Recent social science research indicates that animal rights philosophy plays the functional role of a religion in the lives of the most committed animal rights advocates. In this paper, I apply the functional religion thesis to the recent debate over the place of direct action animal rights advocacy in democratic theory. I outline the usefulness of the functional religion thesis and explain its implications for theorists that call for deliberative theories to be more inclusive of coercive forms of activism.

Most democratic theorists agree that concentrations of wealth and power tend to distort the functioning of democracy and ought to be countered wherever possible. Deliberative democrats are no exception: though not its only potential value, the capacity of deliberation to ‘neutralise power’ is often regarded as ‘fundamental’ to deliberative theory. Power may be neutralised, according to many deliberative democrats, if citizens can be induced to commit more fully to the deliberative resolution of common problems. If they do, they will be (...) unable to get away with inconsistencies and bad or private reasons, thereby mitigating the illegitimate influence of power. I argue, however, that the means by which power inflects political disagreement is far more subtle than this model suggests and cannot be countered so simply. As a wealth of recent research in political psychology demonstrates, human beings persistently exhibit ‘motivated reasoning’, meaning that even when we are sincerely committed to the deliberative resolution of common problems, and even when we are exposed to the same reasons and evidence, we still disagree strongly about what ‘fair cooperation’ entails. Motivated reasoning can be counteracted, but only under exceptional circumstances such as those that enable modern science, which cannot be reliably replicated in our society at large. My analysis suggests that in democratic politics – which rules out the kind of anti-democratic practices available to scientists – we should not expect deliberation to reliably neutralise power. (shrink)

Deliberative democracy is a revolutionary political ideal that requires fundamental changes in political institutions, bases of collective decision making, and the distribution of resources. Perhaps because of its revolutionary character accounts of deliberation in political theory thus far have offered little guidance for actors in actually-existing democratic circumstances. This article develops an ethical account of deliberative democratic action under imperfectly just conditions characterized by material and political inequality and failures of reciprocity. Under such conditions, appropriate principles of action can resolve (...) the tension between deliberation and confrontational political activism. The logic of this account parallels the justification for civil disobedience: the extent of permissible deviationfrom deliberative norms increases according to the adversity of political circumstances. This ethical account is composed of principles of deliberative activism, applications of those principles to four kinds of increasing unfavorable circumstances, and a menu of institutional and political strategies that increase deliberative inclusion and equality. (shrink)

In Amartya Sen’s The Idea of Justice, democracy is necessary for the reconciliation of plural justice claims. Sen’s treatment of democracy is however incomplete and inadequate: democracy is under-specified, there are unrecognized difficulties in any context featuring deep moral disagreement or deep division and a conceptualization of public reason in the singular erodes his pluralism. These faults undermine Sen’s account of justice. Developments in the theory of deliberative democracy can be deployed to remedy these deficiencies. This deployment points to a (...) deliberative system encompassing those affected by collective decisions, with places for non-partisan forums and discursive representatives, conditionally open to multiple forms of communication, and geared to the production of workable agreements under normative and discursive meta-consensus. Democracy does not guarantee justice, but in a plural world it is essential to the pursuit of justice. (shrink)