On Actualist and Fundamental Public Justification in Political Liberalism

Public justification in political liberalism is often conceptualized in light of Rawls’s view of its role in a hypothetical well-ordered society as an ideal or idealizing form of justification that applies a putatively reasonable conception of political justice to political matters. But Rawls implicates a different idea of public justification in his doctrine of general reflective equilibrium. The paper engages this second, more fundamental idea. Public justification in this second sense is actualist and fundamental. It is actualist in that it fully enfranchises actual reasonable citizens. It is fundamental in that political liberalism qualifies conceptions of political justice as reasonable to begin with only if they can be accepted coherently by actual reasonable citizens. Together, these features invite the long-standing concern that actualist political liberalism is objectionably exclusionary. I argue that the exclusion objection, while plausible, is more problematic in own right than it seems if actualist and fundamental public justification hypotheticalizes and discursive respect is compatible with substantive discursive inequality. This leaves proponents and critics of political liberalism with deeper questions about the nature of permissible discursive inequality in public justification

Responsible Innovation for Decent Nonliberal Peoples: A Dilemma?

It is hard to disagree with the idea of responsible innovation (henceforth, RI), as it enables policy-makers, scientists, technology developers, and the public to better understand and respond to the social, ethical, and policy challenges raised by new and emerging technologies. RI has gained prominence in policy agenda in Europe and the United States over the last few years. And, along with its rising importance in policy-making, there is also a burgeoning research literature on the topic. Given the historical context of which RI emerges, it should not be surprising that the current discourse on RI is predominantly based on liberal democratic values. Yet, the bias towards liberal democratic values will inevitably limit the discussion of RI, especially in the cases where liberal democratic values are not taken for granted. As such, there is an urgent need to return to the normative foundation of RI, and to explore the notion of ‘responsible innovation’ from nonliberal democratic perspectives. Against this background, this paper seeks to demonstrate the problematic consequences of RI solely grounded on or justified by liberal democratic values. This paper will cast the argument in the form of a dilemma to be labelled as The Decent Nonliberal Peoples’ Dilemma and use it to illustrate the problems of the Western bias

Epistemic norms for public political arguments

The aim of the article is to develop precise epistemic rules for good public political arguments, by which political measures in the broad sense are justified. By means of a theory of deliberative democracy, it is substantiated that the justification of a political measure consists in showing argumentatively that this measure most promotes the common good or is morally optimal. It is then discussed which argumentation-theoretical approaches are suitable for providing epistemically sound rules for arguments for such theses and for the associated premises, rules whose compliance implies the truth or acceptability of the thesis. Finally, on the basis of the most suitable approach, namely the epistemological one, such systems of rules for the required types of arguments are presented that fulfil the conditions mentioned

Improving bioethical decision-making with a little help from legal argumentation

The most appropriate method for clinical decision-making is deliberation. The deliberative procedure aims to achieve wise and prudent decisions about health care taking into account facts, values and norms. Since deliberative reasoning is shared by healthcare professions, ethics and law, this paper introduces the structure and features of the bioethical deliberative procedure and suggests to improve it with some contributions from legal science and theories of argumentation.El método más adecuado para la toma de decisiones biomédicas es la deliberación. El procedimiento deliberativo pretende alcanzar decisiones prudentes y razonables tras tomar en consideración hechos, valores y normas. Al ser la racionalidad deliberativa un rasgo compartido por las profesiones asistenciales, la ética y el derecho, el presente artículo expone la estructura y las características del método bioético deliberativo y propone mejorarla mediante algunas contribuciones de la ciencia jurídica y las teorías de la argumentación

Public health reasoning: a logical view of trust

The public has a pact with the experts who deliver public health. That pact can be characterized as a relationship of trust in which the public trusts health experts to act in its best interests in return for its adherence to recommendations and other advice. This relationship clearly has emotional elements, as evidenced by strong feelings of anger and betrayal when public health recommendations are shown to be wrong. But it also has rational or logical components which are less often acknowledged by commentators. In this paper, these components are examined with special emphasis on the role of authority arguments in mediating the trust relationship between health experts and the public. It is contended that these arguments function as cognitive heuristics in that they facilitate decision-making in the absence of expert knowledge. A questionnaire study of public health reasoning was conducted in 879 members of the public. Participants were asked to consider a number of public health scenarios in which various arguments from authority were employed. Epistemic conditions, known to be associated with the rational warrant of these arguments, were systematically varied across these scenarios. Quantitative and qualitative data analyses revealed that subjects are adept at recognizing the conditions under which arguments from authority are more or less rationally warranted. The trust relationship at the heart of public health has logical components which lay people are capable of rationally evaluating during public health deliberations. This rational capacity should be exploited by experts during public health communication

Liberalization and Democratization: The Forum and the Hearth in the Era of Cosmopolitan Post-Industrial Capitalism

Rather than the desire for economic liberalization bringing about political democratization, the struggles against autocracy have created an opening for economic liberalization. While undermining partriarchy and hierarchy, anti-authoritarian movements have also paved the way for post-industrial capitalism, with its emphasis on information management, flexible working conditions, and a global outlook

Democratic cultural policy : democratic forms and policy consequences

The forms that are adopted to give practical meaning to democracy are assessed to identify what their implications are for the production of public policies in general and cultural policies in particular. A comparison of direct, representative, democratic elitist and deliberative versions of democracy identifies clear differences between them in terms of policy form and democratic practice. Further elaboration of these differences and their consequences are identified as areas for further research

Veil of influence: the legacy of John Rawls

Michael Saward looks at the influence of the work of John Rawl