In a recent article, Iris Marion Young raises several challenges to deliberative democracy on behalf of political activists. In this paper, the author defends a version of deliberative democracy against the activist challenges raised by Young and devises challenges to activism on behalf of the deliberative democrat. Key Words: activism • deliberative democracy • Discourse • Ideology • public sphere • I. M. Young.

ABSTRACT The media's attentive vigil over America's most militant and outrageous activists in the abortion wars has obscured a massive but quiet effort on the part of evangelicals to engage their opponents in exemplary deliberative discussions about bioethics. For a variety of reasons, activists in the pro‐life movement are more committed to carving out civic spaces for such dialogue than are their pro‐choice counterparts. This discrepancy invites investigation into the forces that promote and constrain political movements' interest in deliberation, as (...) well as highlighting the undeniable limits to deliberative ideals. (shrink)

Recent social science research indicates that animal rights philosophy plays the functional role of a religion in the lives of the most committed animal rights advocates. In this paper, I apply the functional religion thesis to the recent debate over the place of direct action animal rights advocacy in democratic theory. I outline the usefulness of the functional religion thesis and explain its implications for theorists that call for deliberative theories to be more inclusive of coercive forms of activism.

For many contemporary liberal political philosophers the appropriate response to the facts of pluralism is the requirement of public reasonableness, namely that individuals should be able to offer to their fellow citizens reasons for their political actions that can generally be accepted.This article finds wanting two possible arguments for such a requirement: one from a liberal principle of legitimacy and the other from a natural duty of political civility. A respect in which conversational restraint in the face of political agreement (...) involves incivility is sketched.The proceduralist view which commends substantive disagreement within agreement on procedures is briefly outlined, as is the possible role for civic virtue on this view. (shrink)