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eSharp Issue 25:1 Rise and Fall

Deliberative : A Post-modern Utopia?

Laura Fearnley (University of Glasgow)

Classical utopianism has suffered a battery of charges from political liberals who view the utopian methodology as necessarily oppressive and violent. By conflating utopia with dystopia, political liberals have induced the downfall of classical utopian engineering. Some scholars have responded to the fall of classical utopianism by developing a new, reconstructed form of idealization – the post- modern utopia. The post-modern model attempts to avoid the putative liberal critiques by inculcating liberal values, whilst rejecting violence and . Alongside the rise of the post-modern utopia was the revival of . In the last thirty years, democracy has enjoyed an energetic deliberative turn, creating a paradigm shift in political theory and practice. Since then, there has been a flurry of interest in deliberative democracy with many scholars offering detailed accounts about what the theory entails. In this paper, I examine the fall of classical utopianism, followed by the rise of post-modern utopianism. I conclude by claiming that deliberative democracy fully realizes the post-modern utopia. Keywords: utopia, utopianism, political , deliberative democracy.

The Fall of the Classical Utopia To fully investigate the fall of classical utopianism we need to get to grips with what it means to be labelled a ‘utopian’ or what the concept of utopianism entails. A good place to begin is J.C. Davis’s Utopia & the Ideal Society (1983). Davis characterizes the utopia as a particular mode, not as a tradition of thought. That is, utopians do not necessarily or self-consciously set out to write a utopia: ‘[r]ather, it is a mode or type of ideal society, and what utopian writers have in common is not common membership of a tradition but their subjection to a common mode’ (1983, p.4). Davis begins his exposition of these modes by firstly arguing all societies must face the collective problem: the supply of particular social and material goods and how scarcities of these goods are to be overcome. Davis writes: The material scarcity of satisfactions consists, for example, in there being only a given number of beautiful women or men, and only one specific example of each. Sociological scarcity arises out of the hierarchical distribution of these satisfactions (some men have more than others) and the existence of specific socially derived satisfactions (there are only so many places on the committee, only a limited number of holders of a certain title of honour, only one king or only one seat of power) (1983, p.19). It is the utopian’s task, then, to offer a solution to the collective problem in the guise of an alternative society. Here, however, Davis recognizes a definitional problem. Utopias offer a solution to the collective problem but so do other ideal societies; hence, the utopia is but one mode of social idealization. Davis crucially identifies a further four: the Land of Cockaygne, arcadia, the Perfect Moral Commonwealth and the millennium. These four alternatives, however, tinker with the premises of the collective problem rather than providing a forthright solution. Cockaygne, for example, magically satisfies our material desires through nearly unlimited access to food, drink, wealth, sex and everlasting youth, thus also fulfilling any

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sociological dissatisfactions. Arcadia envisages a return to our natural selves; stripped of artificial appetites, humans are once again moderate in their desires, and nature is magnificently abundant. Survival is easy in this world of unstructured harmony. The Perfect Moral Commonwealth, on the other hand, strategizes that nothing need change except the qualities and virtues of the members of society. Agents are morally reformed thereby eradicating sociological tensions and overcoming material satisfactions. The fourth mode, the millennium, is reminiscent of the Judaeo-Christian tradition whereby Christ would defeat all forces of evil in a cataclysmic battle, and peace and justice would reign for a thousand years before the earth passes away. Typically, the millenarian’s solution does not describe the ideal society post- revolution; rather, the emphasis is on the process by which the new social order would arrive. By contrast to these modes, the utopia does not ‘tamper with the equation’ (Davis 1983, p.37). It seeks to solve the collective problem through thorough reorganization of laws, institutions, sanctions, and conventions. Accordingly, utopias begin by ‘taking men as they are, and laws as they can be’ (Rousseau 1997, p.41). Individuals are citizens not saints, nature is finitely ambivalent, not abundantly benevolent; utopias are always tantalizingly attainable. Now, since utopias do not assume miraculous transformations in humans or nature, they must call upon a range of political, social and educational arrangements available to them. This, according to Davis, makes the utopia a ‘holding operation, a set of strategies to maintain social order and perfection in the face of the deficiencies, not to say hostility, of nature and the wilfulness of man’ (1983, p.37). In their quest for speculative perfection, the utopian is perhaps not especially concerned with human happiness or individual freedom of choice, instead, they seek ‘triumph over fortuna’ (Davis 1983, p.378), to end the moral chaos and political debate through the absolute rebuilding of the social order. In this sense, the utopian vision is totalistic, closed-natured and ordered; it allows citizens freedom to do what they ought to do rather than what they want to do. Thus, for Davis, utopia is a repressive and bureaucratic mode of idealization. One prime manifestation of utopia’s supposed oppressive nature is, Davis contends, its deep urge to eradicate (1983, p.372). Political debate threatens to destabilize the utopian’s perfect, harmonious society by means of irreconcilable argument; it fosters sectional interest as well as value clashes between groups and individuals. In these moments, citizens often expose their most selfish and foolish nature, failing to identify themselves as part of the political community. In order to end the social debate, utopias steadfastly prescribe onto society their own conception of political values, usually concerning justice, freedom and equality or, as Karl Popper refers to it, the ‘ultimate good’ (1966, p.158). Many anti-utopians share this conclusion. Dahrendorf for instance, writes: A […] structural characteristic of utopias seems to be [their] uniformity […] Universal consensus means, by implication, absence of structurally generated conflict. In fact, many builders of utopias go to considerable lengths to convince their audience that in their societies conflict about values or institutional arrangements is either impossible or simply unnecessary. Utopias are perfect - be it perfectly agreeable or perfectly disagreeable - and consequently there is nothing to quarrel about (1958, p.116).

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If utopias do indeed seek to end politics, then they deny a fundamental belief that lies at the heart of political liberalism: plurality of values. The pluralist thesis espouses that we cannot come to know a priori of a single common good that will benefit all of society. Rather, the most just way of organization is to let each pursue their own conception of the good under the qualification of, say, the Millian Harm Principle (Mill 2008, p.17). Isaiah Berlin makes exactly this point in Two Concepts of (2007): ‘the belief that some single formula can in principle be found whereby all the diverse ends of men can be harmoniously realized is demonstrably false’ (p.214). The pluralist thesis may hold a thin conception of the good, in that it values tolerance and freedom, but the utopia proposes a thick conception of good which cannot be deviated from. It therefore stands in marked contrast to the liberal tradition. The critique that utopias end the political debate is part of a larger objection against utopian engineering. As we have seen, Davis maintains the utopia is primarily concerned with creating stability in the face of chaos and moral discord; consequently, utopias are totalistic, perfect and ordered. Thus, the utopian goal, the final end, must rely on totalitarian methods: ‘[a]lmost by definition then, the perfection of utopias must be total and ordered; the totality, ordered and perfect. In order to achieve this, without denying the nature of man or society, there must be discipline of the totalitarian kind’ (Davis 1983, p.39). J.L. Talmon makes a similar claim in The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy (1952). He explicates that utopias are an integrated whole: they obliterate the liberal distinction of public and private to such an extent they ‘recognize ultimately only one plane of existence, the political’ and therefore endow every action with some moral significance (pp.2-3). Now, Davis certainly provides a helpful taxonomy with regards to other ideal societies. Ultimately, however, his account has a serious theoretical shortcoming. In suggesting the perfect solution is always repressive and bureaucratic, he expresses a major point of contention between the utopist and the liberal. For liberals, there is no absolute solution to the collective problem and any attempt to prove otherwise would necessarily resort to force, coercion or falsity. Therefore, the utopian methodology is always the most horrific course to take. In this sense, Davis conflates utopia with dystopia. By conflating the two, Davis arguably produces misleading definitions whereby utopia is understood in terms of , violence and oppression and this plays into the hands of the liberal critique. His treatment of utopianism expresses an implicit disdain for this form of engineering, and hence he situates himself within the anti-utopian camp, or at least perches on the periphery. Davis’s account of utopianism was selected for exactly this reason. He does not offer the most persuasive definition of utopianism (I suggest the functional approach is more convincing: Levitas 2011; Sargisson 2012), but rather his treatment of utopianism offers insights into the fall of the classical utopian method. To be labelled utopian is a term of derision. It marks you out as an advocate of hierarchy, and perfection, but perhaps more importantly treats you as an opponent of liberty. By presenting utopianism in this light it comes to represent the antithesis of liberal values. Given political liberalism’s popularity in the Western community, classical utopianism soon saw its downfall; it was characterized as an adversary of the Western world.

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The Rise of the Post-modern Utopia Alongside Davis, a group of likeminded political liberals began to explicitly attack classical utopianism. Scientist and philosopher, Karl Popper, spear-headed the denunciation. In The Open Society and Its Enemies Vol I (1966), Popper developed a scathing analysis of utopian engineering, wherein he argued that the utopian blueprint can never be realized without resort to violence through totalitarian administrations, inevitably oppressing the paradigm liberal principle of individual freedom. The anti-utopian rhetoric gathered momentum when readers and commentators equated utopian visions with the Soviet Union, and arguably hit its climax in 1992 when Francis Fukuyama published The End of History and The Last Man, claiming that there were no other conceivable challenges to liberal democratic values. Perhaps not all Western thinkers completely agreed with Fukuyama, but still, North America and Western Europe judged themselves to be the completed prototypes of the near perfect democracy; deviants of their democratic system are seen as ‘stunted, frozen, protractedly unconsolidated, and the like’ (O’Donnell 1996, p.37). An amalgamation of , regulated capitalism and the emergence of the welfare state was producing optimistic visions of the future and appreciation of the present: ‘most of our people have never had it so good,’ declared British Prime Minister Harold McMillan in 1957 (News.bbc.co.uk, n.d.). A contented Western civilization, then, made the classical utopia redundant. It had achieved a near-perfect society without resorting to the violence and oppression apparently inherent in classical utopia methodology. The liberal triumph, however, did not last long. Free-market capitalism has created vast economic and social inequalities resulting in antagonism and apathy amongst citizens, whilst distrust in our political representatives and perhaps even with our fellow citizens has paved the way for a democratic deficit. Typically, our sociological and material satisfactions are not being met; the laissez-faire attitude to liberal modernity certainly seems to be failing to solve the collective problem. Today’s capitalist liberalism is no utopia. The economic and democratic conditions across the globe suggest a need for serious alternatives to the current social order, and therefore, for a new utopian vision which provides content for sober, useful political discussion. This must begin by acknowledging and then evading the chief flaws of the classical utopia which are responsible for the putative liberal critiques. If the new utopian vision fails to do so, utopias will once again be relegated to the realm of dangerous daydreamers. The new mode of idealization, then – we might call it the post-modern utopia – has paradoxically occurred as a reaction to both the success and deficiencies of liberal political thought. Just as I took Davis as appropriate in characterizing the classical utopia, I will now turn to John Hoffman and Steven Friedman as guides in directing us towards the post-modern utopia. Firstly, Hoffman in John Gray and the Problem of Utopia (2008) proposes we rebuild utopia by understanding it in terms of a ‘momentum concept’ (p.176). Borrowing Tocqueville’s idea in his analysis of democracy, Hoffman explains that the momentum concept has no stopping point, no end stage from which we can claim to have finally built the perfect society; rather, it is an open-ended, infinitely progressive enterprise which is never realized at a given point in time and space. This is not to say the post-modern utopia has no final goal or telos. It still aspires towards some specific rebuilding of the social order, but it acknowledges a perfect

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vision of society will never be attained, and thus, resort to violence to achieve a final aim is unjustifiable. On this point, Hoffman finds a likeminded companion in a well-known utopist, H.G Wells, who writes that a post-modern utopia ‘must not be static but kinetic, must shape not as a permanent state but as a hopeful stage, leading to a long ascent of stages’ (2005, p.11). Furthermore, Hoffman states that, unlike the classical utopia, the new ideal does not execute any ‘canvas-cleaning’ (Popper 1966, p.168); that is, it does not seek to contain the defects of the current society by its complete destruction. Instead, the current society is transcended by refashioning and refurbishing the old into the new. This mode of idealization does seek a radical new beginning but not revolutionary cataclysm. Whilst Hoffman provides us with the basic framework for this mode of idealization, it is Friedman in his article ‘Democracy as an Open-ended Utopia: Reviving a Sense of Uncoerced Political Possibility’ (2012) who offers a more colourful picture of the post-modern model. Following on from Hoffman, Friedman argues: [A] usable Utopia – one which offered a clear alternative to the present – might not require a change of at all; it could be achieved by seeking to realise the potential of an existing system which is only partly emancipatory in its current form but which, if developed in a manner which fully implemented its defining principles, would radically redistribute power and resources (2012, p.22). Friedman points out that Robert Dahl’s ideal democracy accurately captures the aspirations of his post-modern utopia. Ideal democracy offers ‘a desirable goal, one probably not perfectly achievable in practice, but a standard to which we ought to aspire, and against which we can measure the good or value of what actually exists’ (Dahl 2006, cited in Friedman 2012, p.22). In this sense, ideal democracy is equivalent to Hoffman’s momentum concept, in that it is both absolute and relative. On the one hand, it describes absolute perfect conditions. On the other hand, the relative success of the utopia can be measured by comparing the ideal standards to the empirical reality. Generally speaking, the core democratic ideal is that each citizen is entitled to an equal say in the decisions that affect her life, such that every citizen yields equal effective power in the policy making process, creating a society that has achieved proper popular , and therefore, full emancipation. Here we find a strikingly different approach from the classical utopia in that democratic difference is not abolished but reaches its fulfilment. This radically open-ended democracy is founded on the principle that there exists no ultimate truths, that one utopist cannot prescribe an objective value onto society because no set of rules is self-evidentially valuable for all peoples at all time. Therefore, there must always be debate about the contested common good by free citizens, from which all laws, institutions, and punishments can be designed. Interestingly then, Friedman’s mode of idealization is built upon the fundamental liberal principle of plurality of values. At this point, some may argue that the democratic utopia is not a utopia at all, not in the sense it fails to fix the collective problem, or that it fails to act as a mirror from which we can judge our own society, rather, the democratic utopia does not seem radical or totalistic enough. It does not present us with a ‘holding operation’ or what Manuel and Manuel termed the ‘speaking picture’ (1979, p.1). Kumar articulates this point well when he suggests some may argue ‘Thomas More with his Utopia more or less single-handedly invented a new form, and that anything that deviates too much from it really ought to call itself something else’ (2010,

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p.556). Such a traditionalist view will hardly be swayed by any evidence I am about to give to the contrary. Nevertheless, sceptics may even suggest that the post-modern utopia is a tenacious form of Popperian ‘piecemeal engineering’ (Popper 1966, p.157), that is, a system whereby slow and steady improvements of society are maintained by a process of amelioration and mitigation. However, to view the post-modern utopia in this light would be to neglect the soberness of the project, and the drastic changes which must occur if steps towards the idealization are to be made. Firstly, the post-modern utopia would require a profound redistribution of power in all democratic institutions, as well as radical reform and expansion of the institutions themselves. For sure, citizens currently have formal power in that they can vote for their representatives, party leaders, in etc., but this is only nominal power. It is symbolic; it is power in name only and does not produce efficacious change. What is required in a post-modern utopia is effective power; the ability to change the political landscape simply as a citizen, not as an elected representative or party official. Consequently, all citizens will enjoy an equal amount of power as say contemporary think-tanks, special advisors and NGOs. It does not simply call for more nominal power through increased direct in referendums, nor does it merely posit more checks and balances to hold our representatives accountable, and it does not advocate that our political representatives pay closer attention to the needs of their constituents. If it did, the post-modern utopia could be achieved through piecemeal engineering; making it no utopia at all. Rather its purpose is to remedy the very limited opportunities citizens have to change the political scene by deepening, boarding and creating new ways to participate, such that ‘democracy is not only the description of a particular political order but of a social order too’ (Friedman 2012, p.28). As Friedman states, ‘democracy can once again become a profoundly egalitarian project’ which is undoubtedly a ‘revolutionary development’ (2012, p.27). Secondly, the post-modern utopia would necessitate a redistribution of wealth and resources. There are at least two principal reasons for this. On the one hand, economic circumstances partly determine how citizens exercise their vote, whether this is voting for a that promises to lower taxes, increase welfare, create more jobs or other related economic . As a result, voters priorities private preferences rather than focussing their energy on the common good. On the other hand, each citizen must have enough time and resources to participate in public debate. If this opportunity is denied to them then society cannot claim to be governed by popular sovereignty, thus undermining the whole utopian project. So, redistribution of wealth and resources is a requirement of this mode of idealization; the question remains, however, as to what extent, or rather how much redistribution is required. There appear to be at least three models of economic redistribution the post-modern utopist can appeal to; we might call these the strong, the weak and the middle model. The weak model contests there are no reasons to reallocate economic resources prior to the rebuilding of the social order because the outcomes of political debate will result in fair policies that will rectify any previous economic inequalities. The middle version is similar to what Rousseau envisaged in (1997), that there should be rough economic equality such that ‘no citizen be so very rich that he can buy another, and none so poor that he is compelled to sell himself’ (p.78). In practise this might demand every citizen have a guaranteed basic income,

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high taxes to provide for an extensive welfare state, the abolition of private education, some type of land reform and the of some private goods into public goods. In contrast, the strong model follows Marx, whereby the post-modern ideal should aim for a classless society by the complete destruction of economic inequality. In this respect, the new utopist must go further than Rousseau in eradicating capitalism altogether or at least constantly regulating and redistributing incomes and subsidies. Ostensibly, the stronger the model the more radical, totalistic and perfect it is, and hence, the more attributes of utopian engineering it displays. Now, according to the utopia Hoffman and Friedman imagine, the social order would require the middle or strong model of redistribution, or an intermediate between the two. The weak version will not satisfy the demands of their idealized society because it does not militate against voting out of private preferences, nor does it ensure citizens have enough time to engage in public debate. Reconsidered in this light, then, it becomes clear that the post- modern model is radical, totalistic, and egalitarian and thus fundamentally utopian in character.

Deliberative Democracy as the Post-modern Utopia It is only in the last thirty years or so that the theory of democracy has taken an energetic deliberative turn (Held 2006, p.232). Generally speaking, the thesis commits itself to the idea that ‘democratic decision making ought to be grounded in a substantial process of public deliberation, wherein arguments for and against laws and policies are given in terms of whether they advance the common good of citizens and the justice of the political society’ (Christiano 1997, p.243). There are several ideals which underpin this generalization that are worth elaborating on if we are to draw any substantial parallels or deviations between deliberative democracy and the post-modern utopia. For this reason, I will attend to Joshua Cohen’s four ideal requirements of deliberation: freedom, equality, reason and consensus. I adopt Cohen’s argument here because his requirements are not overly demanding or controversial; in this sense, I believe most advocates of deliberative democracy would endorse these features as supplying the minimum requirement for legitimate deliberation (perhaps with the exception of John Dryzek (2002) who would consider the reason requirement as too exclusive). I. Cohen argues ideal deliberation is free with regards to two aspects: First, the participants regard themselves as bound by only the results of their deliberation and by the preconditions for that deliberation. Their consideration of proposals is not constrained by the authority of prior norms of requirements. Second, the participants suppose that they can act from the results, taking the fact that a certain decision is arrived at through their deliberation as a sufficient reason for complying with it (1997, p.74). II. Secondly, in ideal deliberation citizens should be formally and substantively equal: They are formally equal in that the rules regulating the procedure do not single out individuals. Everyone with the deliberative capacities has equal standing at each stage of the deliberative process. Each can put issues on the agenda, propose solutions, and offer reasons in support of or in criticism of proposals. And each has equal voice in the decision. The participants are substantively equal in that the existing distribution of power and resources does not shape their chances to

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contribute to deliberation, nor does that distribution play an authoritative role in their deliberation (1997, p.74). The latter of these requirements, equality, is a far stronger claim than the former, freedom. The freedom requirement maintains that citizens are bound only by the rules of the deliberative game. This is to say, citizens are free to enter into public debate provided they follow the conditions of that debate, and thereafter citizens are only bound by the laws and policies that result from their deliberations since they recognize these outcomes to be legitimate. The formal equality requirement, however, implies a radical redistribution of power identical to the one Friedman called for in his post-modern utopia. The notion that ‘each has an equal voice in the decision’ suggests a levelling which would rectify the current asymmetries in society, whereby a minority are given unfair advantages in the decision-making procedure. Here, Cohen does not make an explicit link between equality in terms of having an equal say, and equality in terms of having equal power. The two are quite distinct because the former is restricted to deliberation, whilst the latter extends to the decisions which are reached because of the deliberation. Most deliberativists insist that citizens should have an equal voice, but also that this should extend to equal effective power like the kind specified in section two: ‘the deliberative turn represents a renewed concern with the authenticity of democracy: the degree to which democratic control is substantive rather than symbolic’ (Dryzek 2002, p.1). In this spirit, most theorists connect deliberation with equal effective power and equal political participation; consequently, the formal equality requirement already points to similarities with Friedman’s utopian vision. With regards to substantive equality, Cohen seems to imply that the social and economic conditions pertaining to an individual or group should not distort the equal voice requirement stated as part of the formal equality condition. In this sense, a deliberator’s social and economic circumstances should not colour the judgements of other participants when they come to make decisions; rather, full attention should be paid to the arguments presented. Evidently, Cohen does not suppose redistribution of resources is a necessary precondition for deliberative democracy, and so he appears to advocate the weak form of economic equality I identified in section two. If he does, this would push deliberative democracy away from utopianism and into the realm of Popperian piecemeal engineering. However, Cohen’s description of substantive equality does not amount to what other deliberative theorists would consider as substantive. For instance, James Bohman criticizes the ideal procedural account (which Cohen advocates) because it neglects the necessary preconditions of freedom and equality. According to Bohman, economic and social inequality has the potential to undermine the justified and democratic outcome that deliberative democracy claims to facilitate. At some point, economic inequality becomes so significant it excludes citizens who do not have the time, resources or education to participate in deliberations. Subsequently, he argues, we must take precautions to ensure the inequalities which are relevant to deliberation are avoided: ‘[d]eliberative democracy must fulfil demands for equality in the means for effective participation at least enough so that no citizen is so poor as to fail to influence outcomes or to avoid exclusion’ (1997, p.300). In this sense, Bohman denies Rousseau’s conditions for economic equality:

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These [Rousseau’s] thresholds are, however, too minimal to serve as a norm of political equality for a vibrant, pluralistic, and deliberative form of democracy. The proper minimal conditions do not merely eliminate tyranny, but rather must reflect those distributive conditions which best ensure the effective participation of all citizens in decision making (Bohman 1997, p.322). Many other deliberativists would agree that Cohen’s substantive equality requirement is not capable of ensuring the conditions for ideal deliberation, instead preferring to support Bohman’s argument, ‘Bohman’s measure is sufficient to capture the most egregious consequences of the unequally distributed capacities’ (Knight; Johnson 1997, p.302). In practice, this requirement would necessitate some redistribution of resources. As we have seen in section two, Friedman makes precisely the same argument in suggesting a rebuilding of the social order demands some reallocations of resources.

III. A third ideal identified by Cohen is that deliberations should be grounded upon reasons: Reasons are offered with the aim of bringing others to accept the proposal, given their disparate ends and their commitment to settling conditions of their association through free deliberation among equals. Proposals may be rejected because they are not defended with acceptable reasons, even if they could be so defended. The deliberative conception emphasizes that collective choices should be made in a deliberative way, and not only that those choices should have a desirable fit with the preferences of citizens (1997, p.74). Today this idea has come to be associated with the writings of Jürgen Habermas and the ideal speech situation which he developed throughout the corpus of his work. Ideal deliberation consists of free and equal discussion, unlimited in its duration and constrained only by the consensus which would be arrived at by no force ‘except the force of the better argument’ (Habermas 1984, p.25). If a consensus is reached by each participant in the deliberative arena, then that conclusion can be considered the ideally rational one. Arguably, the utopian impulse that drives deliberative democracy (if indeed there is one) has evolved from a commitment to Habermas’s ideas. At the time of publication, Habermas was criticized by both the right and left for ‘a type of bad utopianism’ (Mendieta 2002, p.230), yet it continues to be used by contemporary deliberativists as a framework for efficacious and just deliberation. The appeal to reason entails at least two central assumptions. First, citizens should not justify their arguments based on purely private preferences, and second, citizens should be willing to transform their preferences as a result of public debate. The claim that citizens are amenable to change their preferences as a result of reasoned argument is possibly the most significant assumption in deliberative theory. However, the claim is not an entirely new one. John Stuart Mill in his Autobiography (1989) elucidated that human nature is not inherently self-serving, rather ‘the deep-rooted selfishness which forms the general character of the existing state of society, is so deeply rooted, only because the whole course of existing institutions tends to foster it’ (p.176). Elsewhere in Considerations on Representative (2008), Mill explained that participation in debate develops the skill of reasoning, such that citizens come ‘to be guided, in case of conflicting claims, by another rule than his

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private partialities’ to the extent that ‘he is made to feel himself one of the public, and whatever is their interest to be his interest’ (p.255). All this suggests that participation in deliberative institutions provides the antidote to selfish preferences. It may seem unintuitive to even associate Mill with utopian thinking, but faith in this claim is not only central to deliberative theory but also motivates many critics to characterize deliberative democracy as ‘beset by a fuzzy utopianism’ (Warren 1996, p.242). For this reason, critics would consider the political theory as a nonstarter; utopian in the sense it is too optimistic. In short, it demands too much from its citizens.

IV. The final of Cohen’s requirements is that deliberations aim to arrive at rationally-motivated consensus: [T]o find reasons that are persuasive to all who are committed to acting on the results of a free and reasoned assessment of alternatives by equals. Even under ideal conditions there is no promise that consensual reasons will be forthcoming. If they are not, then deliberation concludes with voting, subject to some form of . The fact that it may so conclude does not, however, eliminate the distinction between deliberative form of collective choice and forms of aggregative nondeliberative preferences (1997, p.75). As with all the other requirements, the consensus condition has received considerable attention in deliberative theory. There appears to be a tension between those who advocate what might be called a strong consensus account and those who might argue for a weak consensus account. The former is often defended by deliberativists who traffic in public reason and thus usually focus on a process-oriented theory, such as Cohen himself. This account emphasizes that rational consensus on validity claims is the ideally preferable outcome of public discourse, and that ‘public reasoning itself can help to reduce the diversity of politically relevant preferences because such preferences are shaped and even formed in the process of reasoning itself’ (Cohen 1999, p.408). Critics, however, have disputed that consensus should be an ideal outcome of deliberative procedures. On an empirical level, the presence of value pluralism in modern societies makes consensus very unlikely, whilst on a normative level, consensus is politically perilous, because it violates this plurality and might serve to oppress or exclude certain interests, ideas and identities (Young 2001, p.680). Interestingly, both the strong and weak forms of the consensus requirement point to similarities with the post-modern and classical utopia. On the one hand, we have seen that Hoffman’s momentum concept demands a radically open-ended democracy wherein citizens debate the common good of society. In debating the common good, citizens do seek consensus but only in a weak form because, as Hoffman acknowledges, the notion of the common good will always be contested in a pluralistic society, ‘[t]he concept of pluralism destroys the very notion of perfection’ (Hoffman 2008, p.35). On the other hand, deliberativists who support the strong consensus account share similarities with the classical utopia, at least in one respect. Recall that a cardinal feature found in the classical utopia is the destruction of irreconcilable arguments in order to preserve harmony and perfection, and thus, classical utopias seek to eradicate political debate. Well, pushed to its conclusion the strong consensus requirement would also eradicate disagreement and social debate. Perfect consensus would imply the

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common good was no longer contestable, and hence, the need for politics as a tool to dispute the content of the common good would become redundant. Although there are discrepancies regarding to what extent deliberative theorists take Cohen’s requirements to be too demanding or not demanding enough, it seems clear that the central premises share commonalities with the post-modern utopia and in some cases even the classical utopia. It is my claim that deliberative democracy completes the post-modern utopia.

Conclusion For centuries, utopian visions were the main vehicles of expression for hopes, aspirations and the aims of humanity. Utopias held up a critical mirror to the world and reflected back pervasive injustice, corrupt legal systems, acute inequalities and political malpractice. So is the decline of the classical utopia something to be mourned? I suspect some of us will wish for more of the same, and yet we cannot ignore the force of the liberal critiques. Popper, Talmon and Berlin in particular have defined classical utopianism as a dangerous challenger to liberal society. For those who place a primacy on liberty, the classical utopia will always remain a loathsome place to live. Political liberalism’s treatment of classical utopianism has resulted in its demise. However, as we have seen, utopian engineering can be resurrected in terms of deliberative democracy. This vision avoids many of the liberal objections, partly because it maintains political and civil which typically protect against totalitarianism, and because it gives citizens effective power, ensuring they are not oppressed under a stifling centralized bureaucracy. To what extent the post-modern utopia can preserve these attributes remains to be seen, and I am certain some liberals will argue it does not go far enough in maximizing liberty and freedom. It seems evident that utopianism plays an important critical function in political debate. The development of the post-modern utopia serves these functions especially well. Perhaps, in the wake of deliberative democracy, utopianism will once again merit sober, fruitful analysis.

Bibliography

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