While liberals see personal autonomy as paramount in civil society and as intrinsic to human dignity and human rights, others, such as communitarians, see group rights as intrinsic to human development and human welfare. Thus, while generally liberals give no or very little place in their thinking to right-bearing groups or collective entities, others see communities as conditions for self-fulfilment and individual freedom. This paper explores these two positions and argues that a cultural, pluralist, democratic society will be characterised by (...) a diversity of controversial moral positions at a range of levels. The paper offers discussion as a method of reconciling controversial moral positions, in general and in classrooms, in particular. (shrink)

RESUMO Neste artigo, são rejeitadas duas teses relativamente aceitas a respeito do projeto filosófico tardio desenvolvido por John Rawls. A primeira tese afirma que o objetivo de obras como "O Liberalismo Político" e "Justiça como Equidade: Uma Reformulação" seria o de revisar a natureza do argumento contratualista de Rawls. A segunda, por sua vez, afirma que a principal consequência dessa revisão teria sido certo recuo das implicações igualitárias de sua teoria da justiça original. Procurar-se-á rejeitar ambas as proposições mostrando que (...) "O Liberalismo Político" deve ser entendido como uma teoria acerca do uso legítimo do poder em uma sociedade democrática, e que essa teoria da legitimidade possui consequências distributivas próprias, incompatíveis com teorias liberais convencionais. ABSTRACT The article aims to reject two interrelated theses on the philosophical project carried forward by the late John Rawls. The first thesis states that there is an important change in Rawls' late works such as "Political Liberalism" and "Justice as Fairness: A Restatement" regarding the nature of his theory. Particularly, this change would had brought about a reassessment of Rawls' contractualist argument. The second thesis claims that one of the most important consequences of such reassessment is the retreat from strong egalitarian commitments, as they were present in Rawls' original theory of justice. The article rejects both theses, showing that Political Liberalism can be understood as a theory about the legitimate uses of power in a democratic society and that such new theory of legitimacy brings about distributive consequences by its own that sharply contrast with classical liberal theories. (shrink)

The primary concern of this essay is with the question “What is a political community?” This question is important in its own right. Arguably, the main purpose of political philosophy is to provide an account of the nature of political association and, in so doing, to describe the relations that hold between the individual and the state. The question is also important, however, because of its centrality in contemporary debate about liberalism and community.

The first part of the paper focuses on the current debate over the universality of human rights. After conceptually distinguishing between different types of universality, it employs Sen’s definition that the claim of a universal value is the one that people anywhere may have reason to see as valuable. When applied to human rights, this standard implies “thin” (relative, contingent) universality, which might be operationally worked-out as in Donnelly’s three-tiered scheme of concepts–conceptions–implementations. The second part is devoted to collective rights, (...) which have recently become a new topic of the human rights debate. This part provides the basis of political–philosophical justification and legal–theoretical conceptualization of collective rights, as rights directly vested in collective entities. The third part dwells on the problem of universality of collective rights. It differentiates between the three main collective entities in international law—peoples, minorities, and indigenous peoples—and investigates whether certain rights vested in these collectives might, according to Sen’s standard, acquire the status of the universal ones. After determining that some rights are, in principle, plausible candidates for such a status in international law, this paper concludes by taking notice of a number of the open issues that still need to be settled, primarily by the cooperative endeavor of international legal scholars and legal theorists. (shrink)

Extending recent appropriations of Charles S. Peirce's work in political theory, we argue that the same epistemic norms that justify democracy offer a plausible basis for justifying multiculturalist policies aimed at protecting at-risk cultural groups. Because this epistemic argument is compatible with a full range of reasonable comprehensive doctrines, it fully accommodates the fact of reasonable pluralism, thereby skirting the Rawlsian objection to which the multiculturalisms of Charles Taylor and Will Kymlicka fall prey.

In Why Tolerate Religion?, Brian Leiter argues against the special legal status of religion, claiming that religion should not be the only ground for exemptions to the law and that this form of protection should be, in principle, available for the claims of secular conscience as well. However, in the last chapter of his book, he objects to a universal regime of exemptions for both religious and secular claims of conscience, highlighting the practical and moral flaws associated with it. We (...) believe that Leiter identifies a genuine and important contemporary legal and philosophical problem. We find much to admire in his reasoning. However, we raise questions about two claims that are crucial for his argument. The first claim is that it is not religion as such, but conscience that deserves toleration and respect. The second claim is that respect for religion and conscience demands ‘principled toleration’ but does not entail stronger policies of legal exemptions. Against the first claim, we argue that Leiter does not successfully distinguish religious belief from secular conscience and morality; and he does not explain why secular conscience deserves respect. Against the second claim, we argue that the most promising theories of legal exemptions are not classical theories of liberal toleration. (shrink)

In Why Tolerate Religion?, Brian Leiter argues against the special legal status of religion, claiming that religion should not be the only ground for exemptions to the law and that this form of protection should be, in principle, available for the claims of secular conscience as well. However, in the last chapter of his book, he objects to a universal regime of exemptions for both religious and secular claims of conscience, highlighting the practical and moral flaws associated with it. We (...) believe that Leiter identifies a genuine and important contemporary legal and philosophical problem. We find much to admire in his reasoning. However, we raise questions about two claims that are crucial for his argument. The first claim is that it is not religion as such, but conscience that deserves toleration and respect. The second claim is that respect for religion and conscience demands ‘principled toleration’ but does not entail stronger policies of legal exemptions. Against the first claim, we argue that Leiter does not successfully distinguish religious belief from secular conscience and morality; and he does not explain why secular conscience deserves respect. Against the second claim, we argue that the most promising theories of legal exemptions are not classical theories of liberal toleration. (shrink)

This paper is a discussion of the ways in which the notion of public reason has come to manifest itself in recent Islamic writings. The discussion is part of an effort to discover a common language in terms of which Islamic and liberal/secular discourses about democracy and public debate can be understood. The difficult question we are left with is whether it is permissible to speak of “public reason” sans phrase, or whether the notion must always be qualified by reference (...) to culture and religion. (shrink)

Communitarians and liberals have long held vigorous discussions about the status of the self. The former argue that we do not actively choose our ends, but that they come to the fore through self-discovery. This implies that the self is encumbered and that the liberal self—one capable of choosing his ends—is unrealistic. In this article, we consider these two paradigms and especially Will Kymlicka’s position within this debate. Kymlicka defends a liberal theory without relying on an unencumbered self, and may (...) therefore have rescued liberalism from communitarian attacks. In the first part of our article, we argue that Kymlicka’s theory can only be sustained if it involves an unencumbered self that is prior to its ends. Ultimately, this means that the communitarian critique on liberalism can no longer be refuted. In order to support our argument, we introduce a distinction between the metaphysical depiction of the self as an unencumbered chooser and the psychological depiction of the self, which draws upon people’s understanding of themselves as being constitutively bound to certain ends. In the second part of our article, we invoke Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalytical theory in order to assert that neither communitarians nor liberals are entirely able to explain what is at stake when individuals describe being bound to ‘extimate ends’—ends they feel they did not choose, yet cannot relinquish. Although both philosophical paradigms cannot fully account for the ‘extimate subject’, in the policies they respectively defend, liberalism is the one that should be preferred. (shrink)