The Origin and Future of Political Liberalism

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 639-656
Author(s):  
Kevin Vallier
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
The Political ◽  
New Work ◽  
Adequate Model ◽  
Liberal Tradition ◽  
The Right ◽  
Political Turn ◽  
Political Liberal

This essay reviews Paul Weithman’s new work – Why Political Liberalism? On John Rawls’s Political Turn. Weithman’s book has two aims, first to explain why Rawls recast his political theory and second, to defend a particular interpretation of political liberalism. In contrast to other reviews, this essay addresses the latter aim. I challenge Weithman’s defense of political liberalism on two grounds: (1) that it fails to adequately grapple with pluralism about justice and (2) that it does not provide an adequate model of stability for the right reasons. I conclude that these two weaknesses in an otherwise excellent book suggest a promising future for the political liberal tradition, one that is more comfortable with indeterminacy and less comfortable with deliberative restraint.

Process Philosophy and Political Liberalism

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel A. Dombrowski
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Reflective Equilibrium ◽  
Process Philosophy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Nonhuman Animals ◽  
Static View ◽  
Process Oriented ◽  
The Right ◽  
Political Right

In this work two key theses are defended: political liberalism is a processual (rather than a static) view and process thinkers should be political liberals. Three major figures are considered (Rawls, Whitehead, Hartshorne) in the effort to show the superiority of political liberalism to its illiberal alternatives on the political right and left. Further, a politically liberal stance regarding nonhuman animals and the environment is articulated. It is typical for debates in political philosophy to be adrift regarding the concept of method, but from start to finish this book relies on the processual method of reflective equilibrium or dialectic at its best. This is the first extended effort to argue for both political liberalism as a process-oriented view and process philosophy/theology as a politically liberal view. It is also a timely defense of political liberalism against illiberal tendencies on both the right and the left.

Representation, Bicameralism, Political Equality, and Sortition: Reconstituting the Second Chamber as a Randomly Selected Assembly

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arash Abizadeh
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Agency ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Equality ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
The Many ◽  
Treat All ◽  
Legislative Review ◽  
Political Turn

The two traditional justifications for bicameralism are that a second legislative chamber serves a legislative-review function (enhancing the quality of legislation) and a balancing function (checking concentrated power and protecting minorities). I furnish here a third justification for bicameralism, with one elected chamber and the second selected by lot, as an institutional compromise between contradictory imperatives facing representative democracy: elections are a mechanism of people’s political agency and of accountability, but run counter to political equality and impartiality, and are insufficient for satisfactory responsiveness; sortition is a mechanism for equality and impartiality, and of enhancing responsiveness, but not of people’s political agency or of holding representatives accountable. Whereas the two traditional justifications initially grew out of anti-egalitarian premises (about the need for elite wisdom and to protect the elite few against the many), the justification advanced here is grounded in egalitarian premises about the need to protect state institutions from capture by the powerful few and to treat all subjects as political equals. Reflecting the “political” turn in political theory, I embed this general argument within the institutional context of Canadian parliamentary federalism, arguing that Canada’s Senate ought to be reconstituted as a randomly selected citizen assembly.

Do territorial rights include the right to exclude?

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 307-322 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cara Nine
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
John Locke ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
Property Right ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Public ◽  
Hard Time ◽  
Territorial Rights ◽  
The Right

Do territorial rights include the right to exclude? This claim is often assumed to be true in territorial rights theory. And if this claim is justified, a state may have a prima facie right to unilaterally exclude aliens from state territory. But is this claim justifiable? I examine the version of territorial rights that has the most compelling story to support the right to exclude: territorial rights as a kind of property right, where ‘territory’ refers to the public and common spaces included in the domain of state jurisdiction. I analyse the work of A. J. Simmons, who develops the political theory of John Locke into one of the most well-articulated and defended theories of territorial rights as a kind of property right. My main argument is that Simmons’ justification for rights of exclusion, which are derived from individual rights of self-government, does not apply to many kinds of public spaces. An upshot of this analysis is that most Lockean-based theories of territorial rights will have a hard time justifying the right to exclude as a prima facie right held by states against aliens.

Vainglory, Modesty, and Political Agency in the Political Theory of Thomas Hobbes

2010 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
pp. 241-269 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julie E. Cooper
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Political Agency ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Right

AbstractHistories of political theory have framed the story of the emergence of sovereign states and sovereign selves as a story about secularization—specifically, a story that equates secularization with self-deification. Thomas Hobbes's investment in modesty and humility demonstrates the need for, and the possibility of, an alternative secularization narrative. Scholars have long insisted that “vainglory” is a key term for the interpretation of Leviathan. But Hobbes's task is not complete once he has discredited vainglory. Hobbes must also envision, and cultivate, contrary virtues—and modesty is one virtue that Hobbes would cultivate. An analysis of Hobbes's attempt to redefine and rehabilitate the virtues of modesty shows that Hobbes warns against the temptation to self-deification. In Leviathan, the political task is not to enthrone humans in sovereign invulnerability, but rather to achieve the right balance between bodily security and consciousness of finitude.

scholarly journals Is Marriage Incompatible with Political Liberalism?

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 302-326
Author(s):  
Alison Toop
Keyword(s):  
Public Reason ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
The State ◽  
Differential Treatment ◽  
Political Institution ◽  
The Political ◽  
Current Structure ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political Liberal

This paper examines three arguments that claim marriage, as a political institution, is incompatible with political liberalism. These arguments are drawn from Elizabeth Brake 1 and Clare Chambers. 2 My purpose here is to determine which, if any, of the arguments show marriage to be incompatible with political liberalism. The “Neutrality Argument” claims that the political institution of marriage violates the political liberal principle of neutrality. I claim that no such violation occurs. The “Unjustified Discrimination Argument” alleges that marriage involves the state in unjustified discrimination. I suggest there are grounds for the differential treatment identified. The “Public Reason Argument” argues that marriage, as it is currently structured, violates the political liberal principle of public reason. I claim that its current structure can be justified by appeal to public reasons. I therefore conclude that none of these arguments successfully demonstrate that marriage is incompatible with political liberalism.

Political Reasonableness and Nature’s Otherness

2006 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Hailwood
Keyword(s):  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Natural World ◽  
The Political ◽  
Ecological Justice ◽  
Political Liberal

AbstractThis paper restates my argument that certain forms of liberalism can and should accept a non-instrumental perspective on the natural world. This perspective is unpacked in terms of ‘respect for nature’s otherness’. Liberalism is represented by Rawlsian political liberalism. I claim there are important congruencies between respect for nature’s otherness and the ‘reasonableness’ involved in political liberalism, such that the latter should incorporate the former. Following a suggestion of B. Baxter I reconsider these congruencies with particular emphasis on the roles of toleration and integrity. I also explain further why I think it arbitrary, rather than logically inconsistent, of the political liberal to exclude respect for nature’s otherness from her conception of the political. Finally I argue that insofar as liberalism embraces ecological justice on the basis of the considerability of non-human interests, it cannot consistently exclude respect for nature’s otherness.

French Thought between Liberalism and Fascism

2018 ◽  
pp. 25-59
Author(s):  
Adrian May
Keyword(s):  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Georges Bataille ◽  
Maurice Blanchot ◽  
The Political ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Political Program ◽  
The Right

Georges Bataille and Maurice Blanchot were two foundational influences on both Lignes and many of the review’s contributors. Yet, in the period after Lignes’ creation in 1987, the political engagements of both these figures in the 1930s were coming under increasingly scrutiny as they were suspected of fascist sympathies and anti-Semitic views. This chapter returns to the pre-war period to firstly delineate the review’s trenchant defence of Bataille’s political record, and the influence of Bataille on Lignes’ dual political program of anti-fascism and a critique of economic and political liberalism is subsequently delineated. Secondly, the significance of the review’s historic defence and recent exposé of the right-wing past of Blanchot is discussed in depth. The reception of these two thinkers is thus historicised, especially in the 1980s context of the anti-totalitarian ‘liberal moment’ and the growing anxieties of intellectual complicity with fascism following the Heidegger affair.

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