Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christie Hartley
Keyword(s):  
Political Liberalism ◽  
The Core ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Marginalized Groups ◽  
Substantive Equality ◽  
Special Concern ◽  
Formal Equality ◽  
Democratic Societies

The introduction acknowledges that although liberalism promises equality for all citizens, liberal democratic societies fall short of this ideal in many ways. Of special concern is the inequality that members of socially subordinated groups endure despite the guarantee of formal equality. Liberal theorists have not yet adequately shown that liberalism can address such group based subordination and can secure substantive equality for all. The introduction explains that the aim of this book is to show that at least one version of liberalism—political liberalism—is a feminist liberalism and that the core commitments of this view restrict all reasonable conceptions of justice to those that secure genuine, substantive equality for women and other marginalized groups. An overview of each chapter is provided.

Burkean “Descriptions” and Political Representation: A Reappraisal

1996 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa S. Williams
Keyword(s):  
Political Representation ◽  
Edmund Burke ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
Theoretical Literature ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Marginalized Groups ◽  
The Status ◽  
Irish Catholics ◽  
Democratic Societies

AbstractThe theoretical literature on representation tends to read the work of Edmund Burke as a defence of a functional-corporatist conception of society, in which the groups relevant for political representation are stable and objective economic “interests” whose cooperation in and contribution to the life of nation and empire are essential for the status of Britain as a pre-eminent commercial power. This article presents an alternative, contractarian Burke that emerges out of his defence of the interests of non-economic “descriptions” of citizens such as Irish Catholics, a Burke who offers us an illuminating perspective from which to assess the claims of historically marginalized groups in contemporary liberal democratic societies.

Sideways at the entrance of the cave: A pluralist footnote to Plato

2019 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 390-402
Author(s):  
Alessandro Ferrara
Keyword(s):  
Political Liberalism ◽  
The Core ◽  
Special Version ◽  
Reasonable Pluralism ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Democratic Polity

The idea of a ‘true’ account of pluralism is ultimately contradictory. Liberal political philosophers often fell prey to a special version of this fallacy by presupposing that there might be only one correct argument for justifying the acceptance of pluralism as the core of a liberal democratic polity. Avoiding this trap, Rawls’s ‘political liberalism’ has offered a more sophisticated view of reasonable pluralism as linked with the ‘burdens of judgement’. His philosophical agenda, however, left some questions underexplored: What is the relation of pluralism to relativism? How can a conception of pluralism (epistemic, moral and political) avoid being either one view among others with no special claim to truth, or a foundationalist claim? If pluralism is a fact, in what sense can it bind us? These questions – crucial for grasping the distinctiveness of ‘political’ liberalism – are addressed by revisiting Plato’s simile of the cave, in order to make it accommodate the groundbreaking Rawlsian notion of the ‘reasonable’.

scholarly journals Is a Feminist Political Liberalism Possible?

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christie Hartley ◽  
Lori Watson
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
Democratic Deliberation ◽  
Marginalized Groups ◽  
Substantive Equality ◽  
Recognition Respect ◽  
The Social ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Equal Citizenship

Is a feminist political liberalism possible? Political liberalism’s regard for a wide range of comprehensive doctrines as reasonable makes some feminists skeptical of its ability to address sex inequality. Indeed, some feminists claim that political liberalism maintains its position as a political liberalism at the expense of securing substantive equality for women. We claim that political liberalism’s core commitments actually restrict all reasonable political conceptions of justice to those that secure genuine substantive equality for all, including women and other marginalized groups. In particular, we argue that political liberalism’s criterion of reciprocity limits reasonable political conceptions of justice to those that eliminate social conditions of domination and subordination relevant to reasonable democratic deliberation among equal citizens and that the criterion of reciprocity requires the social conditions necessary for recognition respect among persons as equal citizens. As a result, we maintain that the criterion of reciprocity limits reasonable political conceptions of justice to those that provide genuine equality for women along various dimensions of social life central to equal citizenship.

Is a Feminist Political Liberalism Possible?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christie Hartley
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
Democratic Deliberation ◽  
Marginalized Groups ◽  
Substantive Equality ◽  
Recognition Respect ◽  
The Social ◽  
Equal Citizenship

This chapter makes the case that political liberalism is a feminist liberalism. It is argued that political liberalism’s ideas of reciprocity and equal citizenship limit reasonable political conceptions of justice to only those that include principles that yield substantive equality for all, including women (and other marginalized groups). To this end, it is claimed that the criterion of reciprocity calls for (1) the eradication of social conditions of domination and subordination relevant to democratic deliberation among free and equal citizens and (2) the provision of the social conditions of recognition respect. As a result, the criterion of reciprocity limits reasonable political conceptions of justice to those that provide genuine equality for women along various dimensions of social life central to equal citizenship.

Equal Citizenship and Public Reason

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christie Hartley ◽  
Lori Watson
Keyword(s):  
Division Of Labor ◽  
Public Reason ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Public Justification ◽  
Marginalized Groups ◽  
Substantive Equality ◽  
Law And Policy ◽  
Gendered Division Of Labor ◽  
Historical Sites ◽  
Equal Citizenship

This book is a defense of political liberalism as a feminist liberalism. The first half of the book develops and defends a novel interpretation of political liberalism. It is argued that political liberals should accept a restrictive account of public reason and that political liberals’ account of public justification is superior to the leading alternative, the convergence account of public justification. In the second half of the book, it is argued that political liberalism’s core commitments restrict all reasonable conceptions of justice to those that secure genuine, substantive equality for women and other marginalized groups. Here it is demonstrated how public reason arguments can be used to support law and policy needed to address historical sites of women’s subordination to advance equality; prostitution, the gendered division of labor and marriage, in particular, are considered.

A Precarious Confluence: Neoliberalism, Race, and Water Insecurity

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Mascarenhas
Keyword(s):  
First Nations ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
First Century ◽  
People Of Color ◽  
Water Insecurity ◽  
The Core ◽  
Marginalized Groups ◽  
Racial Projects ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Cities

Three very different field sites—First Nations communities in Canada, water charities in the Global South, and the US cities of Flint and Detroit, Michigan—point to the increasing precariousness of water access for historically marginalized groups, including Indigenous peoples, African Americans, and people of color around the globe. This multi-sited ethnography underscores a common theme: power and racism lie deep in the core of today’s global water crisis. These cases reveal the concrete mechanisms, strategies, and interconnections that are galvanized by the economic, political, and racial projects of neoliberalism. In this sense neoliberalism is not only downsizing democracy but also creating both the material and ideological forces for a new form of discrimination in the provision of drinking water around the globe. These cases suggest that contemporary notions of environmental and social justice will largely hinge on how we come to think about water in the twenty-first century.

Integrity and the Case for Restraint

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christie Hartley
Keyword(s):  
Public Reason ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Public Justification ◽  
Moral Ideal ◽  
Democratic Societies

This chapter discusses the concern that exclusive accounts of public reason threaten or undermine the integrity of some religiously oriented citizens in democratic societies. It discusses various notions of integrity that might be claimed to ground such a concern. It is argued that purely formal accounts of integrity that do not distinguish between the integrity of reasonable and unreasonable persons, as specified within political liberalism, cannot underwrite integrity challenges that should concern political liberals. It is further argued that if the inquiry is limited to conceptions of integrity that distinguish between reasonable and unreasonable persons, the supposed burdens persons of faith face are not burdens different from those that all citizens face equally. It is claimed the concern is best understood as a challenge to the account of public justification and the account of public reason as a moral ideal.

Deterrence and Democracy

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard A. Falkenrath
Keyword(s):  
War On Terror ◽  
Terrorist Attacks ◽  
Global War On Terror ◽  
Counter Terrorism ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
The Us ◽  
Democratic Societies ◽  
Global War ◽  
Taking Action ◽  
The Given

This chapter examines strategy and deterrence and traces the shift from deterrence by ‘punishment’ to deterrence by ‘denial’ in Washington’s conduct of the Global War on Terror. The former rested on an assumption that the consequences of an action would serve as deterrents. The latter may carry messages of possible consequences, but these are delivered by taking action that removes the capabilities available to opponents – in the given context, the Islamist terrorists challenging the US. Both approaches rest on credibility, but are more complex in the realm of counter-terrorism, where the US authorities have no obvious ‘return to sender’ address and threats to punish have questionable credibility. In this context, denial offers a more realistic way of preventing terrorist attacks. Yet, the advanced means available to the US are deeply ethically problematic in liberal democratic societies. However, there would likely be even bigger questions if governments failed to act.

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