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Political Reasonability

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

David Archard
David Archard*
Affiliation:
Institute for Environment, Philosophy and Public Policy, Lancaster University, Bailrigg, Lancaster, UKLA1 4YW
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Extract

According to Stephen Macedo, ‘[liberal], democratic politics is not only about individual rights and limited government, it is also about justification… political justification… understood politically.’ ‘Political justification,’ he asserts, ‘is a core liberal goal.’ Gerald Gaus, similarly, writes that the ‘idea of public justification is at the heart of a contractual liberalism.’ Very many other contemporary political philosophers believe that the politics of a liberal polity must be justifiable to its Citizens. In what follows I shall seek to understand the basis for such a belief and, in particular, to expose two possible sources in the views of Locke and Kant. Neither source, I shall argue, provides any warrant for the demand in question. First the bald claim — that the politics of a polity needs justifying — must be unpacked. By way of initial clarification I shall say something about, respectively, ‘justification’ and ‘politics.’

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 35 , Issue 1 , March 2005 , pp. 1 - 25
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2005

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References

1 Macedo, Stephen ‘The Politics of Justification,’ Political Theory 18 (1990), 280 & 298CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Gaus, G. Value and Justification: The Foundations of Liberal Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1990), 456CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Note that I am probably also required to give you reasons for those of my actions that adversely affect you but which do not fall within the political sphere — for instance, the action of assaulting you in the privacy of your home. I am accountable to others for some at least of my non-political acts. What is at issue is the fundamental distinction between ‘public’ or political acts, and private non-political acts. It should not be thought that we are accountable to others only for the former.

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10 Locke, John Two Treatises of Government, A Critical Edition with an Introduction and Apparatus Criticus by Peter Laslett (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1960), II, §95Google Scholar

11 Ibid., II, §54

12 Ibid., II, §3

13 Ibid., II, §86

14 Ibid., II, §127

15 Ibid., II, §123

16 Ibid, II §6

17 Ibid., II §19

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19 Locke, §121

20 Gough, J.W. John Locke's Political Philosophy, 2nd Edition (Oxford: Blackwell 1973), 6.Google Scholar This quotation implies that consent is still in the car but not driving. It might be more accurate to comment that consent isn't even along for the ride.

21 Locke, §96

22 Ibid. §132

23 Ibid. §87, §95, §96, §99, §130

24 Ibid. §98

25 Ibid., §101-5

26 Ibid., §119

27 Ibid., §122

28 Locke, §96

29 I might of course be thought under an Obligation to give my fellow Citizens reasons why I am not voting if I choose to abstain from participating in the democratic process.

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38 Ibid., 6:316

39 Taylor, ‘Kant's Theory of Freedom,’ 318 & 329

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44 Ibid., ‘Introduction to the Doctrine of Right,’ §C and §D

45 ‘On the Common Saying,’ 79

46 ‘What is Enlightenment?’ in Kant Political Writings, 57

47 ‘On the Common Saying,’ 77

48 Ibid., 79

49 Ibid.

50 Ibid., 80-1

51 Daniel M. Weinstock, ‘Natural Law and Public Reason in Kant's Political Philosophy,’ 402-3

52 The Metaphysics of Mords, 6:320

53 Ibid. 6:319

54 ‘Kant's Theory of Freedom,’ 330

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61 Rawls, John A Theory of Justice (Oxford: Blackwell 1971), 179.Google Scholar Compare the weaker requirement that one be ‘prepared to give reasons for our actions whenever the interests of others are materially affected’ and to present the ‘other with considerations that enable him to accept the constraints on his conduct’ (ibid., 337-8).

62 Earlier versions of this paper have been read at Essex University, Glasgow University, the Oxford Political Thought Conference, and a meeting of the Irish Philosophical Club. I have benefited greatly from the comments of those present at these talks, especially Tom Sorell, Simon Critchley, Mark Sacks, Katrin Flikschuh, Andrew Lockyer, Dudley Knowles, Mike Lesnoff, Jerry Cohen, Christopher McKnight, and Alan Weir. My thanks also to two anonymous referees of this Journal for some suggested improvements.