O presente trabalho tem como objetivo compreender as contribuições da perspectiva teórico-metodológica da pesquisa-ação colaborativo-crítica na formação acadêmica e profissional dos autores de dissertações de um grupo de pesquisa. Assim, toma a perspectiva teórica de Jürgen Habermas, baseada nos conceitos de discurso e atos de fala. Assim, o discurso assume a forma de argumentação, de acordo com que os participantes argumentam sobre uma pretensão de validade criticável colocada em diálogo. Fundamenta-se na pesquisa qualitativa do tipo estudo de caso, que busca (...) nos espaços discursivos individuais e coletivos articular com seus participantes, um lugar onde todos têm o direito de falar e colocar seus entendimentos de forma racional, apresentando suas ideias e construindo pela via do diálogo argumentos fortes para chegar a um entendimento mútuo. Procura-se captar por meio dos espaços discursivos, as perspectivas teórico-metodológicas da pesquisa-ação colaborativo-crítica presente nas dissertações, os “silenciamentos” presentes e intencionalidades que permeiam os objetivos das propostas de pesquisa. A partir dos espaços constituídos, foi possível perceber que os autores construíram suas pesquisas coletivamente, sendo os conceitos de colaboração, participação e escuta primordiais para dar continuidade aos movimentos desencadeados. Neste sentido, a utilização da pesquisa-ação como perspectiva teórico-metodológica contribuiu para fundamentar as relações ao longo dos processos de pesquisa. Sobretudo os sujeitos puderam vivenciar a pesquisa como um todo, não apenas metodologicamente, mas teoricamente pela via comunicativa. Sendo assim, por meio da comunicação há uma mudança social, sendo possível estabelecer reflexões profundas do mundo da vida intersubjetivamente partilhado pelos sujeitos. (shrink)

Introduction Context: In Portugal assisted death was approved in February 2020 by the Parliament, although the law is not yet in force. Objectives To find out what doctors think about those practices. Methods A link to a questionnaire was sent by email three times, at intervals of one week, to the doctors registered in the Northern Section of the Portuguese Medical Association, before the Parliamentary approval. Results The questionnaire was returned by 1148 physicians. A minority of doctors would practice a (...) form of assisted death under the present law or if it was legalized, but a higher percentage think that euthanasia should be legalized, and more would like to have that option if they themselves were in a terminal phase of a disease. Religion has a strong influence on the attitudes of doctors, so too does their contact with patients in a terminal phase, as doctors who deal with more patients with far advanced diseases are more likely to be unfavorable to assisted death. On the other hand, younger doctors are more in favor of these practices. Conclusion The small percentage of questionnaires sent back is a weakness in this study and casts doubts on the generalizability of the conclusions. However, this is, so far, the best approximation to the opinions of Portuguese doctors on assisted death. (shrink)

As health policy-makers around the world seek to make progress towards universal health coverage, they must navigate between two important ethical imperatives: to set national spending priorities fairly and efficiently; and to safeguard the right to health. These imperatives can conflict, leading some to conclude that rights-based approaches present a disruptive influence on health policy, hindering states’ efforts to set priorities fairly and efficiently. Here, we challenge this perception. We argue first that these points of tension stem largely from inadequate (...) interpretations of the aims of priority setting as well as the right to health. We then discuss various ways in which the right to health complements traditional concerns of priority setting and vice versa. Finally, we set out a three-step process by which policy-makers may navigate the ethical and legal considerations at play. (shrink)

Negli anni che intercorrono fra la prima e l'ultima stesura della Scienza nuova vedono la luce in Europa le opere di Montesquieu e di Voltaire, di Lamettrie e di Hume, di Tindal e di Berkeley, di Morelly e di D'Alembert, Nell'Europa del suo tempo Vico fu senza dubbio un pensatore 'isolato'. Tale isolamento è stato di volta in volta interpretato come arretratezza e come capacità di divinazione - le pagine della Scienza nuova sono State interpretate come l'espressione tipica di una (...) rinnovata visione cristiana della storia o come un'anticipata polemica antilluministica e un precorrimento dei temi della cultura romantica e della filosofia di Hegel. 'Da un angoletto morto della storia', lavorando sui testi del secolo precedente, Vico affrontava comunque alcuni grandi problemi che resteranno al centro della cultura romantica, di quella positivistica, delle discussioni sullo storicismo. (shrink)

Com base na crítica que Hume faz ao argumento do desígnio, especialmente nas partes 10 e 11 dos Diálogos sobre a Religião Natural, meu objetivo neste artigo é, a partir de uma análise da relação entre a existência do mal no mundo e a suposta existência de uma divindade possuidora dos atributos tradicionais do teísmo, defender a tese segundo a qual o tratamento que Hume dá ao problema do mal corresponde, digamos assim, à cartada final – o último e decisivo (...) recurso que Philo personagem que articula essa crítica) aciona para mostrar que o argumento do desígnio não fornece bases suficientemente sólidas e consistentes para dar suporte à crença na existência de um Deus maximamente poderoso, justo e benevolente; e que, portanto, a existência do mal no mundo tem uma força argumentativa tal que a improbabilidade da existência de Deus é maior do que com base nos argumentos apresentados nas partes 2 a 8 dos Diálogos. Isso significa que eu tomo aqui o problema do mal como o maior problema para o teísta experimental – cuja argumentação pretende provar a existência de Deus a partir da observação dos fenômenos do mundo. (shrink)

O presente texto resultou da tentativa de compreender/descrever os mecanismos e as relações de poder/saber, que, na escola, produzem saberes e práticas, a partir da relação entre tais elementos e as normatizações oferecidas pelas políticas públicas para a educação.

Is there more to the recent surge in political realism than just a debate on how best to continue doing what political theorists are already doing? I use two recent books, by Michael Freeden and Matt Sleat, as a testing ground for realism’s claims about its import on the discipline. I argue that both book take realism beyond the Methodenstreit, though each in a different direction: Freeden’s takes us in the realm of meta-metatheory, Sleat’s is a genuine exercise in grounding (...) liberal normative theory in a non-moralistic way. I conclude with wider methodological observations. I argue that unlike communitarianism (the previous contender for the discipline’s renewal), realism has the potential to open new vistas, though their novelty is to a large extent relative to the last forty years or so: realism is best thought of as a return to a more traditional way of doing political philosophy. (shrink)

This paper provides a critical overview of the realist current in contemporary political philosophy. We define political realism on the basis of its attempt to give varying degrees of autonomy to politics as a sphere of human activity, in large part through its exploration of the sources of normativity appropriate for the political and so distinguish sharply between political realism and non-ideal theory. We then identify and discuss four key arguments advanced by political realists: from ideology, from the relationship of (...) ethics to politics, from the priority of legitimacy over justice and from the nature of political judgement. Next, we ask to what extent realism is a methodological approach as opposed to a substantive political position and so discuss the relationship between realism and a few such positions. We close by pointing out the links between contemporary realism and the realist strand that runs through much of the history of Western political thought. (shrink)

In *How Propaganda Works* Jason Stanley argues that democratic societies require substantial material equality because inequality causes ideologically flawed belief, which, in turn, make demagogic propaganda more effective. And that is problematic for the quality of democracy. In this brief paper I unpack that argument, in order to make two points: (a) the non-moral argument for equality is promising, but weakened by its reliance on a heavily moralised conception of democracy; (b) that problem may be remedied by whole-heartedly embracing a (...) more realistic conception of democracy. That conception is at least compatible with Stanley’s argument, if not implicit in parts of it. (shrink)

This is a response to Erman and Moller's response to our reply to their 'Political Legitimacy in the Real Normative World', both also in this journal.

In this paper we show how a realistic normative democratic theory can work within the constraints set by the most pessimistic empirical results about voting behaviour and elite capture of the policy process. After setting out the empirical evidence and discussing some extant responses by political theorists, we argue that the evidence produces a two-pronged challenge for democracy: an epistemic challenge concerning the quality and focus of decision-making and an oligarchic challenge concerning power concentration. To address the challenges we then (...) put forward three main normative claims, each of which is compatible with the evidence. We start with a critique of the epistocratic position commonly thought to be supported by the evidence. We then introduce a qualified critique of referenda and other forms of plebiscite, and an outline of a tribune-based system of popular control over oligarchic influence on the policy process. Our discussion points towards a renewal of democracy in a plebeian but not plebiscitarian direction: Attention to the relative power of social classes matters more than formal dispersal of power through voting. We close with some methodological reflections about the compatibility between our normative claims and the realist program in political philosophy. (shrink)

In eukaryotic cells the nucleus and its contents are separated from the cytoplasm by the nuclear envelope. Macromolecules, as well as smaller molecules and ions, can cross the nuclear envelope through the nuclear pore complex. Molecules greater than approx. 60 kDa and containing a nuclear localization signal are actively transported across the nuclear membranes, but there has been little evidence for regulatory mechanisms for smaller molecules and ions. Recently, diffusion across the nuclear envelope has been observed to be regulated by (...) nuclear cisternal Ca2+ concentrations. Following depletion of Ca2+ from the nuclear store by inositol 1,4,5‐trisphosphate or Ca2+ chelators, a fluorescent 10 kDa marker molecule was no longer able to enter the nucleus. Distinct conformational states of the nuclear pore complexes depended on the Ca2+ filling state of the nuclear envelope, supporting the assumption that a switch in the conformation of the nuclear pore complex may control the transport of intermediate‐sized molecules across the nuclear envelope. Thus nuclear Ca2+ stores may regulate the conformational state of the nuclear pore complex, and thereby passive diffusion of molecules between the cytosol and the nucleoplasm. The physiological significance of this finding is currently unknown. (shrink)

In this paper, I introduce a new species of elusive reason–reasons that it is impossible for an agent to act, or be motivated to act, for–and I show how this kind of elusive reason undermines a plausible claim about normative reasons, the Motivational Constraint. To defend the existence of this new kind of elusive reason, I respond to the objection that our intuitions are tracking another normative or evaluative phenomenon, such as reasons to have certain affective responses or reasons for (...) others to act. In addition, because accepting the new kind of elusive reason requires affirming the claim that S acts for a reason p only if S regards p as a reason to A, I develop an account of what it is for S to regard p as a reason to A. Finally, as part of arguing for the former claim, I argue that the idea of being moved to A for a reason p entails the idea of being moved to A in light of p, which itself entails the idea of regarding p as a reason. (shrink)

Political realism is characterised by fidelity to the facts of politics and a refusal to derive political judgments from pre- political moral commitments. Even when they are not taken to make normative theorising impossible or futile, those characteristics are often thought to engender a conservative slant, or at least a tendency to prefer incremental reformism to radicalism. I resist those claims by distinguishing between three variants of realism—ordorealism, contextual realism, and radical realism—and contrasting them with both non-ideal theory and utopianism. (...) I then develop a version of radical realism as a form of debunking and vindicatory genealogy. Even though this new approach eschews both feasibility constraints (unlike non-ideal theory) and prescriptions about the ideal society (unlike utopianism), I show how it has more radical potential than morality-driven (and hence often ideological) political theory, and how it supports both open-ended, radical social critique and concrete forms of prefigurative political action. (shrink)

Estudo comparado sobre o tratamento dado à reprodução humana assistida no direito do Brasil, Estados Unidos, Portugal, Espanha e Itália.

The main goal of this work is to place the Regional History of Education into the broader context of general history and to create a theoretical structure that includes its main approaches and characteristics while avoiding the frequent confusions and oversights with which it is often associated. Our outline of regional history alludes to its conceptual foundations, defines the object of its analysis and also identifies the convergence of factors that shape this area of study, such as genealogy, multicentrism, comparison (...) and social synthesis. Once these different aspects have been described it will be easier to understand that the past is not only a dependent variable of time but also, to a great degree, of space (understood as a cornerstone of human life and of the social relations that shape and give meaning to the past, present and future). (shrink)

1. Hume e a Magna Carta: em torno do círculo da justiça, Maria Isabel Limongi; 2. Hume e o problema da justificação da resistência ao governo, Stephanie Hamdan Zahreddine; 3 O surgimento dos costumes da sociedade comercial e as paixões do trabalho, Pedro Vianna da Costa e Faria; 4. O sentido da crença: suas funções epistêmicas e implicações para a teoria política de Hume, Lilian Piraine Laranja; 5. O Status do Fideísmo na Crítica de Hume à Religião Natural, Marília Côrtes (...) de Ferraz; 6. Da imaterialidade da alma: a desconstrução mais incisiva de Hume de um pressuposto metafísico, Marcos César Seneda; 7. A “irresistibilidade” e a “inevitabilidade” das crenças naturais e o caráter normativo da epistemologia de Hume, Claudiney José de Sousa; 8. Filosofia e vida comum na epistemologia de Hume, Marcos Fonseca Ribeiro Balieiro; 9. Hume e o relativismo moral, Flávio Zimmermann; 10. Hume e a vivacidade das crenças morais, André Luiz Olivier da Silva; 11. Virtudes sociais e refinamento na filosofia moral de David Hume, Andreh Sabino Ribeiro; 12. O movimento razão-crença na interpretação da teoria da motivação de Hume, Franco Nero Antunes Soares; 13. Sentimentos e Normatividade em David Hume segundo Annette Baier, Giovani Lunardi; 14. Simpatia e aprovação moral da justiça na filosofia de David Hume, Denize Carolina da Cunha & Nivaldo Machado; 15. Do eu como feixe de percepções ao eu das paixões: Hume e a identidade pessoal no Tratado, Susie Kovalczyk dos Santos; 16. Imaginação em Hobbes e Hume: cadeias mentais reguladas e princípios de associação, Andrea Cachel; 17. Hume e o princípio fundamental da filosofia moderna, Rafael Bittencourt Santos; 18. A conexão necessária entre Hume e Malebranche, Bruna Frascolla; 19. Realismo ontológico e antirrealismo epistemológico na problemática sobre o mundo externo em Hume, Leandro Hollanda; 20. Uma possível inversão kantiana da tese humeana da inércia da razão, Carlos Eduardo Moreno Pires; Nota sobre João Paulo Monteiro, Rolf Nelson Kuntz. (shrink)

Justificado y bien elaborado homenaje a uno de los más destacados filósofos latinoamericanos contemporáneos. Varios artículos se refieren a su obra Creer, saber, conocer; pero los hay también sobre temas como ideología y ética, y uno sobre la obra de Villoro como historiador, entre otros. Villoro responde a las objeciones expresadas en algunos trabajos en un artículo al final del volumen. Incluye también una bibliografía de Villoro"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 58.

What is the point of ideology critique? Prominent Anglo-American philosophers recently proposed novel arguments for the view that ideology critique is moral critique, and ideologies are flawed insofar as they contribute to injustice or oppression. We criticize that view and make the case for an alternative and more empirically-oriented approach, grounded in epistemic rather than moral commitments. We make two related claims: (i) ideology critique can debunk beliefs and practices by uncovering how, empirically, they are produced by self-justifying power, and (...) (ii) the self-justification of power should be understood as an epistemic rather than moral flaw. Drawing on the recent realist revival in political theory, we argue that this genealogical approach has more radical potential, despite being more parsimonious than morality-based approaches. We demonstrate the relative advantages of our view by discussing the results of empirical studies on the contemporary phenomenon of neopatriarchy in the Middle East and North Africa. (shrink)

Do salient normative claims about politics require moral premises? Political moralists think they do, political realists think they do not. We defend the viability of realism in a two-pronged way. First, we show that a number of recent attacks on realism, as well as realist responses to those attacks, unduly conflate distinctively political normativity and non-moral political normativity. Second, we argue that Alex Worsnip and Jonathan Leader-Maynard’s recent attack on realist arguments for a distinctively political normativity depends on assuming moralism (...) as the default view, which places an excessive burden on the viability of realism, and so begs the question. Our discussion, though, does not address the relative merits of realism and moralism, so its upshot is relatively ecumenical: moralism need not be the view that all apt normative political judgments are moral judgments, and realism need not be the view that no apt normative political judgments are moral judgments. (shrink)

This chapter assesses John Gray’s modus vivendi-based justification for liberalism. I argue that his approach is preferable to the more orthodox deontological or teleological justificatory strategies, at least because of the way it can deal with the problem of diversity. But then I show how that is not good news for liberalism, for grounding liberal political authority in a modus vivendi undermines liberalism’s aspiration to occupy a privileged normative position vis-à-vis other kinds of regimes. So modus vivendi can save liberalism (...) from moralism, but at cost many liberals will not be prepared to pay. (shrink)

In this rejoinder to Erman and Möller’s reply to our “Political Norms and Moral Values” we clarify the sense in which there can be specifically political values, and expound the practice-dependent notion of legitimacy adopted by our preferred version of political realism.

Hypocrisy is widely thought to be morally objectionable in a way that undermines the hypocrite’s moral standing to blame others. To wit, we seem to intuitively accept the “Nonhypocrisy Condition:” R has the standing to blame S for some violation of a moral norm N only if R’s blaming S is not hypocritical. This claim has been the subject of intensifying philosophical investigation in recent years. However, we can only understand why hypocrisy is morally objectionable and has an effect on (...) standing to blame if we can correctly characterize hypocrisy itself. Unfortunately, some recent discussions fail to do this, which fatally undermines subsequent arguments concerning the effect of hypocrisy on the standing to blame. This paper’s central aim is to develop and defend a better account of hypocrisy. The hope is that with such an account in hand, we can explain and perhaps justify our moral aversion to hypocrisy in general as well as the Nonhypocrisy Condition in particular. (shrink)

Hypocrisy is a ubiquitous feature of moral and political life, and accusations of hypocrisy a ubiquitous feature of moral and political discourse. Yet it has been curiously under-theorized in analytic philosophy. Fortunately, the last decade has seen a boomlet of articles that address hypocrisy in order to explain and justify conditions on the so-called “standing” to blame (Wallace 2010; Friedman 2013; Bell 2013; Todd 2017; Herstein 2017; Roadevin 2018; Fritz and Miller 2018). Nevertheless, much of this more recent literature does (...) not adequately address the question, “what is hypocrisy?” In this paper, I develop and defend an account of hypocrisy as vicious, value-expressing inconsistency. I show how this account solves some traditional and some novel philosophical puzzles concerning hypocrisy and affords a deeper understanding of the features of hypocrisy emphasized by other prominent accounts. (shrink)

This paper explores trivalent truth conditions for indicative conditionals, examining the “defective” truth table proposed by de Finetti and Reichenbach. On their approach, a conditional takes the value of its consequent whenever its antecedent is true, and the value Indeterminate otherwise. Here we deal with the problem of selecting an adequate notion of validity for this conditional. We show that all standard validity schemes based on de Finetti’s table come with some problems, and highlight two ways out of the predicament: (...) one pairs de Finetti’s conditional with validity as the preservation of non-false values, but at the expense of Modus Ponens; the other modifies de Finetti’s table to restore Modus Ponens. In Part I of this paper, we present both alternatives, with specific attention to a variant of de Finetti’s table proposed by Cooper and Cantwell. In Part II, we give an in-depth treatment of the proof theory of the resulting logics, DF/TT and CC/TT: both are connexive logics, but with significantly different algebraic properties. (shrink)

Free software introduces a challenge to the classical conception of individual rights. The model of software licensing given by the General Public License generates the question whether it constitutes an exercise or a wavering of copyright. It is argued in this paper that the later alternative is entrenched in the classical concept of freedom as autonomy, which, by its turn, is reflected in a classical conception of individual rights based on the model of propriety as a dominion over an exclusive (...) object (res). We provide grounds for a concept of non-exclusive individual rights, based on the notion of freedom as reciprocity, in order to obtain more solid legal foundations for the free licensing of software. The concept of freedom as reciprocity and the corresponding reconstruction of non-exclusive subjective rights achieved in this paper is an exercise in general theory of law and thus may be applied to other legal fields where the classical notion of freedom and the property of exclusivity do not fit properly. (shrink)

O objeto deste artigo é a leitura que Claude Geffré faz de Paul Tillich em De Babel a Pentecostes: ensaios de teologia inter-religiosa. O autor recorre à teologia de Tillich para desenvolver uma “hermenêutica do diálogo inter-religioso”, a fim de responder ao desafio do pluralismo religioso para a teologia cristã. O argumento que Geffré encontra é que apenas a partir do paradoxo cristológico, à luz do conceito de “revelação final” e “preocupação última”, a teologia cristã pode responder ao pluralismo religioso (...) sem perder-se de si mesmo. O artigo tem dois momentos: primeiro, uma percepção da obra de Geffré, especialmente a primeira parte, intitulada Não há outro nome, onde está nosso foco; segundo, a análise dos três conceitos de Tillich desenvolvidos por Geffré, procurando identificar e caracterizar acentos da leitura e analisar o resultado dessa leitura à luz das referências na obra de Tillich. Nossa conclusão sublinha a pertinência da teologia de Tillich para a reflexão acerca do problema proposto, tal como Geffré demonstra, e destaca uma crítica a partir do conceito de preocupação última, cuja implicação questiona a positividade desse conceito para uma teologia inter-religiosa, uma vez que seu caráter paradoxal seja relativizado. (shrink)

O presente artigo busca articular reflexões a partir da teoria da interseccionalidade. Nesse campo, a questão da liberdade é um ponto importante e é antípoda do racismo. A forma pela qual as mulheres negras afirmam a liberdade, individual ou coletivamente, produz resultados políticos e sociais. Neste artigo buscamos analisar a percepção da liberdade no cotidiano. Foram entrevistadas mulheres negras de diferentes níveis de escolaridade, em idade reprodutiva, residentes do sudoeste baiano. A liberdade se apresenta como uma possibilidade que advém de (...) conquistas econômicas e sociais. É, nesse sentido, resultante de lutas coletivas e sociais. O racismo é, então, uma barreira importante a ser considerada a partir da teoria da interseccionalidade. A estruturação de sentidos e significados construídos nas narrativas do cotidiano pode auxiliar na compreensão das condições sociais e de vida das mulheres negras e orientar hipóteses de pesquisa e de ação política. (shrink)

Neste espaço relataremos o desenvolvimento do projeto de pesquisa Filosofia, Cultura Juvenil e Ensino Médio desenvolvido no período de junho de 2004 a junho de 2009, na Universidade Federal de Santa Maria (UFSM), no Rio Grande do Sul. A coordenação foi realizada pela professora Elisete Medianeira Tomazetti, vinculada ao Departamento de Metodologia e Ensino (MEN), do Centro Educação e responsável pelas disciplinas de Didática da Filosofia, Pesquisa para o Ensino de Filosofia e Estágio Curricular Supervisionado, do Curso de Filosofia da (...) UFSM. Desde seu início o projeto contou com vários alunos do Curso de Filosofia da UFSM. Alguns se agregavam ao grupo durante certo período e assim que concluíam seu curso e precisavam buscar emprego, em outras localidades, acabavam deixando o grupo. Outros, devido a bolsas de iniciação científica, oriundas de diferentes editais, permaneceram durante todo o período de desenvolvimento da pesquisa, nas diferentes etapas. O desenvolvimento da pesquisa procurou sempre fomentar o interesse dos alunos em dar continuidade a seus estudos de pós-graduação strictu sensu, seguindo com pesquisas na mesma temática. Muitos trabalhos, a partir desta pesquisa, foram elaborados e apresentados pelos participantes do grupo de pesquisa em eventos da área, ajudando a fortalecer esse campo teórico, ainda com certa carência de estudos e pesquisa significativos no contexto brasileiro. Da mesma forma, a pesquisa ajudou tornar mais visível a problemática do ensino de filosofia na Escola Básica no contexto do Curso de Filosofia e do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Educação da UFSM, principalmente. (shrink)

We argue that deliberative decision-making that is inclusive, transparent and accountable can contribute to more trustworthy and legitimate decisions on difficult ethical questions and political trade-offs during the pandemic and beyond.

This paper develops a trivalent semantics for the truth conditions and the probability of the natural language indicative conditional. Our framework rests on trivalent truth conditions first proposed by Cooper (1968) and Belnap (1973) and it yields two logics of conditional reasoning: (i) a logic C of certainty-preserving inference; and (ii) a logic U for uncertain reasoning that preserves the probability of the premises. We show systematic correspondences between trivalent and probabilistic representations of inferences in either framework, and we use (...) the distinction between the two systems to cast light on the validity of inferences such as Modus Ponens, Or-To-If, and Conditional Excluded Middle. Specifically, the conditional behaves monotonically in C, but non-monotonically in U; Modus Ponens is valid in C, but valid in U only for non-nested conditionals. The result is a unified account of the semantics and epistemology of indicative conditionals that can be fruitfully applied to analyzing the validity of conditional inferences. (shrink)

Could the notion of compromise help us overcoming – or at least negotiating – the frequent tension, in normative political theory, between the realistic desideratum of peaceful coexistence and the idealistic desideratum of justice? That is to say, an analysis of compromise may help us moving beyond the contrast between two widespread contrasting attitudes in contemporary political philosophy: ‘fiat iustitia, pereat mundus’ on the one side, ‘salus populi suprema lex’ on the other side. More specifically, compromise may provide the backbone (...) of a conception of legitimacy that mediates between idealistic (or moralistic) and realistic (or pragmatic) desiderata of political theory, i.e. between the aspiration to peace and the aspiration to justice. In other words, this paper considers whether an account of compromise could feature in a viable realistic conception of political legitimacy, in much the same way in which consensus features in more idealistic conceptions of legitimacy (a move that may be attributed to some realist theorists, especially Bernard Williams). My conclusions, however, are largely sceptical: I argue that grounding legitimacy in any kind of normatively salient agreement does require the trappings of idealistic political philosophy, for better or – in my view – worse. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This essay is a critical study of Jason Brennan's Against Democracy. We make three main points. First, we argue that Brennan's proposal of a right to competent government only works if one considers the absence of government a viable proposition, something most of his opponents are not prepared to do. Second, we suggest that Brennan's account of competent decision-making is blind to forms of oligarchic power that work against the very ideals of justice and epistemic virtue that competence is (...) meant to safeguard. Third, we muster empirical evidence to argue that, in the real world, democracy is not just about making decisions and selecting policies, in which case Brennan's argument misses its mark. (shrink)