Democracy out of Reason? Comment on Rainer Forst's "The Rule of Reasons"

Ratio Juris 14 (4):379-389 (2001)
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Abstract

In my paper, I comment on Rainer Forst's paper in this issue. I raise doubts as to whether the justification of democracy emerges from a fundamental moral right to reciprocal and general justification, as Forst claims. His basic argument appears questionable because democracy is different from a “hypothetical‐consent‐conception” of moral legitimacy, which limits as well as enables democratic legitimacy. The former cannot, however, justify the latter through an argument centered on self‐government: Such an argument relies heavily on the possibility of consensus, thus neglecting the crucial phenomenon of disagreement or dissent. As a result of not adequately dealing with this phenomenon, the argument is unable to account for the basic democratic principle of majority rule as the remedy at hand.

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Stefan Gosepath
Freie Universität Berlin

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