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Justice, Disagreement and Democracy

Abstract

Is democracy a requirement of justice or an instrument for realizing it? This article argues that the correct answer to this question depends on the background circumstances against which democracy is defended. In the presence of thin reasonable disagreement about justice, we should value democracy only instrumentally (if at all); in the presence of thick reasonable disagreement about justice, we should value it also intrinsically, as a necessary demand of justice. Since the latter type of disagreement is pervasive in real-world politics, the conclusion is that theories of justice designed for our world should be centrally concerned with democracy.

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COPYRIGHT: © Cambridge University Press 2012
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University College, London (email: l.valentini@ucl.ac.uk). The author is grateful to the participants at the UCHV Fellows’ Seminar (Princeton), the conference ‘Justice: Between Ideals and Reality’ (Frankfurt), the CPSA Annual Convention (Montreal), the workshop on ‘Justice and Equality’ (Exeter), and the Workshop on Federalism, Security and Democracy (McGill, Montreal) for discussion. Many thanks also to Sara Amighetti, Enrico Biale, Emanuela Ceva, Zsuzsanna Chappell, Thomas Christiano, David Estlund, Nannerl Keohane, Cécile Laborde, Patti Lenard, Andrew Lister, Joseph Mazor, Valeria Ottonelli, Alan Patten, Philip Pettit, Anna Stilz and Patrick Tomlin for their detailed comments on previous versions of this article. Finally, the author is especially grateful to Hugh Ward and the anonymous reviewers of this article for their constructive criticisms and suggestions, and to Christian List for his feedback and continued encouragement.

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This list contains references from the content that can be linked to their source. For a full set of references and notes please see the PDF or HTML where available.

Keith Dowding , Robert E. Goodin and Carol Pateman , eds, Justice and Democracy: Essays for Brian Barry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004)
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Cécile Fabre , ‘The Dignity of Rights’, Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, 20 (2000), 271–282
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Alvin I. Goldman , ‘Experts: Which Ones Should You Trust?’ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 63 (2001), 85–110
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Robert B. Talisse , Democracy and Moral Conflict (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009)
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Christian List , ‘Two Concepts of Agreement’, The Good Society, 11 (2002), 72–79
Tom Campbell , ‘Review of The Constitution of Equality’, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 89 (2011), 169–171
Allan Gibbard , ‘Manipulability of Voting Schemes: A General Result’, Econometrica, 41 (1973), 587–601
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Laura Valentini , ‘On the Apparent Paradox of Ideal Theory’, Journal of Political Philosophy, 17 (2009), 332–355
Cf. David Miller , ‘Two Ways to Think about Justice’, Politics, Philosophy and Economics, 1 (2002), 5–28
Cf. Miriam Ronzoni and Laura Valentini , ‘On the Meta-Ethical Status of Constructivism: Reflections on G.A. Cohen's “Facts and Principles”’, Politics, Philosophy & Economics, 7 (4) (2008), 403–422
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British Journal of Political Science
  • ISSN: 0007-1234
  • EISSN: 1469-2112
  • URL: /core/journals/british-journal-of-political-science
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