The Impossibility of Liberal Rights in a Diverse World

Terrorism and Political Violence, 1995

Studia nad Autorytaryzmem i Totalitaryzmem, 2021

The last decade has exposed the recession of freedom throughout the world. It arises from the latest Freedom in the World 2020 report that civil liberties and political rights have deteriorated in 64 countries, while only 37 have seen a slight improvement in these areas. The principles of liberal democracy (the rule of law, free elections, minority rights and freedom of expression) in Europe, historically the best-performing region in terms of freedom in the world, have come under serious pressure in recent years. In the article, starting from an analysis of the categories of freedom presented in many aspects, followed by a discussion of the assumptions and concepts of liberalism, as well as the political project referred to as non-liberal democracy, which has grown out of their criticism, the author identifi es the problem of instrumentalization and relativization of freedom, which leads to the restriction of freedom of speech, freedom of minorities, religious freedom and sexual freedom, replacing the individual freedoms of the citizens with the so-called collective freedom.

Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 1982

Reprinted with the permission of the author and Columbia University Press. good that is acceptable to all citizens. According to some, the results of social choice theory led to a critique of populism. 6 These two developments, one sociological and the other economic, were the two main sources for liberal democratic theory up to 1970. The central motifs of these lines of research also had an impact on constitutional theory. In this context, the pluralist model of democracy proposed by Robert Dahl and others provided an inºuential framework for interpreting Madisonian democracy. Dahl was interested in the social conditions under which egalitarian democratic ideals could be approximately realized in complex industrialized societies. In line with James Madison's Federalist Paper no. 10, he identiªed competition among group interests as a crucial condition for democracy. Although Dahl's decentralized, "polyarchal" version of pluralism shed much of Schumpeter's elitism, it retained the emphasis on competition, interests, and voting. 7 This climate was a rather inhospitable one for conceptions of public deliberation about a common good. Although other theorists, such as John Dewey and Hannah Arendt, were prominent in postwar political theory, the competitive-pluralist trend only began to reverse itself in the late 1960s. This reversal can be traced, at least in part, to broad dissatisfaction with the debacles and anonymity of liberal government (e.g., the war in Vietnam and the increasing perception that decision making in government was bureaucratic and beyond the control of citizens). More speciªcally, leftist political activism, with its emphasis on participatory democracy, sparked renewed interest in the possibilities for consensual forms of self-government. 8 The theoretical critique of liberal democracy and revival of participatory politics gradually developed through the 1970s. 9 It was only in the 1980s, however, that a concept of deliberative democracy began to take deªnite shape. The term "deliberative democracy" seems to have been ªrst coined by Joseph Bessette, who argued against elitist (or "aristocratic") interpretations of the Constitution. 10 Bessette's challenge joined the chorus of voices calling for a participatory view of democratic politics. These theorists questioned the key assumptions underlying the earlier economic and pluralist models: that politics should be understood mainly in terms of a conºict of competing interests-and thus in terms more of bargaining than xii Introduction respond only to power? The key to his solution lies in the internal relation between the exercise of political power and the rule of law: in constitutional regimes, government ofªcials are at least constrained by the arguments and reasons that have held up in the public sphere. Insofar as a broadly dispersed, "subjectless communication" among citizens is allowed to develop in autonomous public spheres and enter into receptive representative bodies with formal decision-making power, the notion of popular sovereignty-a democratically self-organizing society-is not beyond the pale of feasibility. Models such as Habermas's differ from updated republicanism and rights-based liberalism by elaborating an idealized deliberative procedure as its point of departure. In the next two essays, Joshua Cohen and John Rawls try to work out the philosophical details of a conception of political justiªcation based on deliberation and public reason. The third essay in part 1, Joshua Cohen's "Deliberation and Democratic Legitimacy," provides a good example of how such an ideal proceduralism could be elaborated. Like Habermas, Cohen deªnes political legitimacy in relation to an ideal consensus: "outcomes are democratically legitimate if and only if they could be the object of a free and reasoned agreement among equals." 14 Similar to Elster in his discussion of the constraints of the forum, Cohen maintains that the orientation toward reasoned agreement should constrain citizens to focus their proposals on the common good. But Cohen takes a step beyond Elster by specifying procedural standards, such as freedom and lack of coercion and the formal and substantive equality of participants, designed to preserve autonomy and guard against objectionable deliberative outcomes. Cohen then goes on to argue that his ideal procedure provides a suitable model for democratic institutions, one that should be broadly acceptable, stable, just, and institutionally feasible, given the proper mediating structures (such as voting and party competition). As Cohen has argued elsewhere, an ideal procedural model provides the basis for an "epistemic" interpretation of democratic outcomes. 15 This interpretation presupposes that deliberation involves xv Introduction Reason, Politics, and Justiªcation: The Process, Conditions, and Goal of Deliberation The essays in part 2 continue the work of specifying the details of the ideal of deliberative democracy. They primarily address controversies that have emerged after the initial statements of Elster, xvii Introduction Deliberative Democracy as a Substantive Ideal: Equality, Pluralism, and Liberty The remaining essays by Knight and Johnson, Bohman, Richardson, Young, and Cohen concern more substantive issues about the process and conditions necessary for deliberative democracy: political equality, cultural difference, the formation of joint intentions, and the role of the substantive liberal and egalitarian values that inform deliberative procedures. Taken together, they show not only the variety of positions within deliberative theory, but also the robustness of the deliberative ideal in dealing with the problems facing contemporary democracy. Rather than focusing on the outcome of deliberation, Bohman and Knight and Johnson take up the most fundamental condition of deliberation for either epistemic or nonepistemic versions: political equality. Both essays develop substantive conceptions that attempt to go beyond merely building equality into procedures, ideal or otherwise. Certainly, procedural equality, understood as the equality of opportunity to participate in political decision making, is crucial for democratic legitimacy. But deliberative democracy also requires elaborating the substantive aspects of political equality appropriate to its particular ideal. Whereas for Knight and Johnson this is "equal opportunity of access to political inºuence," for Bohman it is "equally effective social freedom." In order to develop procedural aspects of equality, Knight and Johnson turn to analogies to the axioms of social choice theory; Bohman, by contrast, develops this aspect of political equality in terms of Habermas's ideal speech situation where all have equal opportunity to speak. But the main innovation in both essays is to develop the more substantive account in which the work of Amartya Sen on "capability equality" is the primary inspiration. 25 Knight and Johnson argue that this approach has considerable advantages over the Rawlsian approach and answer objections put forward by Cohen that the resource-based account is more practically useful. However, they see problems with Sen's xxiii Introduction of group-based identities in the decision-making process, deliberative democracy will be blind to sources of inequality and asymmetries of power. Adding to her previous work on "group differentiated citizenship," Young argues here that making groups (rather than individuals) the subjects of deliberation has distinct epistemic advantages. These advantages follow from her nonessentialist understanding of social groups as occupying different, relational positions, each with its own particular social perspective. Critical public discussion ought to be about the expression and exchange of different social perspectives, so that each can be transformed into a more reºective and objective social judgment. Deliberation is thus the mutual openness and accountability of different groups to each other's perspectives, each of which is committed to thinking from the standpoint of everyone else. Young makes communication across differences essential to the creation of a wider and potentially shared perspective that is infused with the comprehensive social knowledge derived from the situated knowledge of every particular social group. Difference is thus "a resource" (and not just a burden) for democratic communication among and across various groups, the outcome of which is the more comprehensive and effective form of social knowledge. Given the intense scrutiny to which Joshua Cohen's work has been submitted in this volume, it is only ªtting that it end with an essay by him. Here Cohen gives a revised general statement of the deliberative conception, showing how "the fact of reasonable pluralism" xxv Introduction provides a way to give concrete shape to the conception of citizens as free and equal. Deliberative democracy, he argues, is not merely based on a procedural conception of justiªcation. Rather, it establishes a substantive conception of politics, containing a very speciªc interpretation of egalitarian and liberal values of rights and liberties. Under reasonable pluralism, citizens are free to the extent that they do not have to share some particular religious or moral doctrine; they are equal to the extent that "each is recognized as having the capacities required for participating in discussion aimed at authorizing the exercise of power." Using Rawls's terminology, the idealized procedure is still a model characterization of free reasoning among equals, the features of which can be built into institutions. The added norm of reasonableness is the crucial addition to the model that he develops in "Deliberation and Democratic Legitimacy." This assumption is strongly challenged by Knight and Johnson, Gaus, Young, and Christiano as an inadequate normative basis for settling problems of difference. Its main use for Cohen is to...

Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 2014

Few would disagree that contemporary society is characterized by 'pluralism', but what this means is widely disputed. Among the many senses of pluralism current in contemporary political theory, 'value pluralism' is one of the most keenly contested. The classic account is found in Isaiah Berlin, who sees basic human values as irreducibly multiple, often conflicting, and sometimes incommensurable with one another. 1 Berlin seems in general to have believed that the pluralist outlook has an affinity of some sort with liberalism, although he does not make it clear what this affinity is. Other value pluralists, such as John Gray and John Kekes, have tried to sever pluralism from liberalism, instead proposing connections between pluralism and forms of conservatism or modus vivendi. In Kekes's view, the true message of pluralism is that choice among rival incommensurable goods can be resolved rationally only by appeal to the relevant society's established traditions (Kekes 1993, 1997). A problem here is that traditions often conflict. Consequently, John Gray believes, we need to replace or supplement tradition with modus vivendi: the adherents of competing conventions will have to compromise in order to achieve the peaceful resolution that is in everyone's interests (Gray 2000). Such a compromise will not necessarily be liberal. This too has its problems, since modus vivendi seems to privilege the goal of peace, which for the pluralist can be only one consideration among others. Liberal pluralists have proposed various ways of re-establishing the link between pluralism and liberalism. In this paper I focus on what I call 'the diversity argument', the claim that value pluralism implies a commitment to a diversity of values that is best made possible, within a given society, by liberalism. 2 This, too, has met with several objections, but I argue that these can be resisted. I begin by setting out the basic terms of Berlinian value pluralism, emphasizing the Ethic Theory Moral Prac

We study and characterize axiomatically a class of voting rules, called consent rules, that incorporate aspects of majoritarianism and liberalism. An outcome of the vote specifies who among the voters are eligible to a certain right or qualification. Each outcome serves also as a permissible ballot. Consent rules are parameterized by the weights given to individuals in determining their own qualification. In one of these rules, the liberal rule, each individual's qualification is determined by her. In other rules, an individual's qualification requires social consent in various degrees. We also show the relation between self-determination and the liberal rule. r

Abstract The main goal of this dissertation is to present an interpretation of what it should mean for a society to fulfil the ideals of freedom and equality. I argue that society should equalise levels of individual freedom. I defend this thesis in three stages, which are associated to the three parts of the dissertation. Part (A) is devoted to the elaboration of a new conception of freedom. The objective is to rehabilitate the intuitive idea that associates individual freedom with the ability to do or be what one wants. In chapter 1, I engage with the analytical literature on freedom and develop a conception of freedom according to which individuals are free overall to the extent that they have the specific freedoms they authentically prefer, where a specific freedom is defined by the probability that the agent will realise a phenomenon. The extent of one’s freedom is thus made to depend on how reality relates to what one authentically wants it to be. In chapter 2, I offer a method for the measurement of freedom so conceived. According to this method, a person’s level of overall freedom is obtained by multiplying the physical extent of her actual specific freedoms by the evaluative extent to which these actual specific freedoms correspond to her authentically preferred ones. In part (B), I defend the claim that a strictly and continuously equal distribution of this individual freedom is the best embodiment of moral equality. Firstly, in chapter 3, I argue that freedom is a better egalitarian currency than welfare, resources, capabilities and pluralist alternatives because freedom’s anti-perfectionism, anti-fetishism and flexibility make it an optimal tool for the pursuit of any life plan. Freedom supports equally moral persons regardless of the ends they require, the means they need or the relative value they assign to these means. Secondly, in chapter 4, I defend strict and continuous equality as a distributive criterion over time. I show that efficiency-based and responsibility-based arguments in favour of inequalities are incompatible with the equal respect owed to moral persons. As long as individuals qualify as moral persons, they are owed equal respect and hence equal amounts of overall freedom. Thirdly, I address the famous claim according to which freedom and equality are conflicting ideals. I argue that this claim either stems from mistaking a conceptual distinction between a currency and a distributive criterion as a conflict of ideals, or expresses deeper disagreement over the meaning of freedom or the role of aggregative considerations in moral distributions. In any case, the claim is seriously weakened if not entirely destroyed. Parts (A) and (B) form the ideal theory of Equal Freedom. In part (C), which is constituted by chapter 5, I try to show how this ideal theory can guide us in nonideal circumstances. Firstly, I suggest a model to understand the relation between ideal and nonideal theory. I argue that nonideal theory is best understood as involving the maximisation of the realisation of the ideal under feasibility constraints and moral constraints imposed by the very nature of the ideal. Secondly, I apply this model to Equal Freedom. The main result is a radically egalitarian balance between concerns for feasibility, relative and absolute levels of overall freedom. Thirdly, I discuss in more detail policy strategies and proposals to equalise freedom in nonideal circumstances. As an example, I assess the desirability and feasibility of a ‘right to be heard’, which is an enforceable right given to employees that provides them with a capacity to alter their workplace environment in accordance with their life plans. This evaluation concludes my defence of Equal Freedom as the core of a theory of social justice. Résumé Le principal objectif de cette thèse est de présenter une interprétation de ce que devrait être une société qui réalise les idéaux de liberté et d’égalité. J’y défends l’idée selon laquelle une telle société devrait égaliser la liberté individuelle. Cette défense s’articule en trois moments, qui correspondent aux trois parties de la thèse. La partie (A) est consacrée à l’élaboration d’une nouvelle conception de la liberté. Il s’agit de réhabiliter l’intuition qui associe la liberté individuelle à la capacité de faire ou d’être ce que l’on veut. Dans le chapitre 1, je me sers de la littérature analytique portant sur la liberté pour développer une conception de la liberté selon laquelle les individus sont libres dans la mesure où ils possèdent les libertés spécifiques qu’ils préfèrent authentiquement, considérant qu’une liberté spécifique se définit par la probabilité qu’un agent réalisera un phénomène. L’étendue de la liberté d’une personne dépend donc du degré de correspondance entre la réalité et ses préférences authentiques portant sur la réalité. Dans le chapitre 2, je propose une méthode pour mesurer cette liberté. Selon cette méthode, le niveau de liberté globale d’une personne s’obtient en multipliant l’étendue physique de ses libertés spécifiques actuelles par le degré de correspondance entre la valeur de ces libertés spécifiques et celle des libertés qu’elle préfère authentiquement. Dans la partie (B), je défends l’idée qu’une égalisation stricte et continue de cette liberté individuelle est la meilleure interprétation de l’égalité morale. Premièrement, dans le chapitre 3, je suggère que la liberté est une meilleure unité de comparaison pour l’égalitarisme que le bien-être, les ressources, les capabilités et les alternatives pluralistes car son anti-perfectionnisme, son anti-fétichisme et sa flexibilité en font un outil optimal pour la poursuite de tout plan de vie. La liberté offre en effet un soutien égal aux personnes morales sans égard aux fins qu’elles poursuivent, aux moyens qu’elles requièrent ou à la valeur relative qu’elles accordent à ces moyens. Deuxièmement, au chapitre 4, je propose l’égalité stricte et continue comme critère s’appliquant aux distributions ayant une dimension temporelle. Je montre que les arguments qui justifient des inégalités en se fondant sur des considérations d’efficacité ou de responsabilité sont incompatibles avec l’égal respect qui est dû aux personnes morales. Tant et aussi longtemps que des individus se qualifient comme personnes morales, on leur doit un égal respect et par conséquent, des quantités égales de liberté globale. Troisièmement, je traite de la fameuse idée selon laquelle la liberté et l’égalité sont des idéaux qui s’opposent. Je soutiens que cette idée découle soit d’une méprise concernant la distinction conceptuelle entre une unité de comparaison et un critère distributif, ou d’un désaccord plus profond portant sur le sens de la liberté ou le rôle de considérations agrégatives dans la détermination des distributions morales. Dans tous les cas, cette idée en sort sérieusement affaiblie sinon complètement anéantie. Les parties (A) et (B) constituent la théorie idéale d’Égale liberté. Dans la partie (C), qui est formée du chapitre 5, je tente de montrer comment cette théorie idéale peut nous guider dans des circonstances non-idéales. Premièrement, je suggère un modèle pour comprendre la relation entre la théorie idéale et la théorie non-idéale. Je soutiens que la théorie non-idéale doit être comprise comme impliquant la maximisation de la réalisation de l’idéal moyennant le respect des contraintes de faisabilité ainsi que des contraintes morales imposées par la nature même de l’idéal. Deuxièmement, j’applique ce modèle à l’idéal d’Égale liberté. Le résultat principal de cette application est un équilibre radicalement égalitaire entre l’importance à accorder à la faisabilité, aux niveaux relatifs ainsi qu’aux niveaux absolus de liberté globale. Troisièmement, je discute plus en détail de stratégies et de propositions de politiques publiques pouvant égaliser la liberté dans des circonstances non-idéales. En guise d’exemple, j’évalue la désirabilité et la faisabilité d’un « droit d’être entendu », qui est un droit destiné aux employés afin de leur offrir une capacité de modifier leur environnement de travail en conformité avec leur plan de vie. Cette évaluation conclut ma défense d’Égale liberté en tant que composante essentielle d’une théorie de la justice sociale.

International Journal of Research in Social Sciences, 2019

Article History Published Online: In modern civilization, an academic discussion on the idea of Rights is essential because its core principles ascertain humans as independent and sovereign. This paper, in the view of the significance of rights in a human being"s life, discusses the idea of rights and focuses on two questions that ask what is the purpose of rights and who is entitled to have rights. To explore the possible answers, this paper discusses different perspectives that have evolved with political thinking. While doing so, the paper argues that in the modern States, rights are introduced and discussed as a common consensus and their objective is to attain a common good. In order to keep the rights as a common consent, this paper argues to realize and endorse rights above the division of self and others. In view of this stance, this paper discusses rights with reference to three ideas. The first sheds light on the fact that rights are interests of individuals that are collective in nature. The second pinpoints that rights are benefits and as individual benefits, they are basically to be enjoyed by the entire community. Lastly, the third idea of this paper underlines that rights are entitled to attain individual welfare which includes the welfare of all as commons.

Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 2017

2011

This essay would not have been possible without the comments of Professor Stephen Ellenburg and Professor Preston Smith and without the help of Professor Lois Brown, who agreed to be my third reader. My gratitude goes to Professor Stephen Ellenburg in particular for the precious lessons I have learnt from him, for his invaluable teaching, and for his support and suggestions as I was writing this essay.

Journal of Political Philosophy, 1995

Theoria: A Journal of Social and Political Theory, 2014

European Journal of Political Research, 1993

Schumpeter argued that the norms of what he called the 'classical' theory were unrealisable within modern societies and offered what he believed to be a more realistic alternative. However, his critics accuse him of confusing 'is' with 'ought'. This paper seeks to save him from this criticism. It shows that Schumpeter's attack on the classical model rested on a correct appraisal of the constraints on individual autonomous action within modern societies. Unlike the 'competitive theory' of Downs and others, Schurnpeter's own alternative cannot be treated as a naive apologia for contemporary parliametary party democracy. He was well aware that such systems easily degenerate into oligopolies. Indeed he welcomed this development, viewing the party elections as means for moulding rather than responding to the people's will. Nevertheless, a series of procedural norms underlay his theory which are elucidated with reference to Wittgenstein's account of language.

Crisis and Quality of Democracy in Eastern Europe, M. Jovanovic, D. Pavicevic (ed.), Eleven International Publishing 2012, 2012

Overview In the last chapter, we saw how power can be distributed to accommodate linguistic and regional diversities. But language and region are not the only features that give a distinct identity to people. Sometimes, people also identify themselves and relate with others on the basis of their physical appearance, class, religion, gender, caste, tribe, etc. In this chapter, we study how democracy responds to social differences, divisions and inequalities. We begin with an example of public expression of social divisions. We then draw some general lessons about how social differences can take various forms. We then turn to how democratic politics affects and is affected by these social diversities.