Abstract

Although philosophers have recently devoted much attention to theories of distributive justice, relatively little work has been done to integrate such accounts with theories of democracy. I argue that once proper consideration is given to the role of political activity in a just society we can find a deeper philosophical justification for some versions of liberal democracy. ;I approach this issue by considering three approaches to the justification of liberal democracy. Many philosophers have argued that liberal democratic institutions are justified because they secure certain moral rights. Obviously, a necessary condition for the success of such arguments is that people actually have the rights in question. How do we tell which rights people have? I argue that moral rights arise only as guaranteeing morally fundamental interests. ;I look first at the philosophical approach to this problem of political justification suggested by libertarian writers following Locke. On this account, liberal democracy would be justified because it secures private property rights. But, I claim, this approach must fail, because we cannot find a sufficient basis for such rights. No morally fundamental interests underlie private property rights in a way that would support liberal democracy. ;A second line of argument, suggested perhaps by Rawls, justifies liberal democracy as the best guarantee of an egalitarian conception of justice. Although such conceptions of justice, including something like welfare rights, may be correct, and although liberal democracy may well secure them better than alternative institutions would, something is left out. The interests underlying liberal egalitarian theories of justice don't generate the sorts of rights most essentially bound up with liberal democracy. ;This conclusion leads to a third sort of argument, suggested by Rousseau, Mill, Marx, T. H. Green, and Dewey. Liberal democracy is here justified as the best guarantee of participatory rights--roughly, the rights of all persons to develop and exercise their capacities for cooperatively controlling the common conditions of their lives. I argue that we do have such rights, and that they can be grounded in the interests arising from a morally appealing ideal of human nature. On this ideal, persons are autonomous, self-developing creatures who realize their best selves by actively participating in a community of equals.