Liberal Principle Of Legitimacy Research Articles

Confucian meritocracy, political legitimacy and constitutional democracy

The article will argue that neither what may be called ‘multiple legitimacies’ nor what Leigh Jenco refers to as the hybrid view of legitimacy provides substantial guidance in reconceiving legitimacy in the increasingly pluralistic region of East Asia. Instead, a more helpful view of political legitimacy can be drawn from John Rawls’s liberal principle of legitimacy. I will demonstrate that Rawls’s classic formulation can be deprived of its liberal connotation by taking constitutional essentials as the source of legitimation for political authority. On the basis of this principle of pluralistic legitimacy, it will become clear that a pluralistic understanding of political legitimacy does not rule out Confucian meritocracy, but it does make a strong case for an antiperfectionist state, even if it might be nondemocratic.

The Notion of Good Life: A Dialogue on the Moral Foundations of Legitimacy

Political philosophers often grapple with the issue of the legitimacy of state coercion. Aristotle, a perfectionist, opines that all men hold an objective account of the good life. As regards legitimacy, he entails that state policies are justified only when all its members comprehend the value that has been identified in accordance with the true notion of good. Aristotle argues that the state should facilitate the encouragement of objectively valuable notions of the good. Ronald Dworkin, a neutralist, proposes a specific model of the good life so that one can live well. He holds that certain elements of the ethical conception lead to various notions of the good and, in matters of legitimacy, the state should be neutral towards the notion of good. This is so because A cannot make B’s life better by way of the coercive means of the state. This paper throws light on Aristotle’s and Dworkin’s dialogues on the moral foundations of legitimacy (conceived during their notion of the good life). Therefore, I argue that, in contrast to perfectionism, Dworkin justifies his liberal principle of legitimacy through the idea of state neutrality. But, eventually, Dworkin’s arguments overlook his ethical foundation or admissible towards perfectionism, which is emaciated enough to offer any justification for the principle of legitimacy.

“Most Reasonable for Humanity”: Legitimation Beyond the State

Legal and political philosophers of a normative bent face an uphill struggle in keeping themes of global justice and cosmopolitan governance, at the forefront of their disciplinary debate, given the perceived urgency of confronting, at the domestic level, the populist upsurge in mature democracies and “democratizing societies” alike. In this paper, these two levels of analysis—national and transnational—mutually enrich one another through a reflection on the ground of legitimacy. In the first section (“Perfectionism Redux”), (a) neo-perfectionist approaches to the legitimation of transnational authority (rooted in Kantian or Hegelian notions, or in some natural law conception of human rights) and (b) public reason approaches rooted in the paradigm of “political liberalism” will be contrasted. In the second section (“From Balance to Separation of Powers”), a non-perfectionist and normative conception of the legitimacy of transnational authorities will be derived from Rawls’s “liberal principle of legitimacy” (renamed “legitimation by constitution by F. Michelman) and the difference with the application of the same principle at the domestic level will be elucidated. In the third section (“Legitimacy and the Flourishing of Humanity: Buchanan and Keohane on Global Institutions”), on the basis of such conception, one of the most complete and influential approaches to the legitimacy of transnational authorities—i.e., the “Complex Standard of Legitimacy” expounded by A. Buchanan and R. Keohane in “The Legitimacy of Global Governance Institutions”—will be critically assessed.

What Are Basic Liberties?

Two moral powers are central to Rawls’s approach to specifying the basic liberties: the capacity for a sense of justice and the capacity for a conception of the good. The fundamental case in which the first capacity is exercised is in “the application of the principles of justice to the basic structure and its social policies”. The fundamental case in which the second capacity is exercised is in “forming, revising, and rationally pursuing such a conception over a complete life”. Rawls distinguishes between two phases of specification. In the first, a list of basic liberties is identified at a high level of abstraction. In the second, the significance of different particular liberties is determined and adjudication over conflicts between them occurs. Rawls’s complete account, we argue, defines as basic those liberties that are necessary to the provision of the social conditions essential for the full and informed exercise of the moral powers (first phase) in the two fundamental cases (second phase). We argue that this account excludes certain particular liberties that it should not: e.g., some forms of freedom of movement. We suggest that probability should take over the role assigned to necessity in Rawls’s account. On this approach also, however, some particular freedoms rightly regarded by Rawls as basic liberties do not meet the definition. To remedy this, we appeal to the liberal principle of legitimacy and we defend this move.

“Constitution (Written or Unwritten)”: Legitimacy and Legality in the Thought of John Rawls

AbstractJohn Rawls proposed, as what he called “the liberal principle of legitimacy,” that coercive exercises of political power can be justified to free and equal dissenters when “in accordance with a constitution (written or unwritten) the essentials of which all citizens, as reasonable and rational, can endorse.” Does “unwritten constitution” there refer to norms of constitutional import, but that subsist only as custom, not as law? To norms that subsist as common law but not as code law? To empirical regularities of political practice, as opposed to normative rules and standards? Which interpretation is best?

‘Constitution (Written or Unwritten)’: Legitimacy and Legality in the Thought of John Rawls

John Rawls proposed, as what he called “the liberal principle of legitimacy,” that coercive exercises of political power can be justified to free and equal dissenters when “in accordance with a constitution (written or unwritten) the essentials of which all citizens, as reasonable and rational, can endorse.” Does “unwritten constitution” there refer to norms of constitutional import, but that subsist only as custom, not as law? To norms that subsist as common law but not as code law? To empirical regularities of political practice, as opposed to normative rules and standards? Which interpretation is best?

Coercion, Stability, and Indoctrination in the Pejorative Sense

John Rawls argued in A Theory of Justice that ‘justice as fairness … is likely to have greater stability than the traditional alternatives since it is more in line with the principles of moral psychology' (TJ 399). In support, he presented a psychology of moral development that was informed by a comprehensive liberalism. In Political Liberalism, Rawls confessed that the argument was 'unrealistic and must be recast' (PL xix). Rawls, however, never provided a psychology of moral development informed by a specifically political liberalism, leaving it at a disadvantage with respect to comprehensive liberalism itself. I argue that no coherent account is available. But, because Rawls’s Liberal Principle of Legitimacy, along with its implied stricture against 'indoctrination in the pejorative sense', is a creature of ideal rather than non-ideal theory, the deficiency is far less significant than many would assume.

Evaluating the Legitimacy of Contemporary Legal Strategies for Obesity.

Contemporary legal strategies for obesity raise troubling questions regarding individual liberty and the legitimate scope of public health authority. This article argues that the predominant approach to assessing public health legitimacy--John Stuart Mill's "harm principle"--may be unsuitable for evaluating the legitimacy of legal strategies for obesity. The article proposes an alternative test for assessing the legitimate scope of public health authority: John Rawls's liberal principle of legitimacy. It outlines how Rawls's principle would evaluate obesity policies, and contrasts this evaluation to that of Mill. The alternative test avoids some of the limitations of the Millian approach, and may offer an improved mechanism for assessing the liberty effects of policies for obesity and other public health activities.

Coercion, Stability, and Indoctrination in the Pejorative Sense

John Rawls argued in A Theory of Justice that “justice as fairness…is likely to have greater stability than the traditional alternatives since it is more in line with the principles of moral psychology” (TJ 399). In support, he presented a psychology of moral development that was informed by a comprehensive liberalism. In Political Liberalism, Rawls confessed that the argument was “unrealistic and must be recast” (PL xix). Rawls, however, never provided a psychology of moral development informed by a specifically political liberalism, leaving it at a disadvantage with respect to comprehensive liberalism itself. I argue that no coherent account is available. But, because Rawls’s Liberal Principle of Legitimacy, along with its implied stricture against “indoctrination in the pejorative sense,” is a creature of ideal rather than non-ideal theory, the deficiency is far less significant than many would assume. In non-ideal circumstances -- such as ours -- political liberalism does not disallow, and in fact requires, compulsory, free early education informed by the best available comprehensive liberal philosophy.

Legitimacy of Law in a Liberal State: The Contours of Public Reason

In contemporary liberal philosophy, the idea of Public Reason is intimately tied up with the liberal principle of legitimacy which postulates that only those laws that are based upon arguments and reasons to which no members of the society have a rational reason to object can boast political legitimacy, and as such can be applied coercively even to those who actually disagree with them. In this working paper I suggest the ways of fine-tuning the idea of Public Reason in such a way as to make it more immune to its critics. In particular, I explain what specifically it means for Public Reason to be an exclusionary, second-order rule about the exclusion of reasons which can figure in justifications for law (Part 1), how we can plausibly claim that Public Reason may be thought to be a feasible political imperative in pluralistic societies (Part 2), what should be its scope of application, both in terms of the types of laws to which it applies and the actors who should be bound by it (Part 3), and what specifically is at stake if we see the status of Public Reason as a legitimacy-conferring device (Part 4).

Political liberalism and French national identity in the wake of the face-veiling law

AbstractPolitical liberalism suggests state power must be exercised and justified on terms all citizens can reasonably be expected to endorse, independently of their comprehensive identities or worldviews. For Rawls, a democratic community cannot be united by any shared ends or identities other than those connected with the political conception of justice itself. Republican political thought often seems to undermine this ‘liberal principle of legitimacy’ through its stronger demands of social cohesion and participative civic virtue. Conversely, however, it generally seeks to define citizenship independently of any non-political commonalities citizens might be assumed to share. This theoretical tension was reflected in recent French republican discourses on Islam, gender and national identity. France's recent prohibition on public face-veiling coincided with an officially orchestrated debate on national identity which seemed to challenge the traditional republican conception of national identity as a purely civic and political construct. While couched in republican terminologies, these recent discourses seemed to understand the principle oflaïcité, or constitutional secularism, as a bulwark for the pre-political dimensions of national identity. Accordingly, this article outlines how these discourses on religion and gender illuminated tensions and contradictions within the prevailing republican account of national identity.

Justice: Metaphysical, After All?

Political liberals, following Rawls, believe that justice should be ‘political’ rather than ‘metaphysical.’ In other words, a conception of justice ought to be freestanding from first-order moral and metaethical views. The reason for this is to ensure that the state’s coercion be justified to citizens in terms that meet political liberalism’s principle of legitimacy. I suggest that privileging a political conception of justice involves costs—such as forgoing the opportunity for political theory to learn from other areas of philosophy. I argue that it is not clear that it provides any benefit in return. Whether a political conception of justice more adequately satisfies the liberal principle of legitimacy than a metaphysical conception of justice is an open question. To show this, I describe three ways in which political conceptions of justice have been developed within the literature. I then argue that while each might be helpful in finding reasons that reasonable citizens can accept, all face challenges in satisfying the liberal principle of legitimacy. Political conceptions of justice confront the same set of justificatory problems as ‘metaphysical’ conceptions. The question of whether a political conception is preferable should receive greater scrutiny.

POLITICAL LIBERALISM, BASIC LIBERTIES, AND LEGAL PATERNALISM

abstractThis essay argues that neutral paternalism (NP) is problematic for antiperfectionist liberal theories. Section 2 raises textual evidence that Rawlsian liberalism does not oppose and may even support NP. In section 3, I cast doubt on whether NP should have a place in political liberalism by defending a partially comprehensive conception of the good I call “moral capacity at each moment,” or MCEM, that is inconsistent with NP. I then explain why MCEM is a reasonable conception on Rawls's account of reasonableness. In section 4, I handle concerns that showing NP fails the test of Rawlsian public justification is a nonstarter since NP does not threaten any of our basic liberties. I sketch an argument that, if this is so, the burden is on political liberalism to defend its particular account of basic liberties, since MCEM is reasonable on Rawlsian grounds. More precisely, MCEM is a conception that challenges the way Rawls characterizes basic liberties; that is, his list of basic liberties should be more inclusive by political liberalism's own structural commitments, including Rawls's “liberal principle of legitimacy.” On this revised account, political liberalism can mount a strong opposition to hard legal paternalism.

Civic respect, political liberalism, and non-liberal societies

One prominent criticism of John Rawls’s The Law of Peoples is that it treats certain non-liberal societies, what Rawls calls ‘decent hierarchical societies’, as equal participants in a just international system. Rawls claims that these non-liberal societies should be respected as equals by liberal democratic societies, even though they do not grant their citizens the basic rights of democratic citizenship. This is presented by Rawls as a consequence of liberalism’s commitment to the principle of toleration. A number of critics have claimed that Rawls’s treatment of these non-liberal societies is symptomatic of a more general problem with political liberalism, namely, its reliance on toleration as its ‘fundamental principle’. Against this view, I argue that the principle of toleration should not be understood as political liberalism’s ‘fundamental principle’. This is revealed through a consideration of the normative basis of what Rawls calls the ‘Liberal Principle of Legitimacy’. A correct understanding of political liberalism’s ‘fundamental principle’, which I claim is a principle of equal ‘civic respect’ for citizens, shows that Rawls’s toleration of non-liberal societies is in fact a misapplication of political liberalism to the global domain. Moreover, I explain that political liberalism must assert that the principle of equal civic respect for citizens is the correct principle to govern the public political relations of citizens in all pluralist societies, and that most ‘decent hierarchical societies’ are pluralist in nature. Identifying political liberalism’s fundamental principle as that of equal civic respect for citizens helps to render political liberalism, in both the domestic and international domains, a more coherent and compelling approach to thinking about fundamental political issues.

Constitutional Legitimation for Political Acts

The question of legal legitimacy, liberally understood, is that of whether anyone has a morally justified complaint about impressment into compliance with a particular law or set of laws. A good constitution may possibly contribute towards a liberally legitimate practice of national politics. This essay is concerned with one way in which a constitution, no matter how excellent, cannot thus contribute. We cannot use judgments regarding constitutionality to bridge the gap that must always exist between judgments regarding the validity of controversial laws and judgments regarding their legitimacy. We cannot hope to solve in that ‘contractual’ or ‘procedural’ way the riddle of government by consent in modern social conditions of deep ethical plurality and conflict, because we cannot successfully combine a proceduralist idea of constitutional legitimacy with a content‐based conception of the binding virtue for constitutions.[O]ur exercise of political power is proper and hence justifiable only when it is exercised in accordance with a constitution the essentials of which all citizens may reasonably be expected to endorse in the light of principles and ideals acceptable to them as reasonable and rational. This is the liberal principle of legitimacy.1

Political Disagreement, Legitimacy, and Civility

For many contemporary liberal political philosophers the appropriate response to the facts of pluralism is the requirement of public reasonableness, namely that individuals should be able to offer to their fellow citizens reasons for their political actions that can generally be accepted. This article finds wanting two possible arguments for such a requirement: one from a liberal principle of legitimacy and the other from a natural duty of political civility. A respect in which conversational restraint in the face of political agreement involves incivility is sketched.The proceduralist view which commends substantive disagreement within agreement on procedures is briefly outlined, as is the possible role for civic virtue on this view.

Distinkt, aber nicht illegitim

Abstract The author examines three models of protestant ethics (St. Hauerwas, E. Herms, J. Fischer) asking the following questions: how do they conceive the distinctive character of the christian ethos, how do they understand the relationship between christian ethos and public sphere and are they capable of refusing the liberal demand for self-restriction. All of these models can be interpreted as attempts to describe the distinctive feature of the christian ethos as something which is an essential element all moralities have in common. Although the autor regards the intuist model as the most plausible, he argues that it is not able to reject the liberal demand for self-restriction. Therefore, this challenge can be met only by demonstrating that the restriction of religious and other comprehensive doctrines does not necessarily follow from the liberal principle of legitimacy. The author outlines how this can done be done.