This essay offers a Duboisian defense of democracy’s expressive and experimental values. It argues that the expressive value of democracy supports an ideal of inclusion, whereas the experimental value of democracy supports that of innovation. One appeals to the ideal of inclusion to extend to excluded groups codified constitutional protections and to condemn white hypocrisy. The ideal of innovation, in contrast, helps one reimagine what constitutional protections should be in the first place. Drawing on Du Bois’s writings, this essay argues (...) that the civic activities of black American counter-publics exhibited both experimental and expressive democratic values. In particular, it highlights the innovations of black women civic leaders who reimagined care work under a public conception of the common good. It concludes that counter-publics shape the asymmetric moral insight of its participants, namely, the oppressed. (shrink)

Relational egalitarians claim that a situation is just only if everyone it involves relates to one another as equals. It implies that relational egalitarians believe the ideal of “living as equals” (for short) is desirable, and furthermore, necessary for justice. In this paper, I distinguish three accounts of the desirability of the ideal: the instrumental value account, the non‐instrumental value account, and the non‐consequentialist account. I argue that the former two accounts cannot provide satisfying reasons for being a relational egalitarian. (...) Instead, the ideal of “living as equals” ought to be understood as fundamentally a moral requirement in a non‐consequentialist sense. In addition, a pluralist (though fundamentally non‐consequentialist) approach is welcome. (shrink)

How can one person’s having political power over another be justified? This essay explores the idea that such justifications must be in an important sense derivative, and that this ‘Derivative Justification Constraint’ bars certain justifications widely endorsed in political and philosophical debates. After critically discussing the most prominent extant articulations of the Constraint (associated with a view often called ‘political instrumentalism’), the essay offers a novel account of what precisely the Constraint bars (in short: justification by appeal to non-derivative goods (...) that include among their elements one person’s ruling over another), what motivates it (in a nutshell: a deeply non-instrumental concern for each person’s moral independence), and what it entails for how we may justify democratic political arrangements in particular. (shrink)

This article adopts the framework set out in ‘Associative Political Obligations’ to ask two further questions about the theory of associative political obligation. (i) Which of the different interpretations of the theory of associative political obligation is most plausible? And (ii) what would be the implications of such a view? It is argued that (i) the most attractive version of the argument is one according to which such obligations obtain only in morally acceptable communities, and only between what may be (...) called ‘thick’ members. And (ii) that such a theory should give up on at least some of the conclusions that associativist theorists have tried to defend, such as that associative political obligations can establish the legitimacy of states. However, it is also suggested that this should not be considered a regrettable retreat. (shrink)

This article aims to provide some insight into the nature and content of the theory of associative political obligation. It does this by first locating the view in the wider debate on political obligation, analyzing the view in terms of four central elements that are shared by many of its versions, and then discussing important criticisms that have been made of each of these, as well as some rejoinders by defenders of the theory.

The contribution of food and diet to health is much disputed in the background culture in the US. Many commercial or ideological advocates make claims, sometimes with health as a primary goal, but often accompanied by commercial or ideological interests. These compete culturally with authoritative recommendations made by publicly funded groups. For public policy concerning diet and health to be legitimate, not only should it not be inconsistent with the scientific evidence, but also it should not be inconsistent with the (...) political environment. Healthy Eating Policy and Political Philosophy (HEPPP), by Barnhill and Bonotti (2022), addresses how policy in this complex area might be justified. In the present essay I highlight some important strengths of their work and also make some points about how it might be clarified or enlarged in scope. The great strength of HEPPP is that it emphasizes the role of a political philosophy in evaluating the legitimacy of public policy. They presume a well-off liberal democratic state, and specifically they draw on Rawls’ political liberalism, as developed in Political Liberalism (PL). One of several interlocking technical concepts developed in this book, public reason speaks to the boundaries of what should be acceptable in public deliberation about constitutional essentials and basic justice. HEPPP explores the application of an extension of public reason to the justification of policies related to “healthy eating.“ Public reason has two components, both of which pertain to a common understanding among citizens: (1) a common understanding of the principles and ideals that are the foundation of the political society, and (2) a common understanding of the standards that govern reason and evidence, including common sense. HEPPP argues that even though for diet and health the complexity of the scientific evidence goes far beyond anything like common sense for a typical citizen, the technical idea of “accessibility” of the scientific evidence justifies reliance on it within the concept of public reason. I question this accessibility argument about scientific evidence and public reason because the nature of the population-level epidemiological evidence about diet and health is that it often includes judgments that are based on arguable interpretations, framing incidence in terms of risk and prevention; thus the issue is more than one of potential accessibility of scientific evidence. Nevertheless, evaluation and consideration of the scientific evidence is of obvious practical importance in policy deliberation concerning policy related to what Rawls call “ordinary legislation.“ Even though public reason applied to healthy eating policy may not be as pertinent as it is for constitutional essentials and basic justice, and even though it is unlikely to result in a “correct outcome,“ invoking reasons based on political values and principles held in common has important value even in these deliberations about more ordinary questions. That value applies not to the specifics of the particular issue, but to the larger context for the particular policy being deliberated, as a potential contribution to an overlapping consensus that is stable for the right reasons. If this vision of political liberalism were achieved, then contentious debate about health eating policy and its scientific basis could occur within that context and be resolved within the basic political structure. Because public health and political liberalism have a common concern for a good at the population level, they have an underlying affinity. Healthy eating policies could be evaluated in two not-unrelated ways: based on their instrumental contribution to the good of the public body of citizens as population-level health, and according to their stabilizing contribution to an overlapping consensus among citizens. In this latter way a policy would contribute to a conditional integral common good a la Sulmasy, one that has the prospect of conditioning a political system, and by doing so create the conditions of the possibility of a constitutive integral common good that is constituted on the right reasons for allegiance to an overlapping consensus. To conclude with reference to HEPPP, public reason may play an important function with respect to the political common good, even as debates about the weight and meaning of scientific evidence from epidemiology play out in deliberation of ordinary legislation concerning healthy eating. (shrink)

Equal respect for persons is often appealed to as the grounding principle of democratic rule. I argue here that if it needs to account for the specific content of democratic political rights, it must be understood as respect for people as competent political decision-makers. However, the claim that respect is due to people as a response to their actual equal competence leads to a conflation of democratic legitimacy and substantive justice, resting on implausible factual assumptions and making it impossible to (...) advocate the effective equalization of political capabilities. Therefore, I suggest that the principle of equal respect should be decoupled from such a claim and be rephrased as simply prescribing that people be treated or publicly recognized as equally competent. I defend this interpretation against the publicity objection, according to which this take on the principle implies insincerity and therefore cannot serve as a public justification for democratic authority. (shrink)

Democratic politics is always identity politics and there are some varieties of identity politics without which full and genuine democratic cooperation would not be possible. Indeed, the very existence of a democratic people involves mobilization of political concern and action around a democratic national identity. But a genuinely democratic national identity must be an open identity that can accommodate internal complexity and acknowledge external responsibilities. Moreover, in democracies characterized by a history of discrimination and oppression, there must also be political (...) space for a revitalizing identity politics that initially mobilizes political concern and action around the identities of those groups that have been subject to discrimination and oppression. Yet a revitalizing identity politics is likely to go awry if it is hostile to the possibility of reconciliation between the oppressed and former oppressors, or intrinsically resistant to political collaborations that might transcend the boundaries of familiar social groups. (shrink)

Much ink has been spilled in the last years on whether voting is a duty that citizens ought to discharge in a democracy that aspires to be acceptably just. In this essay, I concentrate on whether a moral duty to participate in elections logically entails that people ought to vote simpliciter or well. I propose that voting well – i.e. with information and a sense of justice – is the electoral duty that we should value. Voting as such is not (...) – at least, not if we care about the substantive quality of democratic outcomes, not only about equality of participation. As a matter of fact, voting well seems to be a more adequate form of political participation than simply voting under varied normative conceptions of democracy, as I will show. At the same time, while we can't freely choose not to follow a moral duty to vote well just because we're not inclined to do so, we have to allow for the possibility that some individuals will not be in a good position to act on it. I conclude by discussing admissible reasons for this inability with respect to our citizenship responsibilities. (shrink)

Why pursue economic growth? For poor countries this is an easy question to answer, but it is more difficult for rich ones. Some of the world's greatest philosophers and economists – such as John Stuart Mill, John Maynard Keynes, and John Rawls – thought that, once a certain material standard of well-being has been achieved, economic growth should stop. I argue the opposite in this article. We always have reason to pursue economic growth. My argument is indirect. I shall not (...) argue that economic growth itself is always better. Rather, I shall argue that stopping growth requires morally objectionable actions. Economic growth tends to occur naturally if certain underlying conditions are in place. We have moral reasons to insist on these conditions independent their effect on growth, however. Halting growth requires that we alter these conditions, but we ought not do this. (shrink)

Social or relational egalitarians try to defend democracy non-instrumentally as a constitutive element of a society where no one stands as inferior or superior to anyone else. However, they face an instrumentalist challenge from within: Why not uphold a non-democratic regime if it outperforms democracy in protecting or promoting egalitarian social relations, for example, by stably producing substantive political decisions that guard against social hierarchies? This article explores the best response to this challenge from the social egalitarian non-instrumentalist standpoint. It (...) argues that the instrumentalist challenge can be accommodated without abandoning the essential non-instrumentalist commitment to democracy; while a nondemocratic regime may be justified under less-than-ideal circumstances as a contingently effective means to realize more social equality, democracy can nevertheless be viewed as a necessary condition for the realization of full social equality. (shrink)

‘Epistocracy’ is the name of a type of political power structure in which the power is held by the knowledgable—for example, by restricting the right to vote to those who can demonstrate sufficient knowledge. Though Plato and Mill defended epistocratic views, it has found few contemporary advocates. In a recent book, however, Jason Brennan argues that epistocratic power structures are capable of outperforming democratic ones. His argument is two-pronged: first, he argues that democratic procedures with universal suffrage allow poorly-informed voters (...) to pollute the electorate, and that doing so has negative policy-related consequences that are easily avoidable. Second, he argues that voting does not possess any non-intrinsic value, and so restricting suffrage to the educated does not result in a loss of status or standing for less well-educated persons in any meaningful way. I argue that epistocratic techniques are impossible to implement fairly, and represent an ineffective solution for the problems they are designed to solve. On these bases, I recommend rejecting it. (shrink)

It is important for members of marginalized groups to express political views relevant to how members of their respective groups should be treated. Recently, however, it has been argued that there are some contexts––that is, contexts in which members of marginalized groups are tokenized and have considerable power to influence political outcomes that would affect their other group members––in which certain marginalized group members ought not express certain political views relevant to how members of their respective groups should be treated. (...) In this essay, I examine two arguments defending this conclusion (the proportional representation and unjust enrichment arguments) and conclude that both fail. Then, I argue that recognizing that members of marginalized groups are permitted to speak their minds, even in these contexts, favorably affirms their broad political speech rights. (shrink)

Democracy is the form of government in which citizens have an equal say in political decision-making. But what does this mean precisely? Having an equal say is often defined either in terms of equal power to influence political decision-making or in terms of appropriate consideration, i.e., as a matter of attributing appropriate deliberative weight to citizens’ judgement in political decision-making. In this paper I argue that both accounts are incomplete. I offer an alternative view according to which having an equal (...) say is having a say as an equal. That is, having an equal say is to be defined in terms of citizens’ occupying a role of political decision-makers, i.e., the political office of the democratic co-ruler of the polity, such that no citizen is a secondary or auxiliary decision-maker; they rule together as equals. This view aligns with the traditional understanding of democracy as rule by the people while providing a coherent conceptual framework for specifying what it means for democratic citizens to have an equal say which incorporates the strengths of alternative accounts and overcomes some of their challenges. (shrink)

In recent years the view that the non-instrumental value of democracy is a relational value, particularly relational equality, gained prominence. In this paper I challenge this relational egalitarian version of non-instrumentalism about democracy’s value by arguing that it is unable to establish a strong enough commitment to democracy. I offer an alternative view according to which democracy is non-instrumentally valuable for it establishes relationships of mutual service among citizens by enlisting them in the collective project of ruling the polity justly (...) together which is a self-standing source of value for them. Relating in the mode of mutual service is not a species of relating as equals; it is a distinct relational value. Democracy is uniquely suited to realize this relational value, for it renders citizens co-authors of the fundamental rules of the system of social cooperation under which they live, and only as co-authors of these rules are they able to mutually serve each other in a way that is appropriate within their relationship as citizens of the same polity. For this reason, a strong commitment to democracy can be based on the relational value of mutual service, which therefore better fits the theoretical purposes of non-instrumentalism than relational equality. (shrink)

What is the moral value of formal democratic decision-making? Egalitarian accounts of democracy provide a powerful answer to this question. They present formal democratic procedures as a way for a society of equals to arrive at collective decisions in a transparent and mutually acceptable manner. More specifically, such procedures ensure and publicly affirm that all members of a political community, in their capacity as autonomous actors, are treated as equals who are able and have a right to participate in collective (...) decision-making. Recently, a number of authors have raised what I describe as the ‘no impact’ objection. This objection focuses on the egalitarian emphasis on autonomy to cast doubt on the moral value of formal democratic procedures. It holds that individual participation in formal democratic decision-making has no impact on the eventual result, and therefore cannot be understood as an exercise in autonomy. Consequently, the ‘no impact’ objection claims that the moral value of formal democracy cannot be explained with reference to an egalitarian ideal of ‘rule by the people’. In this article, I refute this objection by complementing an egalitarian account of democracy with an account of basic autonomy. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn Against Democracy, Jason Brennan argues that public ignorance undermines the legitimacy of democracy because, to the extent that ignorant voters make bad policy choices, they harm their own and one another’s interests. The solution, he thinks, is epistocracy, which would leave policy decisions largely in the hands of social-scientific experts or voters who pass tests of political knowledge. However, Brennan fails to explain why we should think that these putative experts are sufficiently knowledgeable to avoid making errors as damaging (...) as those made by voters. Given the strong link between political knowledge and ideological dogmatism, as well as the tendency of social scientists to disagree with one another, the case for epistocracy is deeply implausible, at best. Moreover, given that there are important non-instrumental justifications of democracy—justifications of which Brennan appears to be radically ignorant—the epistocratic alternative would be unnecessary even if it were viable. (shrink)

Brak transparentności procesów decyzyjnych typowy dla demokracji liberalnych oraz związany z nim kryzys zaufania obywateli wobec instytucji politycznych to jedne z głównych przyczyn sukcesów odnoszonych przez stronników demokracji nieliberalnej. Zdaniem krytyków liberalizmu zbyt wiele decyzji współcześnie delegowanych jest do ciał nienadzorowanych demokratycznie. Zwolennicy koncepcji demokracji deliberacyjnej formułują różne remedia na tę sytuację. Nie czynią tego jednak stronnicy najpopularniejszej obecnie z wersji demokracji deliberacyjnej – podejścia systemowego do deliberacji. Autor artykułu twierdzi, że podejście to może legitymizować „niedemokratyczny liberalizm” – jedną z (...) przyczyn kryzysu demokracji liberalnej. Celem artykułu jest prezentacja i ocena stosunku zwolenników podejścia systemowego do roli odgrywanej w procesie politycznym przez nienadzorowane demokratycznie gremia eksperckie. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to advance our understanding of the normative grammar of the concept of democracy by distinguishing two levels at which a political concept may play a normative function, a...

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

This paper has two interrelated goals. The first is to introduce a framework: oppositional democracy. The second is to use this framework to address what I see as a central problem that occurs when learning to teach: the moment when someone with power tells an aspiring teacher that something she hopes to accomplish is unrealistic. The framework of oppositional democracy helps us understand this problem while also suggesting responses that free an aspiring teacher to experiment in responsible ways, thereby empowering (...) her to work against practices she does not want to be complicit in perpetuating. (shrink)

Disagreement among philosophers over the proper justification for political institutions is far from a new phenomenon. Thus, it should not come as a surprise that there is substantial room for dissent on this matter within democratic theory. As is well known, instrumentalism and proceduralism represent the two primary viewpoints that democrats can adopt to vindicate democratic legitimacy. While the former notoriously derives the value of democracy from its outcomes, the latter claims that a democratic decision-making process is inherently valuable. This (...) article has two aims. First, it introduces three variables with which we can thoroughly categorise the aforementioned approaches. Second, it argues that the more promising version of proceduralism is extrinsic, rather than intrinsic, and that extrinsically procedural accounts can appeal to other values in the justification of democracy without translating into instrumentalism. This article is organised as follows. I present what I consider to be the ‘implicit view’ in the justification of democracy. Then, I analyse each of the three variables in a different section. Finally, I raise an objection against procedural views grounded in relational equality, which cannot account for the idea that democracy is a necessary condition for political legitimacy. (shrink)

ABSTRACTContrary to what some critics of epistemic democracy claim, the association between democracy and truth does not necessarily make the former inhospitable to conflict, contestation, and pluralism. With the help of John Stuart Mill and William James, truth can be interpreted so as to make it compatible with a democratic politics that appreciates conflict and dissent. In some circumstances, truth claims are politically relevant and should become the object of democratic deliberation.

In my article, I want to focus on the critique Cristina Lafont makes to expertocracy and epistocracy, mainly through the institution of judicial review, to which she dedicates chapter 7 and part of...

Democracy is crucially about inclusion: a theory of democracy must account for who is to be included in the democratic process, how, and on what terms. Inclusion, if conceived democratically, is fraught with tensions. This article identifies three such tensions, arising respectively in: (i) the inauguration of the democratic public; (ii) enabling equal participation; and (iii) the relationship between instrumental and non-instrumental accounts of democracy’s value. In each case, I argue, rather than seeking somehow to dissolve or avoid such tensions, (...) theories of democracy should allow us to live with their implications reflexively: to work with them. Such tensions are counter-democratic to the extent that they derail what Nancy Fraser calls “participatory parity,” under which citizens count as “full partners in social interaction.” But the extent to which they do this is not itself dependent on points of paradox in the very idea of inclusion. Such parity relies on complex factors, social and economic, which democratic institutions and procedures will not by themselves address. To achieve full democratic inclusion we must already have addressed such factors; no account of democracy itself, however finely-tuned, will do this. (shrink)

Who should be recognized as a refugee? This article seeks to uncover the normative arguments at the core of legal and philosophical conceptions of refugeehood. It identifies three analytically dist...

Who should be recognized as a refugee? This article seeks to uncover the normative arguments at the core of legal and philosophical conceptions of refugeehood. It identifies three analytically distinct approaches grounding the right to refugee status and argues that all three are normatively inadequate. Refugee status should neither be grounded in individual persecution for specific reasons (classical approach) nor in individual persecution for any discriminatory reasons (human rights approach). It should also not be based solely on harm (humanitarian approach). (...) Rather, this article argues, it should be based on political oppression – on persons lacking public autonomy, formally expressed as a lack of legal–political status. The normative foundation for a claim to refugee status lies in the inability of a person to control, amend and seek recourse to the specific situation she faces. It lies in the lack of public autonomy expressed as a lack of legal–political rights. What matters for a claim to refugee status is thus the legal–political disenfranchisement of a person, ultimately leaving her with no recourse to the particular situation she faces other than flight. Refugees, then, are not only those who fear harm or persecution, but those who are politically oppressed. (shrink)

In what follows, I consider two influential views about distributive justice: democratic equality and luck egalitarianism. In examining and criticizing these views, I attempt to extract elements from each of them for what I take to be important to building a complete conception of distributive justice. I then present and defend my own view, deliberative democratic equality, a view that can be described as a hybrid account of luck egalitarianism and democratic equality.

In this thesis I argue that Adam Smith is committed to moral egalitarianism, which extends to his theory of political economy. While Smith’s work is often used to justify economic inequality in society, I show that his political theory is best understood as a kind of relational egalitarianism. Using Elizabeth Anderson’s Democratic Equality as a model, I examine Smith’s commitment to equality in the space of social relationships. In particular, I argue that Smith’s focus on eliminating inequalities that cause oppression (...) in society in conjunction with his efforts to design a political and economic system that will yield social conditions of freedom for individuals make him a relational egalitarian. (shrink)

When are inequalities in political power undemocratic, and why? While some writers condemn any inequalities in political power as a deviation from the ideal of democracy, this view is vulnerable to the simple objection that representative democracies concentrate political power in the hands of elected officials rather than distributing it equally among citizens, but they are no less democratic for it. Building on recent literature that interprets democracy as part of a broader vision of social equality, I argue that concentrations (...) of political power are incompatible with democracy, and with a commitment to social equality more generally, when they consist in some having greater arbitrary power to influence decisions according to their idiosyncratic preferences. A novel account of the relationship between power and social status clarifies the role of social equality in the justification of democracy, including a representative democracy in which public officials have more political power than ordinary citizens. (shrink)

In this dissertation I explore the conceptual relationship between equality and resistance in political philosophy. Through examination of the work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Karl Marx, John Dewey, and Jacques Rancière, I formulate a position called Fractured Social Holism. This is a problematic that attempts to articulate core issues at stake in the debates surrounding the purposes, meanings, and possibilities for politics. Through Fractured Social Holism I articulate a theory of equality that emphasizes the communities upon which societys institutions intend to (...) distribute equality, arguing that resistance on the part of a populationgroup opposition, formal or informal, to some element of the societal status quoconceptually grounds equality and its distribution by articulating its very possibilities. My central questionHow is equality constituted?focuses on the community itself in order to shift agency from institutions that distribute equality to those who demand it. It emphasizes the active role of the people in the constitution of a community of equals, as well as the fact that the very notion of the people is what is at stake in that constitution; popular resistance challenges the very meaning and content of any given people. I understand equality in the broadest possible sense, in terms of the opportunity of each and all within society to participate in dictating the terms of their public engagement with that society and with others within it. I argue for the possibility of resistance within egalitarian community in Rousseau, the limits of what that resistance in egalitarian society looks like in Marx, how egalitarian communities can organize themselves in Dewey, and how subjectivity relates to mechanisms of resistance and political action within society in Rancière. These historical interpretations and the conceptual framework they engender provide a novel means of thinking about issues of paramount importance in contemporary political philosophy, including pluralism, oppression and domination, and the purposes and meaning of politics, remaining true to a normative vision of equality while insisting on the necessity of the peoples resistance to the status quo in the name of a re-imagined vision of social harmony. (shrink)