This paper examines the differences between moralist, realist, and pragmatist approaches to political legitimacy by articulating their largely implicit views of judgment. Three claims are advanced. First, the salient opposition among approaches to legitimacy is not between “moralism” and “realism.” Recent realist proposals for rethinking legitimacy share with moralist views a distinctive form, called “normativism”: a quest for knowledge of principles that solve the question of legitimacy. This assumes that judging legitimacy is a matter of applying such principles to a (...) case at hand. Second, neither Rawls nor Habermas is a normativist about political legitimacy. The principles of legitimacy they proffer claim to express rather than adjudicate the legitimacy of a liberal-democratic regime, and thus cannot solve the question of legitimacy at a fundamental level. But perhaps we should question the normativist aspiration to theoretically resolving the problem to begin with. My third claim is that a “pragmatist” approach enables us to rethink political legitimacy more deeply by shifting focus from the articulation of principles to the activity of judging. Implicit in Rawls’s and Habermas’s theories I then find clues towards an alternative account of judgment, in which the question of legitimacy calls not for theoretical resolution but for ongoing practical engagement. (shrink)

The dissertation attempts to answer the question of how to theorize resistance from within the philosophy of social science. To answer this question we must consider more than just the philosophy of social science; we also must look to political and moral philosophy. Resistance to the social norms of one’s community is possible to theorize from within the philosophy of social science once we develop a sufficiently nuanced account of social and moral communities, according to which membership in a community (...) is not defined by sharing judgments, conceptual frameworks, or comprehensive worldviews, but by sharing terms of discourse so that discussion about judgments, conceptual frameworks, and comprehensive worldviews is possible. Understanding the structure of one’s moral community is not the same as to endorsing that structure. This suggests that contestation is already present within communities about what ‘we’ do, up to and including who ‘we’—as a ‘community’—are. Challenging communitarian understandings of what makes a community a community, I argue that communities are best understood as forming around common concerns or perceptions of problems. This contestation plays a major role in determining the identities of communities, and these identities are constantly shifting. (shrink)

Is there such a thing as “a/the greater good”? Could it be conceived in radically ecological terms? By critically drawing on skeptical insights presented by Slavoj Žižek and Hans Sluga, the article articulates what I am calling “a/the greater ecological good” as an end and as the ethico-political means to this end. I begin by describing this good as an aim: the survival-flourishing of earthly entities and environs. Its contours and limits are outlined, and various Žižekian objections are addressed. Next, (...) the ethical and political means for this good’s realization are delineated. We are summoned to allow things to survive-thrive. But the existing order excessively disallows things from surviving-flourishing, so we are compelled to struggle against it and foster a society of letting-be. The article concludes by proffering an outline of a possible strategy for this political struggle. It would involve the collaborative conception of a blueprint of this envisioned society; popularizing and building mass solidarity around the blueprint; and leveraging this solidarity to, ideally, peacefully implement the blueprint; otherwise, ethico-political violence may be required in order to realize this greater ecological good. (shrink)