacks freedom, equality or publicity. This philosophical inquiry questions the relevance of the democratic ideal for complex societies with representative institutions and subject to mass communication. It shows under what conditions a deliberative understanding of this ideal can today orient criticism and action. Citizens can still aspire to govern themselves, hence to deliberate as equals. (shrink)

L’objection la plus ancienne et la plus redoutable à la démocratie fait valoir que le gouvernement par le peuple dessert le gouvernement pour le peuple. Les citoyens manquant pour la plupart de sagesse ou de compétence, le bien commun serait mieux assuré en confiant le pouvoir à un individu éclairé ou à une élite experte. Une réponse commune à cette objection concède la prémisse mais affirme la priorité au gouvernement par le peuple sur le gouvernement pour le peuple : le (...) droit égal à la participation devrait l’emporter sur la promotion de la compétence, même si celle-ci est requise par le bon gouvernement. La démocratie se trouve alors réduite à un ensemble de procédures équitables, traitant les citoyens en égaux ; elle ne se définit plus par la poursuite du bien commun. Il est toutefois une autre réponse à l’objection, qui évite cette dérive vers un procéduralisme étroit. Elle consiste à nier la prémisse et à affirmer la sagesse politique du peuple. Il n’est pas vrai que le gouvernement pour le peuple serait mieux assuré en confiant le pouvoir à un petit nombre de sages ou d’experts, fussent-ils les meilleurs parmi les citoyens. Cette thèse remarquable peut paraître improbable. Sa défense peut pourtant s’appuyer sur l’un des arguments les plus intrigants élaborés par la philosophie politique aristotélicienne, qui inspire et éclaire les controverses philosophiques contemporaines sur la valeur du régime démocratique : l’argument de la sagesse de la multitude. (shrink)

Maintes philosophies contemporaines de la démocratie s’accordent pour donner à la délibération publique une place centrale dans la prise de décisions politiques légitimes. Cet accord masque toutefois un désaccord récurrent sur la source de sa valeur : elle est liée, selon les théories, à son effet sur les participants, à sa valeur expressive, à son équité ou encore à la qualité des décisions qu’elle produit. Ces visions concurrentes de la délibération démocratique ont des implications différentes et parfois contradictoires pour les (...) pratiques et les institutions politiques. Cet article analyse ces justifications afin d’en éprouver la solidité et de clarifier leurs relations. Il défend une justification originale de la délibération démocratique, en montrant qu’elle traite équitablement les citoyens en tant qu’auditeurs, donc en tant que juges. S’il n’est pas sûr qu’elle favorise en général la prise de bonnes décisions, elle rend moins inégales les conditions sous lesquelles les citoyens peuvent porter un jugement politique. Many contemporary philosophies of democracy agree that public deliberation plays an essential role in the making of legitimate political decisions. However, this consensus masks significant disagreement concerning the exact source of its value, as it is alternatively located in its impact on participants, in its expressive value, in its fairness, or in the quality of the decisions it produces. These rival justifications of democratic deliberation have different, and sometimes contradictory, consequences for political practices and institutions. This article analyses these justifications to decide between them and to clarify how they relate to each other. It develops an original justification of democratic deliberation by showing that it treats citizens fairly as listeners if not speakers. While it is not certain that democratic deliberation makes it in general more likely to reach a good decision, it makes the conditions for political judgement less unequal. (shrink)

In his _Natural Law and the Nature of Law_, Jonathan Crowe has written an important and interesting book, one that should be read by people interested in jurisprudence, ethics, and political philosophy. Its distinctive strength is in the way Crowe shows how much can be done within a natural law framework that does not assume a theological background. A distinctive feature of Crowe's approach to natural law, one that distinguishes it from other well-known approaches, is its argument that only a (...) minimal state, if any state at all, is required by or even compatible with natural law. It is this claim that I focus on in this paper. I show that these anti-state arguments do not work, and that a much more robust, largely state-like, type of political society is necessary if the requirements of natural law that Crowe accepts are to be met. In doing this, I also draw some related conclusions about the proper understanding and reach of the common good. In arguing for this conclusion I do not attack Crowe's general approach, but rather make what I hope to be an internal critique of the argument. If I am successful in this, then there will be reason for people who are sympathetic to the overall project to reject some of Crowe’s sub-conclusions, even if they wish to remain working in the natural law tradition overall. And, there will be reason to accept that something like the modern state will be necessary - at least for some time and for people like us - if we are to live good lives. (shrink)

The “demos paradox” is the idea that the composition of a demos could never secure democratic legitimacy because the composition of a demos cannot itself be democratically decided. Those who view this problem as unsolvable argue that this insight allows them to adopt a critical perspective towards common ideas about who has legitimate standing to participate in democratic decision-making. We argue that the opposite is true and that endorsing the demos paradox actually undermines our ability to critically engage with common (...) ideas about legitimate standing. We challenge the conception of legitimacy that lurks behind the demos paradox and argue that the real impossibility is to endorse democracy without also being committed to significant procedure-independent standards for the legitimate composition of the demos. We show that trying to solve the problem of the demos by appeal to some normative conception of democratic legitimacy is a worthwhile project that is not undermined by paradox. (shrink)

This introduction presents the articles contained in this special issue of Philosophy and Social Criticism on the topic of populism. It does so by placing them in the field of discussions that the standard conception of populism as ‘illliberal democracy’ has stimulated in many areas of the populism-research that was produced in response to the recent increase in populist governments in established constitutional democracies world-wide. Following the methodological canon of studies in the field, it presents the individual contributions roughly in (...) three segments according to leading questions they focus on. In each segment, the introduction attempts to indicate the degree to which the articles depart and provide reasons for departing from the initial standard conception and thereby point to new relevant directions for further work. The first segment consists of essays that take on the definitional and empirical question of what and where populism is, and which varieties of it there are. The second segment presents new work focusing on the diagnostic question of what conditions and institutional conditions enable contemporary populism in established liberal constitutional representative democracies. They thus also aim at explaining or at least providing insight into the structures on the supply side that make populism popular as an `outsider option'. The third and largest segment comprises essays that present various approaches to answering the therapeutic question what democratic political systems and societies can do to confront, absorb or internalize the lessons from populist challenges. (shrink)

What should we do if climate change or global injustice require radical policy changes not supported by the majority of citizens? And what if science shows that the lacking support is largely due to shortcomings in citizens’ individual psychology such as cognitive biases that lead to temporal and geographical parochialism? Could then a plausible case for enhancing the morality of the electorate—even against their will –be made? But can a democratic government manipulate the will of the people without losing democratic (...) legitimacy? This paper explores the problems that governmental manipulation of voters pose for democratic legitimacy and the tensions between non-manipulated input and morally acceptable output. These venerable issues of political theory resurface in light of recent suggestions to tackle today’s global mega-problems by Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu. They suggest that to avert the looming catastrophe, governments should alter psychological traits of the citizenry through biomedical means, from pharmaceuticals to genetics. However, we argue that a government cannot rule with democratic legitimacy if elected by a will of the people it manipulated before. Normatively, conferring power from the governed onto governors is a one-directional relation that is incompatible with manipulation. But while it is tempting to rebut suggestions to morally enhance the people as antithetical to essential ideas of democracy, swift rebuttals tend to overlook the deeper challenge: Majoritarian decision-making may lead to inacceptable outcomes. The dilemma between input and output runs through major works in political theory. Rather than wishfully ignoring the dangers of democracy, democratic theory has to provide answers. (shrink)

How we understand, protect, and discharge our rights and responsibilities as citizens in a democratic society committed to the principle of political equality is intimately connected to the standards and behaviour of our media in general, and our news media in particular. However, the media does not just stand between the citizenry and their leaders, or indeed between citizens and each other. The media is often the site where individuals attempt to realise some of the most fundamental democratic liberties, including (...) the right to free speech. -/- Media Ethics, Free Speech, and the Requirements of Democracy explores the conflict between the rights that people exercise in, and through, the modern media and the responsibilities that accrue on account of its awesome and increasing power. The individual chapters—written by leading scholars from the US, UK, and Australia—address several recent events and controversial developments in the media, including Brexit, the rise of Trump, Lynton Crosby, Charlie Hebdo, dog-whistle politics, fake news, and political correctness. This much-needed philosophical treatment is a welcome addition to the recent literature in media ethics. It will be of interest to scholars across political and social philosophy, applied ethics, media and communication studies, and political science who are interested in the important issues surrounding the media and free speech and democracy. (shrink)

International institutions have become increasingly important not only in the relations between states, but also for individuals. When are these institutions legitimate? The legitimacy standards fo...

The first thing we must keep in mind is that when saying that China says this or China does that, we are not speaking of the Chinese people, but of the Sociopaths who control the CCP -- Chinese Communist Party, i.e., the Seven Senile Sociopathic Serial Killers (SSSSK) of the Standing Committee of the CCP or the 25 members of the Politburo etc.. -/- The CCP’s plans for WW3 and total domination are laid out quite clearly in Chinese govt publications (...) and speeches and this is Xi Jinping’s “China Dream”. It is a dream only for the tiny minority (perhaps a few dozen to a few hundred) who rule China and a nightmare for everyone else (including 1.4 billion Chinese). The 10 billion dollars yearly enables them or their puppets to own or control newspapers, magazines, TV and radio channels and place fake news in most major media everywhere every day. In addition, they have an army (maybe millions of people) who troll all the media placing more propaganda and drowning out legitimate commentary (the 50 cent army). -/- In addition to stripping the 3rd world of resources, a major thrust of the multi-trillion dollar Belt and Road Initiative is building military bases worldwide. They are forcing the free world into a massive high-tech arms race that makes the cold war with the Soviet Union look like a picnic. -/- Though the SSSSK, and the rest of the world’s military, are spending huge sums on advanced hardware, it is highly likely that WW3 (or the smaller engagements leading up to it) will be software dominated. It is not out of the question that the SSSSK, with probably more hackers (coders) working for them then all the rest of the world combined, will win future wars with minimal physical conflict, just by paralyzing their enemies via the net. No satellites, no phones, no communications, no financial transactions, no power grid, no internet, no advanced weapons, no vehicles, trains, ships or planes. -/- There are only two main paths to removing the CCP, freeing 1.4 billion Chinese prisoners, and ending the lunatic march to WW3. The peaceful one is to launch an all-out trade war to devastate the Chinese economy until the military gets fed up and boots out the CCP. -/- An alternative to shutting down China’s economy is a limited war, such as a targeted strike by say 50 thermobaric drones on the 20th Congress of the CCP, when all the top members are in one place, but that won’t take place until 2022 so one could hit the annual plenary meeting. The Chinese would be informed, as the attack happened, that they must lay down their arms and prepare to hold a democratic election or be nuked into the stone age. The other alternative is an all-out nuclear attack. Military confrontation is unavoidable given the CCP’s present course. It will likely happen over the islands in the South China Sea or Taiwan within a few decades, but as they establish military bases worldwide it could happen anywhere (see Crouching Tiger etc.). Future conflicts will have hardkill and softkill aspects with the stated objectives of the CCP to emphasize cyberwar by hacking and paralyzing control systems of all military and industrial communications, equipment, power plants, satellites, internet, banks, and any device or vehicle connected to the net. The SS are slowly fielding a worldwide array of manned and autonomous surface and underwater subs or drones capable of launching conventional or nuclear weapons that may lie dormant awaiting a signal from China or even looking for the signature of US ships or planes. While destroying our satellites, thus eliminating communication between the USA and our forces worldwide, they will use theirs, in conjunction with drones to target and destroy our currently superior naval forces. Of course, all of this is increasingly done automatically by AI. -/- By far the biggest ally of the CCP is the Democratic party of the USA. -/- The choice is to stop the CCP now or watch as they extend the Chinese prison over the whole world. -/- Of course, universal surveillance and digitizing of our lives is inevitable everywhere. Anyone who does not think so is profoundly out of touch. -/- Of course, it is the optimists who expect the Chinese sociopaths to rule the world while the pessimists (who view themselves as realists) expect AI sociopathy (or AS as I call it – i.e., Artificial Stupidity or Artificial Sociopathy) to take over, perhaps by 2030. -/- Those interested in further details on the lunatic path of modern society may consult my other works such as Suicide by Democracy-an Obituary for America and the World 4th Edition 2019 and Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st Century: Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization 5th ed (2019) . (shrink)

America and the world are in the process of collapse from excessive population growth, most of it for the last century, and now all of it, due to 3rd world people. Consumption of resources and the addition of 4 billion more ca. 2100 will collapse industrial civilization and bring about starvation, disease, violence and war on a staggering scale. The earth loses at least 1% of its topsoil every year, so as it nears 2100, most of its food growing capacity (...) will be gone. Billions will die and nuclear war is all but certain. In America, this is being hugely accelerated by massive immigration and immigrant reproduction, combined with abuses made possible by democracy. Depraved human nature inexorably turns the dream of democracy and diversity into a nightmare of crime and poverty. China will continue to overwhelm America and the world, as long as it maintains the dictatorship which limits selfishness. The root cause of collapse is the inability of our innate psychology to adapt to the modern world, which leads people to treat unrelated persons as though they had common interests. The idea of human rights is an evil fantasy promoted by leftists to draw attention away from the merciless destruction of the earth by unrestrained 3rd world motherhood. This, plus ignorance of basic biology and psychology, leads to the social engineering delusions of the partially educated who control democratic societies. Few understand that if you help one person you harm someone else—there is no free lunch and every single item anyone consumes destroys the earth beyond repair. Consequently, social policies everywhere are unsustainable and one by one all societies without stringent controls on selfishness will collapse into anarchy or dictatorship. The most basic facts, almost never mentioned, are that there are not enough resources in America or the world to lift a significant percentage of the poor out of poverty and keep them there. The attempt to do this is bankrupting America and destroying the world. The earth’s capacity to produce food decreases daily, as does our genetic quality. And now, as always, by far the greatest enemy of the poor is other poor and not the rich. Without dramatic and immediate changes, there is no hope for preventing the collapse of America, or any country that follows a democratic system. (shrink)

A primeira coisa que nós devemos manter na mente é que ao dizer que China diz isto ou China faz aquele, nós não estamos falando do povo chinês, mas dos sociopatas que controlam de CCP (partido comunista chinês, isto é, os sete assassinos seriais sociopata Senile (SSSSK) do Comitê ereto do CCP ou dos 25 membros do Politburo. Eu assisti recentemente alguns programas típicos esquerdistas de notícias falsas (praticamente o único tipo pode encontrar na mídia, ou seja, quase tudo agora-ou (...) seja, Yahoo, CNN, o New York Times, etc.) em vouTube, um por vice que mencionou que 1000 economistas (e 15 vencedores do Prêmio Nobel) enviou uma carta a Trump dizendo-lhe que a guerra comercial foi um erro, e outro que entrevistou um economista acadêmico que disse que o movimento de Trump foi uma provocação para começar a guerra mundial 3. Eles estão certos sobre a ruptura do comércio global, mas não têm compreensão do grande quadro, que é que os sete sociopatas têm total dominação do mundo, com a eliminação da liberdade em todos os lugares, como seu objetivo, e que há apenas duas maneiras de pará-los-um embargo comercial total que devasta a economia chinesa e conduz seus militares para forçar para fora as eleições do CCP e da preensão, ou o WW3, que pode ser limitado (braços convencionais com talvez alguns armas nucleares) ou total (tudo as bombas nucleares de uma só vez). Claro como o dia, mas todos esses acadêmicos "brilhantes" não conseguem vê-lo. Se os sociopatas não forem removidos agora, em tão pouco quanto 15 anos será tarde demais, e seus descendentes lentamente mas inexoravelmente estarão sujeitos ao mesmo destino que o Chinês —vigilância total com sequestro, tortura e assassinato de quaisquer dissidentes. (shrink)

アメリカと世界は、過去1世紀の人口増加の大部分から崩壊し、今では第3位の世界の人々が原因で崩壊しています。資源の消費と30億人以上のca.2100の追加は、産業文明を崩壊させ、驚異的な規模で飢餓、病気 、暴力、戦争をもたらすでしょう。地球は毎年表土の少なくとも1%を失うので、2100に近づくにつれて、食料の栽培能力のほとんどは失われます。何十億人もの人々が死んでしまい、核戦争は確実です。アメリカでは 、大規模な移民と移民の再生によって、民主主義によって可能になった虐待と組み合わせることで、これは大幅に加速されています。堕落した人間性は、民主主義と多様性の夢を犯罪と貧困の悪夢に変える。中国は利己主義 を制限する独裁政権を維持する限り、アメリカと世界を圧倒し続けるだろう。崩壊の根本的な原因は、私たちの生来の心理学が現代の世界に適応できないことであり、人々は、彼らが共通の利益を持っているかのように無関 係な人を扱うように導きます。人権の考え方は、無制限の第三世界の母性によって地球の無慈悲な破壊から注意を引くために左翼によって促進された邪悪なファンタジーです。これは、基礎生物学と心理学の無知に加えて、 民主主義社会を支配する部分的に教育を受けた人々の社会工学の妄想につながります。一人の人が他人に危害を加えるのを助ければ、無料の昼食はなく、誰もが消費するすべてのアイテムが修理を超えて地球を破壊すること を理解している人はほとんどいません。その結果、どこでも社会政策は持続不可能であり、利己主義に対する厳格な統制なしにすべての社会が一つ一つ無秩序または独裁に崩壊するだろう。最も基本的な事実は、ほとんど言 及されていないが、貧困から貧しい人々のかなりの割合を持ち上げ、そこにそれらを維持するために、アメリカや世界に十分な資源が存在しないことです。これを行おうとする試みは、アメリカを破産させ、世界を破壊して いる。地球の食糧生産能力は、私たちの遺伝的品質と同様に、毎日減少します。そして今、いつものように、貧しい人々の最大の敵は、他の貧しい人々であり、金持ちではない。劇的かつ即時の変化がなければ、アメリカの 崩壊を防ぐ望みはないし、民主主義システムに従う国も存在しない。.

Америка и мир находятся в процессе краха от чрезмерного роста населения, большинство из них за последнее столетие, и теперь все это, из-за третьего мира людей. Потребление ресурсов и добавление еще 4 миллиардов, около 2100 года, обрушит индустриальную цивилизацию и приведет к голоду, болезням, насилию и войне в ошеломляющих масштабах. Земля теряет по крайней мере 1% своего верхнего слоя почвы каждый год, так как она приближается к 2100, большая часть его потенциала выращивания продуктов питания исчезнет. Миллиарды погибнут, и ядерная война почти (...) наверняка. В Америке это значительно ускоряется благодаря массовой иммиграции и воспроизводству иммигрантов в сочетании со злоупотреблениями, которые стали возможными благодаря демократии. Развратная человеческая природа неумолимо превращает мечту о демократии и разнообразии в кошмар преступности и нищеты. Китай будет продолжать подавлять Америку и весь мир, пока он поддерживает диктатуру, которая ограничивает эгоизм. Коренной причиной краха является неспособность нашей врожденной психологии адаптироваться к современному миру, что заставляет людей относиться к неродственным людям так, как будто у них были общие интересы. Идея прав человека является злой фантазией, пропагандируемой левыми, чтобы отвлечь внимание от беспощадного разрушения земли безудержным 3-м мировым материнством. Это, а также незнание базовой биологии и психологии, приводит к заблуждению социальной инженерии частично образованных, которые контролируют демократические общества. Немногие понимают, что если вы помогаете одному человеку, вы вредите кому-то другому – нет бесплатного обеда, и каждый предмет, который кто-то потребляет, разрушает землю не подлежит ремонту. Следовательно, социальная политика во всем мире является неустойчивой, и один за одним все общества без строгого контроля над эгоизмом рухнет в анархию или диктатуру. Самые основные факты, почти никогда не упоминаемые, таковы, что в Америке или мире не хватает ресурсов для того, чтобы вывести значительную часть бедного населения из нищеты и удержать их там. Попытка сделать это обанкротила Америку и разрушила мир. Способность Земли производить пищу уменьшается с каждым днем, как и наше генетическое качество. И теперь, как всегда, самым большим врагом бедных являются другие бедные, а не богатые. Без драматических и немедленных изменений нет надежды на предотвращение распада Америки или любой страны, которая следует демократической системе. (shrink)

Political legitimacy is best understood as one type of a broader notion, which I call institutional legitimacy. An institution is legitimate in my sense when it has the right to function. The right to function correlates to a duty of non-interference. Understanding legitimacy in this way favorably contrasts with legitimacy understood in the traditional way, as the right to rule correlating to a duty of obedience. It helps unify our discourses of legitimacy across a wider range of practices, especially including (...) the many evaluations we increasingly make of international institutions of various sorts, but also including domestic institutions. (shrink)

This article critically reviews, assesses and refines Lindberg’s theoretical proposition that African states will become more democratic if they simply keep holding elections, irrespective of the degree of ‘freeness and fairness of the elections’, by using new empirical evidence from Ghana. Specifically, it highlights three fundamental challenges to Lindberg’s thesis on theoretical, methodological and empirical grounds. To achieve the objectives of this article, first, a systematic and logical approach will be employed to assess the theoretical and methodological justifications underpinning Lindberg’s (...) argument and some contributions to the debate from his critics. Second, it introduces new empirical evidence from Ghana, which clearly ‘deviates’ from Lindberg’s theoretical expectations in the long run, thus, calling for theoretical refinement and elaboration of the latter’s initial thesis. Finally, it draws from the analysis some conclusions and implications for the study of democratization in Africa in the future. (shrink)

ABSTRACTAccording to the standard or traditional account, those who hold political authority legitimately have a right to rule that entails an obligation of obedience on the part of those who are subject to their authority. In recent decades, however, and in part in response to philosophical anarchism, a number of philosophers have challenged the standard account by reconceiving authority in ways that break or weaken the connection between political authority and obligation. This paper argues against these revisionist accounts in two (...) ways: first, by pointing to defects in their conceptions of authority; and second, by sketching a fair-play approach to authority and political obligation that vindicates the standard account. (shrink)

The normative and metanormative pluralism that figures among core self-descriptions of democratic theory, which seems incompatible with democratic theorists’ practical ambitions, may stem from the internal logic of research traditions in the social sciences and humanities and in the conceptual structure of political theory itself. One way to deal productively with intradisciplinary diversity is to appeal to the idea of a meta-consensus; another is to appeal to the argument from cognitive diversity that fuels recent debates on epistemic democracy. For different (...) reasons, both strategies fail, such that a metatheoretical step aside may be desirable, one that entails modeling democratic theory after the public justification approach. (shrink)

The renewed interest on political realism can offer a new reading of the traditional dichotomy between normative and realist conception of constitutionalism. The purpose of this article is to analyse this renewed discussion, especially by focusing on the relationship between “political realism” and “political constitutionalism,” in the light of some theorists and authors—such as Richard Bellamy and Jeremy Waldron. After a brief introduction in which political realism will be discussed, especially through Bernard Williams’ reinterpretation, the article proposes a rereading of (...) democratic constitutionalism from the classical dichotomy between normativism and realism in political theory. The focus will be set on three key issues: 1. Richard Bellamy’s constitutional theory in a realist perspective; 2. An insight of legal constitutionalism under a normative banner; 3. A brief conclusion in which the risks of a majoritarian and populist constitutionalism will be discussed. (shrink)