We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2020
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.’
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.
4 Waldron, Jeremy Law and Disagreement (Oxford: Blackwell 1999), 61CrossRefGoogle Scholar
5 Gaus, G. ‘Public Justification and Democratic Adjudication,’ Constitutional Political Economy 2 (1991), 251CrossRefGoogle Scholar
6 Kymlicka, Will ‘Education for Citizenship’ in his Politics in the Vernacular: Nationalism, Multiculturalism and Citizenship (Oxford: Blackwell 2002), 296–7Google Scholar
7 Macedo, Stephen Liberal Virlues, Citizenship, Virtue and Community in Liberal Constitutionalism (Oxford: Blackwell 1990), 40–1.Google Scholar
8 Rawls, John ‘Reply to Habermas,’ The Journal of Philosophy 92 (1995), 146Google Scholar
9 Simmons, A. John ‘Justification and Legitimacy,’ Ethics 109 (1999) 739–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar offers a contrast between Lockean and Kantian approaches to the question of the relationship between the justification of the State and State legitimacy. But he does not address the general issue of political reasonability. Nor does he look at the relationships between justifying reasons, consent, and treating the other as a means to one's political ends.
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
18 Waldron, Jeremy ‘Theoretical Foundations of Liberalism,’ in his Collected Papers 1981-1991 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1993), 50Google Scholar
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.
30 Simmons, A.J. Moral Principles and Political Obligations (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1979), 79–80Google Scholar
31 Malm, H. ‘The Ontological Status of Consent and Its Implications for the Law On Rape,’ Legal Theory 2 (1996), 148–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar
32 Q must at least give informed consent and if Q's ‘reasons’ bespeak Q's lack of rationality then she is thereby incapable of giving consent.
33 Nagel, Thomas Equality and Partiality (New York: Oxford University Press 1991), 33Google Scholar
34 ‘On the Common Saying: “This May be True in Theory, but it does not Apply in Practice”’ in Kant Political Writings, Nisbet, H.B. trans., and Reiss, Hans ed., with an Introduction and Notes, 2nd Enlarged Edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1991), 74Google Scholar
35 Taylor, Charles ‘Kant's Theory of Freedom’ in his Philosophy and the Human Sciences. Philosophical Papers II (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1985), 337CrossRefGoogle Scholar
36 ‘On the Common Saying,’ 73
37 The Metaphysics of Marals, Gregor, Mary trans. and ed., with an Introduction by Sullivan, Roger J. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1996), 6:237Google Scholar
38 Ibid., 6:316
39 Taylor, ‘Kant's Theory of Freedom,’ 318 & 329
40 Weinstock, Daniel M. ‘Natural Law and Public Reason in Kant's Political Philosophy,’ Canadian Journal of PMosophy 26 (1996), 392Google Scholar
41 The Metaphysics of Marals, ‘The Doctrine of Right,’ Part I Private Right, Ch. 1
42 ‘On the Common Saying,’ 73
43 The Metaphysics of Morals, 6:230
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
55 The Metaphysics of Morals, 6:230
56 Dworkin, Ronald ‘The Original Position,’ in Daniels, Norman ed., Reading Rawls, Critical Studies on Rawls's A Theory of Justice (Oxford: Blackwell 1975), 18Google Scholar
57 Rawls, John Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press 1993), 217Google Scholar
58 O'Neill, Onora ‘Political Liberalism and Public Reason: A Critical Notice of John Rawls, Political Liberalism,’ The Philosophical Review 106 3 (1997), 416 & 422Google Scholar
59 Nagel, Thomas ‘Moral Conflict and Political Legitimacy,’ Philosophy & Public Affairs 16 (1987), 217Google Scholar and n.8
60 Reiman, Jeffrey Justice and Modern Political Philosophy (New Haven, CT: Harvard University Press 1990), 2Google Scholar
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.
