Political Liberalism and Marriage

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christie Hartley
Keyword(s):  
Public Reason ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
Liberal Society ◽  
General Account ◽  
Marriage Contracts ◽  
Sex Equality ◽  
The Social ◽  
Legal Marriage

This chapter considers whether political liberals can and should recognize and support legal marriage as a matter of basic justice. A general account of how political liberals should evaluate the issue of legal marriage as matter of basic justice is offered. It is argued that, in certain conditions, the recognition of some form of legal marriage may be the best way to protect the fundamental interests of women as equal citizens in freely chosen associations. Or it may be that, in certain conditions, to secure the social conditions necessary for gays, lesbians, and bisexuals to be free and equal citizens, some form of legal marriage can or should be recognized. It is claimed that an underappreciated point about political liberalism is that the particular institutions that are justifiable or required as a matter of basic justice depend in part on the conditions of a particular politically liberal society. political liberalism, public reason, marriage, marriage contracts, sex equality, feminism, polygamy, monogamy

Diversity, toleration and recent social contract theory

2019 ◽  
Vol 45 (5) ◽  
pp. 539-554
Author(s):  
James W. Boettcher
Keyword(s):  
Social Contract ◽  
Public Reason ◽  
Contract Theory ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Social Contract Theory ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Social Stability ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Experimentation

Ryan Muldoon has recently advanced an interesting and original bargaining model of the social contract as an alternative to Rawlsian social contract theory and political liberalism. This model is said to provide a more plausible account of social stability and the acceptance of diversity, at least as compared to those approaches that emphasize the traditional liberal idea of toleration. I challenge this claim by pursuing three criticisms of Muldoon’s new social contract theory. First, the principle of distribution that he proposes is likely to be rejected by some (or even many) members of the public, due to its indeterminacy or highly inegalitarian implications. Second, Muldoon tends to reduce the benefits of cooperation to gains from trade, ignoring other cooperative benefits that complicate his call for small-scale social experimentation. Finally, while motivating the acceptance of diversity is a commendable goal, distinguishing more defensible conceptions of toleration from less defensible conceptions requires attending to those elements of political liberalism that Muldoon seems to abandon, namely, standards of public reason and public justification.

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.

On Conditions of Participation: The Deficits of Public Reason

Human Affairs ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marek Hrubec
Keyword(s):  
John Rawls ◽  
Public Reason ◽  
Civic Participation ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
Democratic Deficit ◽  
Social Deficit ◽  
The Social

On Conditions of Participation: The Deficits of Public ReasonThe paper analyzes the conditions of civic participation that are elucidated by criticism of the deficits of public reason. The interpretation proceeds in three steps. First, the idea of public reason and discourse is analyzed, followed by an explanation of democratic deficit and of the social deficit in the second and third steps, respectively. These deficits are analyzed as an essential limit to political and social conditions of the participation of citizens. The analysis focuses thereby on the theory of public reason by one of the most influential political philosophers of the last decades, John Rawls. The paper identifies two main pitfalls in his theory: first, the deficit following from an inadequate integration of an individual into society, which, in this case, represents democratic deficit, second, the deficit linked with underrating the socio-distributive dimension of justice, which means a social deficit.

6. Communitarianism

2001 ◽  
Author(s):  
Will Kymlicka
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
The Other ◽  
Liberal Politics ◽  
Liberal Neutrality ◽  
Liberal Nationalism ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Common ◽  
Principles Of Justice

This chapter examines communitarianism and its central assumptions. It first considers two strands of communitarian thought: one camp argues that community should be seen as the source of principles of justice, whereas the other camp insists that community should play a greater role in the content of principles of justice. The chapter then explores the communitarian claim that the liberal ‘politics of rights’ should be abandoned for, or at least supplemented by, a ‘politics of the common good’. It also analyses the communitarian conception of the embedded self; two liberal accommodations of communitarianism, the so-called political liberalism and liberal nationalism; the communitarians’ ‘social thesis’, focusing on Charles Taylor’s belief that liberal neutrality cannot sustain the social conditions for the exercise of autonomy; and the connection between nationalism and cosmopolitanism. The chapter concludes with an overview of the politics of communitarianism.

The Social Construction of a Perfect Market: The Strawberry Auction at Fontaines-en-Sologne

2010 ◽  
pp. 73-89
Author(s):  
M.-F. Garcia
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Empirical Study ◽  
Spatial Organization ◽  
Frame Of Reference ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
Invisible Hand ◽  
The Social ◽  
Per Se

The article examines social conditions and mechanisms of the emergence in 1982 of a «Dutch» strawberry auction in Fontaines-en-Sologne, France. Empirical study of this case shows that perfect market does not arise per se due to an «invisible hand». It is a social construction, which could only be put into effect by a hard struggle between stakeholders and large investments of different forms of capital. Ordinary practices of the market dont differ from the predictions of economic theory, which is explained by the fact that economic theory served as a frame of reference for the designers of the auction. Technological and spatial organization as well as principal rules of trade was elaborated in line with economic views of perfect market resulting in the correspondence between theory and reality.

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.

Exclusive Public Reason

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christie Hartley
Keyword(s):  
Public Reason ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Moral Duty ◽  
Public Justification ◽  
Moral Foundation ◽  
Narrow Scope ◽  
Public Reasoning ◽  
Comprehensive Doctrines

This chapter develops the idea of public reason based on the shared reasons account of public justification. It is argued that the moral foundation for political liberalism delimits a narrow scope for the idea of public reason, such that public reasons are required only for matters of constitutional essentials and basic justice. It is also argued that where public reason applies, persons as citizens have a moral duty to never appeal to their comprehensive doctrines when engaging in public reasoning. Hence, an exclusive account of public reason is vindicated. Finally, we respond to various potential objections to our view, such as the claim that the shared reasons view requires identical reasoning and the claim that public reason is interderminate or inconclusive.

The politics of welfare

2021 ◽  
pp. 147488512110080
Author(s):  
Lois McNay
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
Radical Politics ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Welfare Institutions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Original Argument ◽  
Collective Activism ◽  
Historical Model ◽  
Valuable Role

Steven Klein’s excellent new book The Work of Politics is an innovative, insightful and original argument about the valuable role that welfare institutions may play in democratic movements for change. In place of a one-sided Weberian view of welfare institutions as bureaucratic instruments of social control, Klein recasts them in Arendtian terms as ‘worldly mediators’ or participatory mechanisms that act as channels for a radical politics of democratic world making. Although Klein is careful to modulate this utopian vision through a developed account of power and domination, I question the relevance of this largely historical model of world-building activism for the contemporary world of welfare. I point to the way that decades of neoliberal social policy have arguably eroded many of the social conditions and relations of solidarity that are vital prerequisites for collective activism around welfare.

A syndemics approach to exercise is medicine

2021 ◽  
pp. 136345932110214
Author(s):  
Caitlin Vitosky Clarke ◽  
Brynn C Adamson
Keyword(s):  
Mental Illness ◽  
Chronic Disease ◽  
Social Factors ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
Self Concept ◽  
Exercise Interventions ◽  
Narrow Scope ◽  
The Social ◽  
Exercise Promotion ◽  
The Impact

This paper offers new insights into the promotion of the Exercise is Medicine (EIM) framework for mental illness and chronic disease. Utilising the Syndemics Framework, which posits mental health conditions as corollaries of social conditions, we argue that medicalized exercise promotion paradigms both ignore the social conditions that can contribute to mental illness and can contribute to mental illness via discrimination and worsening self-concept based on disability. We first address the ways in which the current EIM framework may be too narrow in scope in considering the impact of social factors as determinants of health. We then consider how this narrow scope in combination with the emphasis on independence and individual prescriptions may serve to reinforce stigma and shame associated with both chronic disease and mental illness. We draw on examples from two distinct research projects, one on exercise interventions for depression and one on exercise interventions for multiple sclerosis (MS), in order to consider ways to improve the approach to exercise promotion for these and other, related populations.

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