Articles by Jonathan Quong

CALL FOR PAPERS - Deadline for submission of abstract: 9th April 2012

Brave New World 2012, the Sixteenth Annual Postgraduate Conference organised under the auspices of the Manchester Centre for Political Theory (MANCEPT), will take place on Wednesday 27th and Thursday 28th June 2012 at the University of Manchester.

We are pleased to announce that our guest speakers this year are:

Richard Arneson (University of California, San Diego)

Charles Larmore (Brown University)

The Brave New World conference series is now established as a leading international forum dedicated exclusively to the discussion of postgraduate research in political theory. The conference offers a great opportunity for postgraduates from many different countries and universities to share experiences, concerns and research interests, to exchange stimulating ideas and to make new friends - all in a financially accessible and highly informal setting. Participants will also have the chance to meet and talk about their work with eminent academics, including members of faculty from the University of Manchester and guest speakers, who will deliver keynote addresses at the event.

Guest speakers in previous years have included Brian Barry, Simon Caney, G.A. Cohen, Roger Crisp, Cecile Fabre, Jerry Gaus, Peter Jones, Chandran Kukathas, Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen, Susan Mendus, David Miller, Onora O’Neill, Michael Otsuka, Bhikhu Parekh, Carole Pateman, Anne Phillips, Thomas Pogge, Joseph Raz, Andrea Sangiovanni, Quentin Skinner, Adam Swift, Philippe Van Parijs, Leif Wenar, Andrew Williams, and Jonathan Wolff.

Papers focusing on any area of political theory or political philosophy are welcome. If you would like to present a paper then please send a 300-word, anonymised abstract (including the title of the paper) to Brave.New.World@manchester.ac.uk no later than 9th April 2012. Please also include in your email your name and institutional affiliation. Please note that the conference is self-financed and participants are responsible for seeking their own funding. For further details please contact us at Brave.New.World@manchester.ac.uk

A reminder:

Lecturer / Senior Lecturer in Political Theory

Closing date: 16/01/2012
Faculty / Organisational unit: Humanities
School / Directorate: School of Social Sciences
Salary: £32,751 to £55,758
Reference: HUM-00419

Applications are invited for a full-time, continuing, Lectureship or Senior Lectureship in Political Theory, tenable from 1 September 2012. The successful candidate will join the Politics discipline area and be attached to the Manchester Centre for Political Theory (MANCEPT). Lectureship applicants must have, or be about to complete, a relevant PhD and demonstrate the potential to produce high quality publications and provide excellent teaching. Senior Lectureship applicants must have established a strong record of publication and be experienced teachers at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Research and teaching interests may be in any core areas of contemporary analytic political theory including theories of justice, democracy, equality, rights and responsibility. Applicants must be prepared to teach across undergraduate and postgraduate courses, supervise undergraduate and postgraduate dissertations and make appropriate teaching and administrative contributions across Politics.

Further details about Politics at Manchester can be obtained from its Web pages at: http://www.socialsciences.manchester.ac.uk/disciplines/politics/index.html

Informal enquiries
Informal enquiries can be made to Professor Alan Hamlin
Email: alan.hamlin@manchester.ac.uk
The University of Manchester values a diverse workforce and welcomes applications from all sections of the community.

Application Instructions
In considering your application we will need to know of your future research plans and your teaching and learning philosophy so please include a statement on these two points in the “Additional Information” section of the application form.

Further particulars
HUM-00419 Lecturer / Senior Lecturer in Political Theory (PDF, 16.7 Kb)

MANCEPT Workshops in Political Theory 2012
Call for Convenors

The MANCEPT Workshops in Political Theory 2012 is an annual conference in political theory, organised under the auspices of the Manchester Centre for Political Theory, University of Manchester. The conference in 2012 will be the ninth event in the series and will take place on Wednesday September 5th until Friday September 7th 2012 at the Arthur Lewis Building, University of Manchester.Over the last eight years, participants from over twenty countries have come together in a series of workshops concerned with issues in political theory/philosophy widely construed. Last year the workshops had more than 200 delegates attending, and the conference is now established as a leading international forum dedicated to the discussion of research in political theory.

Applications for convening a workshop are now being accepted and more information about the event can be found here:
http://manceptworkshops2012.wordpress.com/

If you are interested in convening a workshop or require any further information please e-mail the Workshop convenor Chris Mills at:
manceptworkshops2012@gmail.com

On Fabre’s Cosmopolitan War

17 May, 2012
Arthur Lewis Building
University of Manchester

The Manchester Centre for Political Theory (MANCEPT) is delighted to host a conference on Professor Cécile Fabre’s forthcoming book, Cosmopolitan War (Oxford University Press). The book provides a series of incisive and challenging arguments regarding cosmopolitan principles for just war. Fabre argues for unconventional views regarding wars of national self-defence, humanitarian interventions, subsistence wars, civil wars, mercenaries, the use of human shields in wartime, and other important issues in the ethics of war and warfare.

The participants are:

Cécile Fabre (University of Oxford)
David Rodin (University of Oxford)
Daniel Statman (University of Haifa)
Anna Stilz (Princeton University)
Victor Tadros (University of Warwick)

Registration for the conference is now open and places are limited so please book early. For details regarding registration please visit us at:

http://www.socialsciences.manchester.ac.uk/disciplines/politics/events/cosmopolitanwar/

Lecturer / Senior Lecturer in Political Theory

Closing date: 16/01/2012
Faculty / Organisational unit: Humanities
School / Directorate: School of Social Sciences
Salary: £32,751 to £55,758
Reference: HUM-00419

Applications are invited for a full-time, continuing, Lectureship or Senior Lectureship in Political Theory, tenable from 1 September 2012. The successful candidate will join the Politics discipline area and be attached to the Manchester Centre for Political Theory (MANCEPT). Lectureship applicants must have, or be about to complete, a relevant PhD and demonstrate the potential to produce high quality publications and provide excellent teaching. Senior Lectureship applicants must have established a strong record of publication and be experienced teachers at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Research and teaching interests may be in any core areas of contemporary analytic political theory including theories of justice, democracy, equality, rights and responsibility. Applicants must be prepared to teach across undergraduate and postgraduate courses, supervise undergraduate and postgraduate dissertations and make appropriate teaching and administrative contributions across Politics.

Further details about Politics at Manchester can be obtained from its Web pages at: http://www.socialsciences.manchester.ac.uk/disciplines/politics/index.html

Informal enquiries
Informal enquiries can be made to Professor Alan Hamlin
Email: alan.hamlin@manchester.ac.uk
The University of Manchester values a diverse workforce and welcomes applications from all sections of the community.

Application Instructions
In considering your application we will need to know of your future research plans and your teaching and learning philosophy so please include a statement on these two points in the “Additional Information” section of the application form.

Further particulars
HUM-00419 Lecturer / Senior Lecturer in Political Theory (PDF, 16.7 Kb)

FINAL CALL FOR PAPERS - Deadline for submission of abstract: 11th April 2011

Brave New World 2011, the Fifteenth Annual Postgraduate Conference organised under the auspices of the Manchester Centre for Political Theory (MANCEPT), will take place on Monday 27th and Tuesday 28th June 2011 at the University of Manchester.

We are pleased to announce that our guest speakers this year are:

Joseph Raz (Columbia University)
Andrea Sangiovanni (King’s College London)

The Brave New World conference series is now established as a leading international forum dedicated exclusively to the discussion of postgraduate research in political theory. The conference offers a great opportunity for postgraduates from many different countries and universities to share experiences, concerns and research interests, to exchange stimulating ideas and to make new friends - all in a financially accessible and highly informal setting. Participants will also have the chance to meet and talk about their work with eminent academics, including members of faculty from the University of Manchester and guest speakers, who will deliver keynote addresses at the event.

Guest speakers in previous years have included Brian Barry, Simon Caney, G.A. Cohen, Roger Crisp, Cecile Fabre, Jerry Gaus, Peter Jones, Chandran Kukathas, Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen, Susan Mendus, David Miller, Onora O’Neill, Michael Otsuka, Bhikhu Parekh, Carole Pateman, Anne Phillips, Thomas Pogge, Quentin Skinner, Adam Swift, Philippe Van Parijs, Leif Wenar, Andrew Williams, and Jonathan Wolff.

Papers focusing on any area of political theory or political philosophy are welcome. If you would like to present a paper, please send a 300-word, anonymised abstract, including the title of the paper, to Brave.New.World@manchester.ac.uk, no later than 11th April 2011. Please also include in your email your name and institutional affiliation. Please note that the conference is self-financed and participants are responsible for seeking their own funding. For further details please contact Dean Redfearn at Brave.New.World@manchester.ac.uk, or visit the conference website at http://www.socialsciences.manchester.ac.uk/disciplines/politics/events/bnw2011/

CALL FOR PAPERS - Deadline for submission of abstract: 11th April 2011

Brave New World 2011, the Fifteenth Annual Postgraduate Conference organised under the auspices of the Manchester Centre for Political Theory (MANCEPT), will take place on Monday 27th and Tuesday 28th June 2011 at the University of Manchester.

We are pleased to announce that our guest speakers this year are:

Joseph Raz (University of Oxford)

Andrea Sangiovanni (King’s College London)

The Brave New World conference series is now established as a leading international forum dedicated exclusively to the discussion of postgraduate research in political theory. The conference offers a great opportunity for postgraduates from many different countries and universities to share experiences, concerns and research interests, to exchange stimulating ideas and to make new friends - all in a financially accessible and highly informal setting. Participants will also have the chance to meet and talk about their work with eminent academics, including members of faculty from the University of Manchester and guest speakers, who will deliver keynote addresses at the event.

Guest speakers in previous years have included Brian Barry, Simon Caney, G.A. Cohen, Roger Crisp, Cecile Fabre, Jerry Gaus, Peter Jones, Chandran Kukathas, Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen, Susan Mendus, David Miller, Onora O’Neill, Michael Otsuka, Bhikhu Parekh, Carole Pateman, Anne Phillips, Thomas Pogge, Quentin Skinner, Adam Swift, Philippe Van Parijs, Leif Wenar, Andrew Williams, and Jonathan Wolff.

Papers focusing on any area of political theory or political philosophy are welcome. If you would like to present a paper, please send a 300-word, anonymised abstract, including the title of the paper, to Brave.New.World@manchester.ac.uk, no later than 11th April 2011. Please also include in your email your name and institutional affiliation. Please note that the conference is self-financed and participants are responsible for seeking their own funding. For further details please contact Dean Redfearn at Brave.New.World@manchester.ac.uk

Summary

This section begins with a question that Gauthier poses, one that Gaus thinks we ought to take very seriously: why pay attention to morality’s demands when those demands can be so restrictive? Where does morality get the authority to constrain the pursuit of our objectives? The Hobbesian answer to this question that Gauthier favours, one that Gaus concedes is extremely appealing, is this: accepting morality’s constraints is instrumentally rational. Morality doesn’t constrain the pursuit of our ends, it is rather the most efficient means of pursuing them, and so the tension between morality’s authority and our own aims dissolves entirely. The aim of chapter 4 is to show why this attempt to derive the authority of social morality from instrumental reasoning is doomed to fail, and the first section of the chapter is devoted to a close examination of what instrumental rationality is.

Gaus begins by alerting us to two dangers in discussing instrumental rationality. First, it’s important not to confuse instrumentally rational behaviour with self-interested or selfish behaviour. Instrumental rationality makes no assumptions about what aims or objectives people might pursue, and so super-altruists can be every bit as instrumentally rational as super-egoists. Second, Gaus warns against confusing Gauthier’s question with a similar-looking question, the famous “why be moral?” question. To ask this question, however, is to mistakenly suppose that even if morality’s normative basis and content are securely understood, we face a further question about whether we ought to be moral that must somehow be answered from outside of morality. Gauthier’s question is different and more sensible; he wants to know whether there is a good basis to support morality’s alleged authority over us. Maybe morality’s claims to authority are just a sham, and we would be better off not making moral demands, in the way we now think there’s no good basis for talking about angels and demons.

With those caveats out of the way, what is instrumental rationality? You might think it must be to a conception of Rationality as Effectiveness: Alf’s action X is instrumentally rational if and only if X-ing is the effective way to achieve his desired goals. The problem with this view (to borrow some helpful terminology from Derek Parfit’s forthcoming book, On What Matters) is that it relies on a fact-relative view of effectiveness. That is, Alf’s X-ing is only instrumentally rational if it turns out that, as a matter of fact, X-ing achieves the desired objective. But surely if X-ing looked like the right decision on the basis of all the evidence available to Alf, X-ing was instrumentally rational even if things turn out badly? If the weather service tells Alf there’s no chance of rain, then surely Alf does not fail to be rational when he doesn’t carry an umbrella, even if it does rain later that day. And surely Betty is not instrumentally rational if, for all the wrong reasons, she carries an umbrella and then ‘gets lucky’ when it starts to rain.

These objections might lead us to endorse Subjective Rationality, whereby Alf’s action X is rational if and only if his choice to X is based on his beliefs, and if his beliefs were true, X-ing would be the effective means to achieving his desired goals. But this account fails because (again to borrow from Parfit) it relies on a belief-relative standard, and this doesn’t seem like the right standard for assessing a person’s rationality. Alf might hold obviously false and silly beliefs, and it seems wrong to declare that acting on the basis of absurd or obviously false beliefs can vindicate one’s actions as instrumentally rational. Gaus concludes that what we need is a conception of instrumental rationality that is similar to the subjective view, but places some restrictions on what can count as a plausible belief. As Gaus puts it, Alf’s action X is instrumentally rational only if Alf soundly chooses X because he believes it is the best prospect for achieving his goals. Here Gaus relies on the rough idea that Alf’s beliefs must not be grossly defective from his own epistemic perspective, and the deliberation leading to action must be similarly not grossly defective, but it seems clear Gaus is wary of setting a more stringent standard.

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Summary
Gaus begins this section by describing a Kantian proposal for how to reconcile the freedom and equality of persons with the authority of morality. First, we bracket our private ends-those things that divide us. Second, we focus on those common considerations that can serve as the basis for justifications of moral requirements. Rawls famously formalized this two-step procedure with the veil of ignorance and the idea of a list of primary goods essential to the exercise and development of the two moral powers. But because the Kant-Rawls solution involves bracketing everything that divides us–most importantly, our different comprehensive doctrines–there is no real evaluative diversity in the original position. The original position, as many critics have pointed out, is not a problem of collective choice, but a problem of individual choice since there is only a single perspective that remains after the veil of ignorance has been imposed. For Gaus, this creates two big problems.

First, how do we know that we have sufficient reason to follow the rules of morality if those rules have been determined only by abstracting away from those values (i.e. our comprehensive doctrines) that we care deeply about? Merely showing that we can get a set of justified moral rules by bracketing what divides us doesn’t establish that we have good reasons to follow these rules when we consider our full set of reasons. This is the problem of stability. Gaus argues the later Rawls recognized this problem, and this explains Rawls’s claim in Political Liberalism that the rules generating by the freestanding argument in the original position provide only a pro tanto justification–the full justification of those rules is not achieved until each person sees that he or she has reasons from within his or her wider doctrine to endorse the rules. When everyone achieves this reconciliation, we famously have an overlapping consensus on a public conception of justice.

But Rawls’s solution appears to ignore (or at least downplay) a second problem: indeterminacy. Rawls gets a unique set of principles out of the original position by eliminating all the evaluative diversity from that choice procedure. But once we let the evaluative diversity back in, either via the overlapping consensus, or in some other way, Gaus argues we are bound to get quite a bit of indeterminacy regarding the publicly justifiable rules. There just isn’t enough common ground, Gaus believes, to derive anything like a uniquely justified list of moral rules. Rawls saw indeterminacy as a potentially fatal problem, but Gaus encourages us to embrace it as the inevitable result of respecting evaluative diversity while searching for publicly justifiable moral rules. If we consider what could be justified to members of the public, Gaus suggests that what we will get is a non-empty and non-singular set of optimal eligible proposals, and of course there will be disagreement regarding the ranking of these different proposals.

So how do we solve this problem of indeterminacy? Here is where Hume provides a helping hand. Instead of following Kant or Rawls and looking for ways to exclude evaluative diversity and thereby avoid indeterminacy, Gaus urges us to draw on the resources of a more Humean approach to social morality. In particular, Gaus says we can draw on the idea that moral norms evolve and become stable as a solution to the large-scale coordination problem of how to live together cooperatively in a way that can benefit everyone. Without this kind of convergence–for example, convergence on rules over property rights and how they are to be respected–social life would be filled with costly and inefficient conflicts. So even if idealized members of the public will not converge on a unique set of moral rules due to evaluative diversity, real people will inevitably do so as a result of evolutionary pressures to reach an equilibrium. This evolutionary perspective also helps to dissolve the puzzle of mutual authority mentioned in the previous sections. Social morality is a form of decentralized social authority between many people, and not some puzzling form of mutual authority between two agents.

Gaus’s brilliant solution to the puzzle of how morality’s authority can be reconciled with our freedom and equality is thus a reconciliation of Kantian and Humean perspectives. A publicly justified morality is a set of moral rules that is both: (1) an equilibrium solution that has evolved to help individuals solve their large-scale coordination problem of social cooperation, and (2) is among the members of the optimal eligible set that could be justified to idealized members of the public. As Gaus puts it, without the evolutionary story, the Kantian approach is hopelessly controversial or indeterminate. But without the emphasis on public justification, evolved moral rules are merely authoritarian.

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In this chapter Sen presents a distinction between ‘open’ and ‘closed’ impartiality. He argues that closed impartiality suffers from a number of significant limitations which ought to lead us to favour open impartiality. In this post I will briefly summarize the main claims Sen makes (sect. 1), before offering a few of my own comments (sects. 2-3).

1.
Sen offers Adam Smith’s device of the impartial spectator as an exemplar of what he calls open impartiality. Smith encourages us to imagine our conduct as we think it would be seen by some impartial and fair observer. A fair and impartial observer, Sen suggests, might require considering ‘the judgements that would be made by disinterested people from other societies’ (p. 125). Sen associates closed impartiality with Rawls’s device of the original position, where the aim is to evaluate rules and institutions from the point of view of each person who would be bound by them (suitably constrained behind the veil of ignorance). On this view of impartiality the perspective of outsiders (i.e. those not bound the rules and institutions) is not considered relevant.
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I am delighted to announce that the journal Representation has just published a symposium on David Estlund’s book, Democratic Authority. The symposium - which includes papers by Ben Saunders, Andrew Lister, myself, and a reply from David Estlund - grew out of the reading group that was initially hosted here at Public Reason in the early part of 2008.

I should also add, as an associate editor of Representation, that this symposium is part of a broader effort to encourage more political theorists and philosophers to publish in the journal. We are aiming to create a journal which publishes both empirical and theoretical work on representation and democracy, so if you work in these areas, please consider us as a venue.

The Manchester Centre for Political Theory (MANCEPT) is delighted to announce a conference celebrating the career of our distinguished colleague, Professor Hillel Steiner. Professor Steiner’s pioneering work on freedom, rights, exploitation, and justice has profoundly influenced moral, political, and legal philosophy over the last forty years. This conference will bring together scholars from around the world to discuss some of the central themes from Professor Steiner’s work. Participants will include:

• Ian Carter (University of Pavia)
• Eve Garrard (University of Manchester)
• Alan Hamlin (University of Manchester)
• Matthew Kramer (University of Cambridge)
• William Lucy (University of Manchester)
• Eric Mack (Tulane University)
• David Miller (University of Oxford)
• Serena Olsaretti (University of Cambridge)
• Michael Otsuka (University College London)
• Jonathan Quong (University of Manchester)
• Zofia Stemplowska (University of Reading)
• Peter Vallentyne (University of Missouri)
• Philippe Van Parijs (Universite catholique de Louvain)
• Jonathan Wolff (University College London)

Registration for the conference is now open, and the booking form can be found, along with a provisional conference schedule at:http://www.socialsciences.manchester.ac.uk/disciplines/politics/events/justice/

Lectureship in Politics (Political Theory) School of Social Sciences Politics
Closing date: 07/07/2009
Reference: HUM/90779

Applications are invited for the above continuing lectureship in Politics, specializing in Political Theory, tenable from 1 September 2009. The successful candidate will join the Politics discipline area and be attached to the Manchester Centre for Political Theory (MANCEPT).We are looking for demonstrable evidence or potential evidence of research excellence in Politics. Applicants must have, or be about to complete, a relevant PhD and have research and teaching interests in the core areas of contemporary analytic political theory including theories of justice (including global justice), equality, rights and responsibility. Applicants must have experience of providing high quality teaching at undergraduate and/or postgraduate level and will teach undergraduate and postgraduate modules in Political Theory, supervise dissertations and make appropriate teaching contributions across Politics, as required.

Salary£32,458 - £35,469 p.a. (Grade 6) / £36,533 - £44,931 p.a. (Grade 7)

Informal enquiries
Name: Professor Alan Hamlin, Head of MANCEPT
Tel: + 44 (0) 161 275 4906
Email: alan.hamlin@manchester.ac.uk

OR
Name: Professor Inderjeet Parmar
Tel: + 44 (0) 161 275 3056
Email: inderjeet.parmar@manchester.ac.uk

Further details: http://www.manchester.ac.uk/aboutus/jobs/academic/vacancy/index.htm?ref=158532

• Date: 20-21 November, 2009
• Location: University of Manchester

The Manchester Centre for Political Theory (MANCEPT) is delighted to announce a conference celebrating the career of our distinguished colleague, Professor Hillel Steiner.  Professor Steiner’s pioneering work on freedom, rights, exploitation, and justice has profoundly influenced moral, political, and legal philosophy over the last forty years. This conference will bring together scholars from around the world to discuss some of the central themes from Professor Steiner’s work. Participants will include:

• Ian Carter (University of Pavia)
• G.A. Cohen (University of Oxford & University College London) (provisional)
• Eve Garrard (University of Keele & University of Manchester)
• Alan Hamlin (University of Manchester)
• Matthew Kramer (University of Cambridge)
• William Lucy (University of Manchester)
• Eric Mack (Tulane University)
• David Miller (University of Oxford)
• Serena Olsaretti (University of Cambridge)
• Michael Otsuka (University College London)
• Jonathan Quong (University of Manchester)
• Zofia Stemplowska (University of Manchester)
• Peter Vallentyne (University of Missouri)
• Philippe Van Parijs (Universite catholique de Louvain)

Further details regarding registration and accomodation will be forthcoming later this spring. For more details regarding MANCEPT please visit us at:www.socialsciences.manchester.ac.uk/disciplines/politics/researchgroups/mancept/ 

This is just a reminder that the registration deadline for the Society for Applied Philosophy’s annual conference in Manchester (July 4-6, 2008) is June 13.  We have a terrific line-up of speakers, and I hope to see many of you there!

Summary
In this chapter, David wants to distinguish his epistemic argument for democracy from what he calls the democracy/contractualism analogy (I’m going to refer to this simply as the analogy or the analogy argument). The analogy rests on two key claims. The first is that justice or moral rightness is best understood via some version of moral or political contractualism. The second claim is that democratic outcomes have the capacity to track the requirements of justice or morality because democratic institutions can be arranged in a manner that is sufficiently similar the structure of the hypothetical choice situation of whatever theory of contractualism is favoured. David rejects the analogy because he believes this latter claim is false. If democracy does track justice (something David obviously doesn’t want to deny) it is not because democratic institutions mimic the features of a hypothetical contract scenario.

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In order to ensure that there is sufficient time to discuss chapter 11, we’re going to delay the other scheduled posts for the reading group by one week. The revised schedule is as follows:

Chapter 12 ‘The Irrelevance of the Jury Theorem’

Apr. 7, 2008, Loren King

Chapter 13 ‘Rejecting the Democracy/Contractualism Analogy’

Apr. 14, 2008, Jonathan Quong

Chapter 14 ‘Utopophobia: Concession and Aspiration in Democratic Theory’

Apr. 21, 2008, Zofia Stemplowska

‘Author’s Comments’

Apr. 28, 2008, David Estlund

Hi everyone, and welcome to the second week of our Estlund reading group where we’ll be discussing chapter 2, ‘Truth and Despotism’.

Summary

The chapter begins with a worry, expressed by Arendt, that appeals to truth in politics can be despotic. Saying something is true seems to foreclose any further debate or disagreement. Truth appears to be a conclusion we reach at the end of discussion or reasoning, and so if we base our politics around claims of truth, it looks as if we are saying no further discussion or reasoning is necessary - the answers have already been determined. But shouldn’t politics fundamentally be about discussion and debate? Arendt claimed that at least philosophical truths (as opposed to factual truths) have no place in politics because they will despotically foreclose dispute. I’m going to call this the despotism objection to truth in politics (my term not Estlund’s). There is, however, a very different sort of worry about truth in politics. On this view, the problem with appeals to truth in politics is not that they preclude disagreement or debate, but rather that they engender too much disagreement, or disagreement that is too fractious and divisive. It’s this kind of worry that might explain some political liberals’ belief that we ought abstain from appeals to truth in politics.

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Welcome to the first instalment of our virtual reading group on David Estlund’s Democratic Authority: A Philosophical Framework. Today’s post will focus on chapter 1, which offers a synopsis of the book’s central arguments and conclusions.

Summary

Estlund begins by noting the apparent tension between democracy and political quality. The masses seem ill-suited to making the best political decisions, and thus many democratic theorists see their primary task to be one of explaining why democracy is valuable or desirable despite the risk it poses to making good decisions. Estlund takes a different approach. He claims that it is in fact democracy’s tendency to produce good decisions that explains democracy’s legitimacy and authority. Legitimacy, according to Estlund, refers to the moral permissibility of the state issuing and enforcing commands due to the process by which they were produced, whereas authority refers to the power of one agent to morally require or forbid actions by others through commands (p. 2). Estlund’s central thesis is that ‘democratically produced laws are legitimate and authoritative because they are produced by a procedure with a tendency to make correct decisions’ (p. 8).

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This is just a friendly reminder that our virtual reading group on David Estlund’s Democratic Authority will be starting on January 14 with a discussion of chapter 1. Hope to see lots of you there!

I’m very happy to announce that, starting in January, we’ll be having a virtual reading group on David Estlund’s new book, Democratic Authority: A Philosophical Framework. We’ll read one chapter a week, and each week someone will post a brief summary of the chapter, as well as provide a few questions or comments to help kick-start the discussion. Those who want to participate can then use the comments function to discuss the chapter. I hope that lots of people, not just the initial list of contributors below, will decide to join in. We have a great group of contributors, and David has also very kindly agreed to participate in the discussion and provide his own post at the end. Below is a schedule for the reading group, which lists each chapter as well as the person who will start the discussion that week. See you in January! Read the rest of this entry »