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In this article by way of reply, the author responds to the challenging comments on The Democratic Horizon provided by Michelman, Benhabib, White, Scheuerman and Laden. In response to Michelman, some reflections are propounded on the function of judicial review, in order to alleviate the tension between two understandings of the mandate of the highest interpreter of the constitution as aimed at remedying either an occlusion of democratic authorship or a shortfall of agreement, and on the need to rethink how (...) the authority of the supreme interpreter relates to the will of the people in a deeply changed historical context. In response to Benhabib, the author discusses the new limits of the accommodation of diversity in Fairburg, a fictional polity that expands the Rawlsian standard of ‘ reasonable disagreement’, and defends the normative relevance and democratic credentials of his notion of ‘ multivariate polity’. In response to White, after recalling the importance of putting the ‘democratic ethos’ at the center of a reflection on the democratic quality of complex societies where formal procedures often mask elitist substance, the author defends the ‘political, not metaphysical’ credentials of ‘openness’ and accepts a complementarity of ‘openness’ and ‘presumptive generosity’. In response to Scheuerman, the author restates his focus on the democratic ethos as a supplement to, not a replacement of, the reflection on democratic procedures and defends the conceptual diversity of governance from government. In response to Laden, the author highlights the diversity of contexts to which his own and Laden’s versions of ‘democratic justification’ are responding and defends a more moderate version of ‘openness’, which still keeps constitutional essentials and political values shielded from ongoing questioning. Finally, the author interprets the debate aroused by The Democratic Horizon as indicative of the persistent vitality of the Rawlsian legacy in the 21st century. (shrink)

In this paper, I attempt to revamp Confucian democracy, which is originally presented as the communitarian corrective and cultural alternative to Western liberal democracy, into a robust democratic political theory and practice that is plausible in the societal context of pluralism. In order to do so, I first investigate the core tenets of value pluralism with reference to William Galston’s political theory, which gives full attention to the intrinsic value of diversity and human plurality particularly in the modern democratic context. (...) I then construct a political theory of Confucian pluralist democracy by critically engaging with two dominant versions of Confucian democracy—Confucian communitarian democracy and Confucian meritocratic democracy. My key argument is threefold: (1) the unity in Confucian democracy should be interpreted not as moral unity but as constitutional unity; (2) Confucian virtues should be differentiated (or pluralized) between moral virtues and civic virtues; (3) in Confucian democracy minorities have the constitutional right to contest public norms in civil society. (shrink)

The pragmatic turn away from epistemology could mean a number of things for the definition of the future of political theory. First, political liberalism would mark a distinct departure from comprehensive liberalism that is based solely on epistemological justification of fundamental liberal notions. Second, the pragmatic turn would cause Rawls to modify his long-time emphasis on constructivism, moving from Kantian constructivism to political constructivism, and implicitly adopting more substantive approach. Third, the fact of pluralism would radically open up the question (...) of the foundation for consensus, which would lead to an emphasis on constitutionalism. Fourth, this move, innovative as it was, would lead to the establishment of an association between constitutional interpretation and public reason. Finally, this set of moves associated with the pragmatic turn would essentially set up a series of constraints when it comes to evaluating public reason from an international perspective. (shrink)