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Democracy As Public Justification: Towards a Non- Authoritarian Political Theory

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Democracy As Public Justification: Towards a Non- Authoritarian Political Theory Masaryk University Faculty of Social Studies Democracy as public justification: towards a non- authoritarian political theory Habilitation Thesis Brno, 2020 Mgr. Pavel Dufek, Ph.D. Abstract The thesis lays the foundations of a long-term research project addressing the problem of legitimacy of political authority in deeply pluralist societies. The author shows that because normative democratic theory finds itself in a problematic state due to its many- level dissonance (as opposed to the wished-for productive pluralism), political philosophers should approach democracy from a different perspective. This is provided by the theory of public justification (PJ) which addresses a similar class of question – namely how to ensure legitimacy in a morally deeply divided world. On this most generally, the thesis therefore explores the links between two major areas of contemporary political philosophy (democratic theory and public justification/public reason theorising, the latter owing much of its liveliness to the later work of John Rawls). After illustrating the general concerns on two fundamental issues of democratic theory – the concept of political representation, and the status of the majority principle as a decision-making method –, the author develops an analytical framework for understanding the structure of public justification and how it impacts on the resulting theories of PJ. Inspired by the wide-ranging work of Gerald Gaus, the author defends a maximally inclusive version of public justification, based on intelligible reasons, convergence approach to justification, weak internalism about reasons, moderate idealisation, and a combination of justificatory modalities (deliberation, universalisation, bargaininig, and social evolution). This is conceptually related to delineation of what has been called qualified acceptability, the best-known variant of which is the notion of reasonableness – again, arguments in favour of an inclusive construal are put forward. In the latter chapters, the author shows how his preferred account of public justification speaks to core debates in legal theory, because pluralism and disagreement is a fact of social life that law itself must come to terms with. Next, an inquiry into public justificatory capacities of constitutional courts and parliaments is carried out; it turns out that in contrast to an influential view in political and legal theory, it is parliaments which hold justificatory primacy, at least if the argument in the previous chapters is correct. The last “institution” to be explored via the lens of public justification are human rights, the philosophy of which seems strangely isolated from central concerns of contemporary political philosophy. Again, the account of public justification worked out earlier is found promising as a justificatory ground for human rights. The last two chapters overview several systemic objections to PJ theorising, in order to reconstruct a non-authoritarian justification of a liberal order with core elements of representative democracy. i Acknowledgements Many people deserve a mention for sharing their thoughts, however brief, on various parts of the thesis, as well as for discussing stuff in general. To those whose names I have omitted I apologise, but my thanks go to (in alphabetical order): Jiří Baroš, André Bächtiger, Cillian McBride, Keith Breen, Deven Burks, Francesco Clementi, David Černý, Maria Paola Ferretti, Allyn Fives, Jeffrey Friedman, Matěj Gregárek, Martin Hapla, Kei Hiruta, David Howarth, Jana Kokešová, David Kosař, Jan Kysela, Anabelle Lever, Laura Montanaro, Alex Motchoulski, Sebastián Rudas, William Schumacher, Fabian Schuppert, Kai Spiekermann, Saranga Sudarshan, Tomáš Sobek, Michal Šejvl, Coliss Tahzib, Ladislav Vyhnánek, Mark Warren, Florian Wieczorek. The missing names were most likely among the audiences which also deserve a collective acknowledgment; the events include several instances of the Association for Social and Political philosophy conference (Rome, Newcastle), Central European Political Science Association conference (Budapest, Ljubljana, Banská Bystrica), ECPR General Conference (Bordeaux, Montréal, Oslo, Wroclaw), MANCEPT – Manchester Workshops in Political Theory, Košice Dialogues in Political Science, Philosophy and Social Science colloquium (Prague), Weyr’s Days of Legal Theory (Brno). Also, the conference Human rights, intercultural perspectives, and the postnational constellation (Prague 2016) and the seminar Why we disagree about human rights (Prague 2017) should be mentioned. Much of the travelling I have done to these events and back have been made possible by several research grants sponsored by the Czech Science Foundation in which I have been involved in some role. I also want to thank my BA and MA students in courses at the faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University, who always make me think more and better about how to organise my own thoughts. The same goes to the very varied, and therefore very interesting, group of students at the E.MA in Human Rights and Democratisation in Venice, as well as for my Erasmus student audiences in Loughborough, Colchester, and Belfast. Not least, the Ph.D students at the Department of Political Science whose dissertations I consult or consulted – Sylvie Bláhová, Martin Job, Josef Koudelka, Tereza Křepelová, and Patrik Taufar – have been an inspiration in many ways, if only for the stuff they themselves work on. I always learn something new, even if I tend to forget a lot of what I learn. Some of the ideas presented in this thesis might be actually yours without me realising it, so thanks a lot! I’ll buy you a beer or two if found guilty. Not least, I would not have been able to write anything of resemblance to the present Schrift if it was not for the friendly and forthcoming atmosphere at the Department of Political Science, Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University. Doing political philosophy may sometimes be even fun for the perpetrator, but perhaps not that much for his or her academic employer, at least as far as the Czech academia is concerned. Many thanks, then, to the heads of the Department I have met in that role – prof. Maxmilián Strmiska, prof. Stanislav Balík, and recently dr. Petra Mlejnková. Without them accepting that writing good or at least decent stuff in political philosophy takes a lot of time, I would have had a much tougher academic life. ii In fact, the whole academic and administrative staff at the FSS deserves a big hug. We academics have always reasons to grumble about this or that; however, having a rough idea how things work (or not work) at a few other places, I realise we are not always fully justified. Some of the stuff I present here has been published before (in slightly or very different shape); some other parts, I hope, will be published soon, or at least prospectively. The works that have already appeared include: Dufek, Pavel. 2018. Democracy as Intellectual Taste? Pluralism in Democratic Theory. Critical Review 30(4): 219–255 (bulk of Chapter 2); Introduction + chapters 1, 7 and 8 of Dufek, Pavel et al. 2019. Liberální demokracie v době krize. Perspektiva politické filosofie. Praha – Brno: Sociologické nakladatelství – Masarykova univerzita (part on the Introduction, bits of chapter 2, bulk of chapter 3); Dufek, Pavel and Jan Holzer. 2016. Debating democracy in East Central Europe: the issues and their origins. In: Holzer, Jan, Miroslav Mareš et al., Challenges to Democracies in East Central Europe. Abingdon: Routledge, 15–35 (bits of the Introduction); Dufek, Pavel. 2018. Normativita, fakticita a liberální projekt lidských práv: K možnostem morálního univerzalismu. In: Petr Agha et al. Lidská práva v mezikulturních perspektivách. Praha: Academia, 57–75 (bulk of 5.3); Dufek, Pavel. 2018. Lidská práva, ideologie a veřejné ospravedlnění: co obnáší brát pluralismus vážně. Právník 157(1): 50–70 (bits of 4.2 and of 5.3). I guess all the reviewers and editors involved also deserve a high five, as they almost invariably helped make the resulting texts better. iii Contents Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................................... ii 1. Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 1 1.1. Crisis of Liberal Democracy and Political Philosophy ........................................................................... 7 2. Democracy as Intellectual Taste .......................................................................................... 11 2.1 Faces of Pluralism in Democratic Theory: From Diversity to Dissonance ................................. 12 Whose Democracy? On Dissonant Meanings ..................................................................................................... 14 Why There Is Dissonance in Democratic Theory ............................................................................................. 16 2.2 Why Worry? .......................................................................................................................................................... 18 2.3 Research Traditions and the Primacy of the Normative .................................................................... 21 2.4 Indeterminacy, Vagueness, and the Essential Moralization of Democracy ................................ 23 2.5 Why Agonism is a Part of the Problem .....................................................................................................
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