Switch to: References

Add citations

You must login to add citations.
  1. Ideal vs. Non-ideal Theory: A Conceptual Map.Laura Valentini - 2012 - Philosophy Compass 7 (9):654–664.
    This article provides a conceptual map of the debate on ideal and non‐ideal theory. It argues that this debate encompasses a number of different questions, which have not been kept sufficiently separate in the literature. In particular, the article distinguishes between the following three interpretations of the ‘ideal vs. non‐ideal theory’ contrast: (i) full compliance vs. partial compliance theory; (ii) utopian vs. realistic theory; (iii) end‐state vs. transitional theory. The article advances critical reflections on each of these sub‐debates, and highlights (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   350 citations  
  • Why do humans reason? Arguments for an argumentative theory.Dan Sperber - 2011 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 34 (2):57.
    Short abstract (98 words). Reasoning is generally seen as a means to improve knowledge and make better decisions. However, much evidence shows that reasoning often leads to epistemic distortions and poor decisions. This suggests that the function of reasoning should be rethought. Our hypothesis is that the function of reasoning is argumentative. It is to devise and evaluate arguments intended to persuade. Reasoning so conceived is adaptive given humans’ exceptional dependence on communication and vulnerability to misinformation. A wide range of (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   424 citations  
  • Is There a Distinctively Political Normativity?Jonathan Leader Maynard & Alex Worsnip - 2018 - Ethics 128 (4):756-787.
    A slew of recent political theorists—many taking their cue from the political writings of Bernard Williams—have recently contended that political normativity is its own kind of normativity, distinct from moral normativity. In this article, we first attempt to clarify what this claim amounts to and then reconstruct and interrogate five major arguments for it. We contend that all these arguments are unconvincing and fail to establish a sense in which political normativity is genuinely separate from morality.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   57 citations  
  • The Threat of Algocracy: Reality, Resistance and Accommodation.John Danaher - 2016 - Philosophy and Technology 29 (3):245-268.
    One of the most noticeable trends in recent years has been the increasing reliance of public decision-making processes on algorithms, i.e. computer-programmed step-by-step instructions for taking a given set of inputs and producing an output. The question raised by this article is whether the rise of such algorithmic governance creates problems for the moral or political legitimacy of our public decision-making processes. Ignoring common concerns with data protection and privacy, it is argued that algorithmic governance does pose a significant threat (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   61 citations  
  • Artificial Intelligence, Values, and Alignment.Iason Gabriel - 2020 - Minds and Machines 30 (3):411-437.
    This paper looks at philosophical questions that arise in the context of AI alignment. It defends three propositions. First, normative and technical aspects of the AI alignment problem are interrelated, creating space for productive engagement between people working in both domains. Second, it is important to be clear about the goal of alignment. There are significant differences between AI that aligns with instructions, intentions, revealed preferences, ideal preferences, interests and values. A principle-based approach to AI alignment, which combines these elements (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   61 citations  
  • Philosophy Without Belief.Zach Barnett - 2019 - Mind 128 (509):109-138.
    Should we believe our controversial philosophical views? Recently, several authors have argued from broadly conciliationist premises that we should not. If they are right, we philosophers face a dilemma: If we believe our views, we are irrational. If we do not, we are not sincere in holding them. This paper offers a way out, proposing an attitude we can rationally take toward our views that can support sincerity of the appropriate sort. We should arrive at our views via a certain (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   52 citations  
  • Are Knowledgeable Voters Better Voters?Michael Hannon - 2022 - Politics, Philosophy and Economics 21 (1):29-54.
    It is widely believed that democracies require knowledgeable citizens to function well. But the most politically knowledgeable individuals also tend to be the most partisan, and the strength of partisan identity tends to corrupt political thinking. This creates a conundrum. On the one hand, an informed citizenry is allegedly necessary for a democracy to flourish. On the other hand, the most knowledgeable and passionate voters are also the most likely to think in corrupted, biased ways. What to do? This paper (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   20 citations  
  • Understanding Political Feasibility.Holly Lawford-Smith - 2012 - Journal of Political Philosophy 21 (3):243-259.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   79 citations  
  • Democracy, Public Policy, and Lay Assessments of Scientific Testimony.Elizabeth Anderson - 2011 - Episteme 8 (2):144-164.
    Responsible public policy making in a technological society must rely on complex scientific reasoning. Given that ordinary citizens cannot directly assess such reasoning, does this call the democratic legitimacy of technical public policies in question? It does not, provided citizens can make reliable second-order assessments of the consensus of trustworthy scientific experts. I develop criteria for lay assessment of scientific testimony and demonstrate, in the case of claims about anthropogenic global warming, that applying such criteria is easy for anyone of (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   113 citations  
  • Plural Voting for the Twenty-First Century.Thomas Mulligan - 2018 - Philosophical Quarterly 68 (271):286-306.
    Recent political developments cast doubt on the wisdom of democratic decision-making. Brexit, the Colombian people's (initial) rejection of peace with the FARC, and the election of Donald Trump suggest that the time is right to explore alternatives to democracy. In this essay, I describe and defend the epistocratic system of government which is, given current theoretical and empirical knowledge, most likely to produce optimal political outcomes—or at least better outcomes than democracy produces. To wit, we should expand the suffrage as (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   34 citations  
  • Power and Equality.Daniel Viehoff - 2019 - Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy 5:1-38.
    Several democratic theorists have recently sought to vindicate the ideal of equal political power (“political equality”) by tying it to the non-derivative value of egalitarian relationships. This chapter critically discusses such arguments. It clarifies what it takes to vindicate the ideal of political equality, and distinguishes different versions of the relational egalitarian argument for it. Some such arguments appeal to the example of a society without social status inequality (such as caste or class structures); others to personal relationships among equals, (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   21 citations  
  • Democracy without shortcuts.Cristina Lafont - 2019 - Constellations 26 (3):355-360.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   41 citations  
  • With radicals like these, who needs conservatives? Doom, gloom, and realism in political theory.Lorna Finlayson - 2017 - European Journal of Political Theory 16 (3):1474885114568815.
    This paper attempts to get some critical distance on the increasingly fashionable issue of realism in political theory. Realism has an ambiguous status: it is sometimes presented as a radical challenge to the _status quo_; but it also often appears as a conservative force, aimed at clipping the wings of more ‘idealistic’ political theorists. I suggest that what we might call ‘actually existing realism’ is indeed a conservative presence in political philosophy, and that its ambiguous status plays a part in (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   62 citations  
  • Beyond the Fact of Disagreement? The Epistemic Turn in Deliberative Democracy.Hélène Landemore - 2017 - Social Epistemology 31 (3):277-295.
    This paper takes stock of a recent but growing movement within the field of deliberative democracy, which normatively argues for the epistemic dimension of democratic authority and positively defends the truth-tracking properties of democratic procedures. Authors within that movement call themselves epistemic democrats, hence the recognition by many of an ‘epistemic turn’ in democratic theory. The paper argues that this turn is a desirable direction in which the field ought to evolve, taking it beyond the ‘fact of disagreement’ that had (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   49 citations  
  • Receptive Publics.Joshua Habgood-Coote, Natalie Alana Ashton & Nadja El Kassar - 2024 - Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 11.
    It is widely accepted that public discourse as we know it is less than ideal from an epistemological point of view. In this paper, we develop an underappreciated aspect of the trouble with public discourse: what we call the Listening Problem. The listening problem is the problem that public discourse has in giving appropriate uptake and reception to ideas and concepts from oppressed groups. Drawing on the work of Jürgen Habermas and Nancy Fraser, we develop an institutional response to the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • Moral Testimony Pessimism and the Uncertain Value of Authenticity.Andreas L. Mogensen - 2017 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 95 (2):261-284.
    Many philosophers believe that there exist distinctive obstacles to relying on moral testimony. In this paper, I criticize previous attempts to identify these obstacles and offer a new theory. I argue that the problems associated with moral deference can't be explained in terms of the value of moral understanding, nor in terms of aretaic considerations related to subjective integration. Instead, our uneasiness with moral testimony is best explained by our attachment to an ideal of authenticity that places special demands on (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   36 citations  
  • Authority and Reason‐Giving.David Enoch - 2012 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 89 (2):296-332.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   60 citations  
  • Algorithms and Autonomy: The Ethics of Automated Decision Systems.Alan Rubel, Clinton Castro & Adam Pham - 2021 - Cambridge University Press.
    Algorithms influence every facet of modern life: criminal justice, education, housing, entertainment, elections, social media, news feeds, work… the list goes on. Delegating important decisions to machines, however, gives rise to deep moral concerns about responsibility, transparency, freedom, fairness, and democracy. Algorithms and Autonomy connects these concerns to the core human value of autonomy in the contexts of algorithmic teacher evaluation, risk assessment in criminal sentencing, predictive policing, background checks, news feeds, ride-sharing platforms, social media, and election interference. Using these (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   10 citations  
  • Empathetic Understanding and Deliberative Democracy.Michael Hannon - 2019 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 101 (3):591-611.
    Epistemic democracy is standardly characterized in terms of “aiming at truth”. This presupposes a veritistic conception of epistemic value, according to which truth is the fundamental epistemic goal. I will raise an objection to the standard (veritistic) account of epistemic democracy, focusing specifically on deliberative democracy. I then propose a version of deliberative democracy that is grounded in non-veritistic epistemic goals. In particular, I argue that deliberation is valuable because it facilitates empathetic understanding. I claim that empathetic understanding is an (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   19 citations  
  • The feasibility issue.Nicholas Southwood - 2018 - Philosophy Compass 13 (8):e12509.
    It is commonly taken for granted that questions of feasibility are highly relevant to our normative thinking – and perhaps especially our normative thinking about politics. But what exactly does this preoccupation with feasibility amount to, and in what forms if any is it warranted? This article aims to provide a critical introduction to, and clearer characterization of, the feasibility issue. I begin by discussing the question of how feasibility is to be understood. I then turn to the question of (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   22 citations  
  • Must Realists Be Pessimists About Democracy? Responding to Epistemic and Oligarchic Challenges.Gordon Arlen & Enzo Rossi - 2021 - Moral Philosophy and Politics 8 (1):27-49.
    In this paper we show how a realistic normative democratic theory can work within the constraints set by the most pessimistic empirical results about voting behaviour and elite capture of the policy process. After setting out the empirical evidence and discussing some extant responses by political theorists, we argue that the evidence produces a two-pronged challenge for democracy: an epistemic challenge concerning the quality and focus of decision-making and an oligarchic challenge concerning power concentration. To address the challenges we then (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   11 citations  
  • Epistemic Democracy with Defensible Premises.Franz Dietrich & Kai Spiekermann - 2013 - Economics and Philosophy 29 (1):87--120.
    The contemporary theory of epistemic democracy often draws on the Condorcet Jury Theorem to formally justify the ‘wisdom of crowds’. But this theorem is inapplicable in its current form, since one of its premises – voter independence – is notoriously violated. This premise carries responsibility for the theorem's misleading conclusion that ‘large crowds are infallible’. We prove a more useful jury theorem: under defensible premises, ‘large crowds are fallible but better than small groups’. This theorem rehabilitates the importance of deliberation (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   41 citations  
  • Moral Luck Defended.Nathan Hanna - 2012 - Noûs 48 (4):683-698.
    I argue that there is moral luck, i.e., that factors beyond our control can affect how laudable or culpable we are.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   37 citations  
  • The Grounds of Political Legitimacy.Fabienne Peter - 2020 - Journal of the American Philosophical Association 6 (3):372-390.
    The debate over rival conceptions of political legitimacy tends to focus on first-order considerations—for example, on the relative importance of procedural and substantive values. In this essay, I argue that there is an important, but often overlooked, distinction among rival conceptions of political legitimacy that originates at the meta-normative level. This distinction, which cuts across the distinctions drawn at the first-order level, concerns the source of the normativity of political legitimacy, or, as I refer to it here, the grounds of (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   17 citations  
  • Pure Epistemic Proceduralism.Fabienne Peter - 2008 - Episteme: A Journal of Social Epistemology 5 (1):33-55.
    In this paper I defend a pure proceduralist conception of legitimacy that applies to epistemic democracy. This conception, which I call pure epistemic proceduralism, does not depend on procedure-independent standards for good outcomes and relies on a proceduralist epistemology. It identifies a democratic decision as legitimate if it is the outcome of a process that satisfies certain conditions of political and epistemic fairness. My argument starts with a rejection of instrumentalism–the view that political equality is only instrumentally valuable. I reject (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   33 citations  
  • Propaganda, Misinformation, and the Epistemic Value of Democracy.Étienne Brown - 2018 - Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society 30 (3-4):194-218.
    If citizens are to make enlightened collective decisions, they need to rely on true factual beliefs, but misinformation impairs their ability to do so. Although some cases of misinformation are deliberate and amount to propaganda, cases of inadvertent misinformation are just as problematic in affecting the beliefs and behavior of democratic citizens. A review of empirical evidence suggests that this is a serious problem that cannot entirely be corrected by means of deliberation.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   15 citations  
  • From Choice to Chance? Saving People, Fairness, and Lotteries.Tim Henning - 2015 - Philosophical Review 124 (2):169-206.
    Many authors in ethics, economics, and political science endorse the Lottery Requirement, that is, the following thesis: where different parties have equal moral claims to one indivisible good, it is morally obligatory to let a fair lottery decide which party is to receive the good. This article defends skepticism about the Lottery Requirement. It distinguishes three broad strategies of defending such a requirement: the surrogate satisfaction account, the procedural account, and the ideal consent account, and argues that none of these (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   20 citations  
  • Public Reason Illiberalism and Ideology.Jason Brennan, Jessica Flanigan & Christopher Freiman - forthcoming - Australasian Journal of Philosophy.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • The Power of the Multitude: Answering Epistemic Challenges to Democracy.Samuel Bagg - 2018 - American Political Science Review 4 (112):891-904.
    Recent years have witnessed growing controversy over the “wisdom of the multitude.” As epistemic critics drawing on vast empirical evidence have cast doubt on the political competence of ordinary citizens, epistemic democrats have offered a defense of democracy grounded largely in analogies and formal results. So far, I argue, the critics have been more convincing. Nevertheless, democracy can be defended on instrumental grounds, and this article demonstrates an alternative approach. Instead of implausibly upholding the epistemic reliability of average voters, I (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   13 citations  
  • Conspiracy Theories and Democratic Legitimacy.Will Mittendorf - 2023 - Social Epistemology 37 (4):481-493.
    Conspiracy theories are frequently described as a threat to democracy and conspiracy theorists portrayed as epistemically or morally unreasonable. If these characterizations are correct, then it may be the case that reasons stemming from conspiracy theorizing threaten the legitimizing function of democratic deliberation. In this paper, I will argue the opposite. Despite the extraordinary epistemic and morally unreasonable claims made by some conspiracy theorists, belief in conspiracy theories is guided by internal epistemic norms inherent in believing. By utilizing the insights (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  • Political legitimacy.Fabienne Peter - 2010 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    Political legitimacy is a virtue of political institutions and of the decisions—about laws, policies, and candidates for political office—made within them. This entry will survey the main answers that have been given to the following questions. First, how should legitimacy be defined? Is it primarily a descriptive or a normative concept? If legitimacy is understood normatively, what does it entail? Some associate legitimacy with the justification of coercive power and with the creation of political authority. Others associate it with the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   37 citations  
  • In Defense of Idealization in Public Reason.Kevin Vallier - 2020 - Erkenntnis 85 (5):1109-1128.
    Contemporary public reason liberalism holds that coercion must be publicly justified to an idealized constituency. Coercion must be justified to all qualified points of view, not the points of view held by actual persons. Critics, in particular Nicholas Wolterstorff and David Enoch, have complained that idealization, by idealizing away what actual people accept, risks authoritarianism and disrespect by forcing people to comply with laws they in fact reject. I argue that idealization can withstand this criticism if it satisfies two conditions. (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   12 citations  
  • Justification, coercion, and the place of public reason.Chad Van Schoelandt - 2015 - Philosophical Studies 172 (4):1031-1050.
    Public reason accounts commonly claim that exercises of coercive political power must be justified by appeal to reasons accessible to all citizens. Such accounts are vulnerable to the objection that they cannot legitimate coercion to protect basic liberal rights against infringement by deeply illiberal people. This paper first elaborates the distinctive interpersonal conception of justification in public reason accounts in contrast to impersonal forms of justification. I then detail a core dissenter-based objection to public reason based on a worrisome example (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   31 citations  
  • Democratic Justifications for Patient Public Involvement and Engagement in Health Research: An Exploration of the Theoretical Debates and Practical Challenges.Lucy Frith - 2023 - Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 48 (4):400-412.
    The literature on patient public involvement and engagement (PPIE) in health research has grown significantly in the last decade, with a diverse range of definitions and topologies promulgated. This has led to disputes over what the central functions and purpose of PPIE in health research is, and this in turn makes it difficult to assess and evaluate PPIE in practice. This paper argues that the most important function of PPIE is the attempt to make health research more democratic. Bringing this (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  • Compromising with the Uncompromising: Political Disagreement under Asymmetric Compliance.Alex Worsnip - 2023 - Journal of Political Philosophy 31 (3):337-357.
    It is fairly uncontroversial that when you encounter disagreement with some view of yours, you are often epistemically required to become at least somewhat less confident in that view. This includes political disagreements, where your level of confidence might in various ways affect your voting and other political behavior. But suppose that your opponents don’t comply with the epistemic norms governing disagreement – that is, they never reduce their confidence in their views in response to disagreement. If you always reduce (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  • An Epistemic Problem for Epistocracy.María Pía Méndez - 2022 - Social Epistemology 36 (2):153-166.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   8 citations  
  • A realistic conception of politics: conflict, order and political realism.Carlo Burelli - 2021 - Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 24 (7):977-999.
    In this paper I unpack a realistic conception of politics by tightly defining its constitutive features: conflict and order. A conflict emerges when an actor is disposed to impose his/her views against the resistance of others. Conflicts are more problematic than moralists realize because they emerge unilaterally, are potentially violent, impermeable to content-based reason, and unavoidable. Order is then defined as an institutional framework that provides binding collective decisions. Order is deemed necessary because individuals need to cooperate to survive, but (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   11 citations  
  • Betting Democracy on Epistemology.Michael Hannon - forthcoming - Episteme.
    This paper examines two major challenges to epistemic theories of democracy: the “authority dilemma” and the “epistemic gamble.” The first is a conceptual challenge, suggesting that epistemic democracy is inherently self-undermining. The second is a normative challenge, asserting that the case for democracy should not rely on precarious epistemic grounds. I argue that both challenges fail, demonstrating that epistemic theories of democracy withstand these two prominent objections.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • On Justification, Idealization, and Discursive Purchase.Thomas M. Besch - 2019 - Philosophia 47 (3):601-623.
    Conceptions of acceptability-based moral or political justification take it that authoritative acceptability constitutes, or contributes to, validity, or justification. There is no agreement as to what bar for authoritativeness such justification may employ. The paper engages the issue in relation to (i) the level of idealization that a bar for authoritativeness, ψ, imparts to a standard of acceptability-based justification, S, and (ii) the degree of discursive purchase of the discursive standing that S accords to people when it builds ψ. I (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   10 citations  
  • (1 other version)Evaluating Google as an Epistemic Tool.Thomas W. Simpson - 2012 - Metaphilosophy 43 (4):426-445.
    This article develops a social epistemological analysis of Web-based search engines, addressing the following questions. First, what epistemic functions do search engines perform? Second, what dimensions of assessment are appropriate for the epistemic evaluation of search engines? Third, how well do current search engines perform on these? The article explains why they fulfil the role of a surrogate expert, and proposes three ways of assessing their utility as an epistemic tool—timeliness, authority prioritisation, and objectivity. “Personalisation” is a current trend in (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   36 citations  
  • Assessing Ideal Theories: Lessons from the Theory of Second Best.David Wiens - 2016 - Politics, Philosophy and Economics 15 (2):132-149.
    Numerous philosophers allege that the "general theory of second best" (Lipsey and Lancaster, 1956) poses a challenge to the Target View, which asserts that real world reform efforts should aim to establish arrangements that satisfy the constitutive features of ideal just states of affairs. I demonstrate two claims that are relevant in this context. First, I show that the theory of second best fails to present a compelling challenge to the Target View in general. But, second, the theory of second (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   14 citations  
  • (1 other version)Enfranchising the Youth.Lachlan Montgomery Umbers - 2020 - Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 23 (6):732-755.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   15 citations  
  • (1 other version)Political realism and moral corruption.Alison McQueen - 2020 - European Journal of Political Theory 19 (2):141-161.
    Political realism is frequently criticised as a theoretical tradition that amounts to little more than a rationalisation of the status quo and an apology for power. This paper responds to this criticism by defending three connected claims. First, it acknowledges the moral seriousness of rationalisation, but argues that the problem is hardly particular to political realists. Second, it argues that classical International Relations realists like EH Carr and Hans Morgenthau have a profound awareness of the corrupting effects of rationalisation and (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   15 citations  
  • Norms of Public Argumentation and the Ideals of Correctness and Participation.Frank Zenker, Jan Albert van Laar, B. Cepollaro, A. Gâţă, M. Hinton, C. G. King, B. Larson, M. Lewiński, C. Lumer, S. Oswald, M. Pichlak, B. D. Scott, M. Urbański & J. H. M. Wagemans - 2024 - Argumentation 38 (1):7-40.
    Argumentation as the public exchange of reasons is widely thought to enhance deliberative interactions that generate and justify reasonable public policies. Adopting an argumentation-theoretic perspective, we survey the norms that should govern public argumentation and address some of the complexities that scholarly treatments have identified. Our focus is on norms associated with the ideals of correctness and participation as sources of a politically legitimate deliberative outcome. In principle, both ideals are mutually coherent. If the information needed for a correct deliberative (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  • Taking rulers' interests seriously: The case for realist theories of legitimacy.Ben Cross - 2024 - European Journal of Political Theory 23 (2):159-181.
    In this article I defend a new argument against moralist theories of legitimacy and in favour of realist theories. Moralist theories, I argue, are vulnerable to ideological and wishful thinking because they do not connect the demands of legitimacy with the interests of rulers. Realist theories, however, generally do manage to make this connection. This is because satisfying the usual realist criteria for legitimacy – the creation of a stable political order that transcends brute coercion – is usually necessary for (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  • Political equality, plural voting, and the leveling down objection.David Peña-Rangel - 2022 - Politics, Philosophy and Economics 21 (2):122-164.
    Politics, Philosophy & Economics, Volume 21, Issue 2, Page 122-164, May 2022. I argue that the consensus view that one must never level down to equality gives rise to a dilemma. This dilemma is best understood by examining two parallel cases of leveling down: one drawn from the economic domain, the other from the political. In the economic case, both egalitarians and non-egalitarians have resisted the idea of leveling down wages to equality. With no incentives for some people to work (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   7 citations  
  • Political Legitimacy as a Problem of Judgment.Thomas Fossen - 2022 - Social Theory and Practice 48 (1):89-113.
    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 (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  • The Politics of Post-Truth.Michael Hannon - 2023 - Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society 35 (1):40-62.
    A prevalent political narrative is that we are facing an epistemological crisis, where many citizens no longer care about truth and facts. Yet the view that we are living in a post-truth era relies on some implicit questionable empirical and normative assumptions. The post-truth rhetoric converts epistemic issues into motivational issues, treating people with whom we disagree as if they no longer believe in or care about truth. This narrative is also dubious on epistemic, moral, and political grounds. It is (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Political Bioethics.Benjamin Gregg - 2022 - Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 47 (4):516-529.
    If bioethical questions cannot be resolved in a widely acceptable manner by rational argument, and if they can be regulated only on the basis of political decision-making, then bioethics belongs to the political sphere. The particular kind of politics practiced in any given society matters greatly: it will determine the kind of bioethical regulation, legislation, and public policy generated there. I propose approaching bioethical questions politically in terms of decisions that cannot be “correct” but that can be “procedurally legitimate.” Two (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  • The ratcheting-up effect.Vanessa Carbonell - 2012 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 93 (2):228-254.
    I argue for the existence of a ‘ratcheting-up effect’: the behavior of moral saints serves to increase the level of moral obligation the rest of us face. What we are morally obligated to do is constrained by what it would be reasonable for us to believe we are morally obligated to do. Moral saints provide us with a special kind of evidence that bears on what we can reasonably believe about our obligations. They do this by modeling the level of (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   25 citations