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Reflective Agreement: a Nonideal Approach to Political Justification

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Reflective Agreement: a Nonideal Approach to Political Justification CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by LUISSearch LUISS University – “Guido Carli” Libera Università Internazionale degli Studi Sociali PhD Dissertation – Doctoral Program in “Political Theory” - XXV Cycle Reflective Agreement: a Nonideal Approach to Political Justification Candidate: Federica Liveriero Supervisors: Dr. Daniele Santoro Prof. Sebastiano Maffettone Academic Year 2012-2013 PhD Dissertation in Political Theory – XXV Cycle PhD Candidate: Federica Liveriero Pag. 1 Reflective Agreement: a Nonideal Approach to Political Justification Introduction 6 Chapter 1 – A Nonideal Account of Moral Justification 1. 0 Introduction 13 1. 1 The Epistemic Gap Between Justification and Warrant 1.1.1 A Moderate Epistemic View 14 1.1.2 The Gettier’s Argument 19 1. 2 Foundationalism VS Coherentism 1.2.1 Structure of Justification 22 1.2.2 The Sceptical Argument 27 1. 3 Epistemological Scepticism 32 1. 4 Political Realm: the Reasons in Favour of a Nonideal Justification 1.4.1 Metaphysical Austerity 40 1.4.2 Two Models of Liberalism 42 1. 5 Political Justification 1.5.1 Contextual and Systematic Justification 52 1.5.2 Political Constituency 55 Chapter 2 – The Dilemma of Liberalism and Public Consensus 2. 0 Introduction 59 2. 1 Political Liberalism: the Internal and the External Conception 62 2. 2 The Socratic Attitude Within Rawls’ Theory 2.2.1 A Realistic Utopia 66 2.2.2 Contextualism 70 PhD Dissertation in Political Theory – XXV Cycle PhD Candidate: Federica Liveriero Pag. 2 2.2.3 Coherentism 75 2. 3 Political Justification and its Critiques 78 2.3.1 Epistemic Abstinence 80 2.3.2 Transcendence 83 2.3.3 Continuism VS Discontinuism 85 2.3.4 The Dilemmatic Character of Liberalism 87 2. 4 Achieving Public Consensus 93 2.4.1 The Overlapping Consensus 94 2.4.2 Three Different Stages of Justifications 99 2.4.3 Overlapping Consensus: Common and Alternative View 104 2.4.4 An Upside Down Construction 116 Chapter 3 – Reflective Agreement in Nonideal Theory 3. 0 Introduction 123 3. 1 The History of RE 3.1.1 A General Description of RE 127 3.1.2 RE in the Rawlsian Paradigm 131 3. 2 Reflective Justification 3.2.1 Wide and Narrow RE 136 3.2.2 A Modest Account of Objectivity 146 3. 3 Reflective Agreement 3.3.1 RE as a General Interpretative Paradigm 150 3.3.2 Nonideal Reflective Agreement 160 3.4 Reflective Deliberation 3.4.1 Public Reason 170 3.4.2 For an Open Negotiation 178 Chapter 4 – The Justification of Human Rights and the Same-sex Marriage Case 4. 0 Introduction 186 4. 1 The Lingua Franca of Human Rights PhD Dissertation in Political Theory – XXV Cycle PhD Candidate: Federica Liveriero Pag. 3 4.1.1 General Remarks 189 4.1.2 Natural-law Approach 193 4.1.3 Political Views of Human Rights 197 4. 2 A Public Justification of Human Rights 206 4. 3 The Same-sex Marriage Case 4.3.1 Two Arguments in Favour of Same-sex Couples Marriage 215 4.3.2 Symbolic Public Space and Concept Negotiation 223 Conclusion 235 Bibliography 238 PhD Dissertation in Political Theory – XXV Cycle PhD Candidate: Federica Liveriero Pag. 4 Acknowledgments Many people, friends and colleagues, have contributed to my formative experience in writing this Ph.D dissertation. First of all, I should thank LUISS University for the opportunity I got to work on a doctoral thesis and for having received a post-graduate education that is in line with international standards. I am especially grateful to my supervisor, Daniele Santoro. He has been supportive in any stage of my research and has helped me both in widening my perspective and in keeping me on track. This dissertation would have been extremely different – and certainly less exhaustive – without his supervision. I am also grateful to Sebastiano Maffettone, since I took advantage from extremely useful discussions we had and, moreover, I want to thank him for his constant effort in clarifying and keeping alive Rawls’ legacy. During these three years of research I have enjoyed quite long periods abroad that have been fundamental for my learning experience. In this regard, I should thank the Philosophy Department at Boston College for having hosted me for the whole academic year 2011-2012. I owe a big debt of gratitude to my advisor at Boston College, David Rasmussen. I have enjoyed all my research period at Boston College, thanks to his kindness and friendly – but rigorous - way of teaching. He has helped me a lot in finding my way for writing a satisfactory Ph.D dissertation. I would also like to thank other people that have contributed in making the period I have spent in Boston one of the most perfect and important of my life, both from the personal and working perspective. Vic, Hayley, Will, Michael, Amelia, Gabby and Joanne: I thank you all. I am also extremely grateful to the Philosophy Department at University of California, San Diego where I spent a very fruitful fall quarter in 2012. David Brink has read all my dissertation, spending time with me for discussing it and giving me fundamental feedbacks. He has been extremely generous with his time with me and I have greatly benefited from our meetings. Moreover, I want to thank Sam Rickless for the enjoyment I got in taking his seminar on the history of ethics while I was at UCSD. Furthermore, I am indebted to several people that have been part of my “philosophical environment” for many years and that have helped me in many different ways. I would like to thank Chiara Testino, Enrico Biale, Marilena Andronico, Elisabetta Galeotti, Giulia Bistagnino, Claudia Annovazzi, Valeria Ottonelli, Roberta Sala, Ian Carter, Emanuela Ceva, Federico Zuolo, Antonella Besussi, Mauro Piras and Mohammed Hashas. PhD Dissertation in Political Theory – XXV Cycle PhD Candidate: Federica Liveriero Pag. 5 Introduction The aim of this dissertation is to address the issue of public justification in political theory. I develop my analysis starting from the Rawlsian conception of liberal justice, as I believe that Rawls has provided us with an extremely exhaustive and powerful paradigm for building up – and justifying – a political theory of justice. Yet, Rawls’ theory faces many criticisms and requires amendments. The first goal of my dissertation is to show that it is possible, starting from a general Rawlsian paradigm, to construct a procedure of justification in alternative to the traditional accounts of political justification that have been outlined in the last decades. In the development of this work, I discuss the “political turn” of Rawls’ theory and show that a strictly political account of liberalism faces an tension: according to my interpretation, the “political turn” gives rise to a dilemma between the attempt of such theories to be sensible to the actual circumstances in which political theory should apply and the normative requirement of establishing criteria of justice for assessing the actual political circumstances. Different theories of justice address the dilemma either by proposing to give priority to one of the two horns of the dilemma or by claiming that such dilemma can be solved on a theoretical ground. I present an argument to show that the Rawlsian theory does not solve the dilemma. My proposal for re-interpreting and modifying the Rawlsian paradigm is to distinguish an ideal and a nonideal part of the theory of justice. One of the main problems of Rawls’ justificatory paradigm is to assess which role is played by the ideal aspects of the theory, namely whether the ideal justification is sufficient alone to provide justification, or whether a normative role is required for nonideal reasoning as well. My line of argument is that if we do not distinguish properly between the ideal and the nonideal aspects of the justificatory procedure, it will be impossible to understand if and how a theory of justice can solve the dilemma of liberalism. In order to understand why I consider such a distinction fundamental, in this introduction I want to highlight the fundamental differences between an ideal and a nonideal approach to the practice of justification in political theory. I will start from the distinction as Rawls has explained it1. According to Rawls, the ideal theory provides the 1 For good analyses of this distinction see Phillips (1985), Valentini (2009) and Simmons (2010). PhD Dissertation in Political Theory – XXV Cycle PhD Candidate: Federica Liveriero Pag. 6 input of the whole theory of justice, as we should articulate a “perfectly just scheme” that will “guide the course of social reform”2. Ideal theory is developed starting from idealized conditions that grants strict compliance with the principles of justice from citizens. According to this model, strict compliance with the principles of justice is granted by the fact that ideal theory provides a justification that relies on some idealized conditions that are applied both to the circumstances of justice and to the citizens’ epistemic capacities. By contrast, nonideal theory has to face the actual circumstances of justice and the impossibility of grant strict compliance given the actual set of beliefs held by citizens. It is for this reasons that Rawls claims that nonideal theory cannot look for nothing more than partial compliance. In this regard, Rawls claims: “The principles of justice that result are those defining a perfectly just society, given favorable conditions. With the presumption of strict compliance, we arrive at a certain ideal conception. When we ask whether and under what circumstances unjust arrangements are to be tolerated, we are faced with a different sort of question. We must ascertain how the ideal conception of justice applies, if indeed it applies at all, to cases where rather than having to make adjustments to natural limitations, we are confronted with injustice.
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