Postmodernism and political philosophy

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen K. White
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Liberal Democracy

Just as there is much disagreement over both what is meant by ‘postmodernism’ and which thinkers fall under this rubric, so also is there disagreement over its implications for political philosophy. The claim of postmodernists that raises the most significant issues is that Western modernity’s fundamental moral and political concepts function in such a way as to marginalize, denigrate and discipline ‘others’; that is, categories of people who in some way are found not to measure up to prevailing criteria of rationality, normality and responsibility, and so on. The West’s generally self-congratulatory attitude towards liberal democracy and its traditions obscures this dynamic. Postmodernism aims to disrupt this attitude, and its proponents typically see their efforts as crucial to a radicalization of democracy.

Restoring Catharine Macaulay’s Enlightenment Republicanism?

2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 39-57
Author(s):  
Karen Green ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Tragedy Of The Commons ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Moral Law ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
The Commons

Can Catharine Macaulay’s enlightenment democratic republicanism be justified from the point of view of contemporary naturalism? Naturalist accounts of political authority tend to be realist and pessimistic, foreclosing the possibility of enlightenment. Macaulay’s utopian political philosophy relies on belief in a good God, whose existence underpins the possibility of moral and political progress. This paper attempts a restoration of her optimistic utopianism in a reconciliation, grounded in a revision of natural law, of naturalist and utopian attitudes to political theory. It is proposed that the coevolution of language, moral law, and conscience (the disposition to judge one’s own actions in the light of moral principles) can be explained as solutions to the kinds of tragedy of the commons situations facing our ancestors. Moral dispositions evolved, but, in the light of its function, law is subject to rational critique. Liberal democracy plausibly offers the best prospect for developing rationally justifiable law.

Rorty on Science and Politics

Human Affairs ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Kremer
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Cultural Politics ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Continental Philosophy ◽  
Political Views ◽  
Main Motive ◽  
Science And Politics ◽  
Just Society ◽  
Present World

Rorty on Science and PoliticsIn my paper I will prove my overall thesis that Rorty consistently enforces his politically saturated liberal ironic standpoint in the fields of science and politics from his "Contingency" book (1989). As a neopragmatist thinker he gives priority to politics in the sense of a liberal democracy over everything else. Even philosophy as "cultural politics" serves this purpose. He did not want to create a detailed political philosophy, but the main motive of his philosophy is political. He is charged with complacency, relativism and misinterpreting traditional pragmatism, but I show that this is mistaken. Rorty offers "only" a non-systematic, but logical and permanently developed interpretation of our present world on the basis of knowledge he appropriated and improved by building bridges between pragmatism, analytic and continental philosophy. I will analyze briefly in the first part his neo-pragmatist thoughts on science in connection with his political views. In the second part I will interpret Rorty as a liberal ironist who regards almost everything as contingent, except democracy. He outlines a liberal utopia that means first of all a just society in a Rawlsian sense, but he also develops his idea further in a neo-pragmatic way.

Political Liberalism and Christian Political Theology: A Review of Two Works by Liberals that Can Enhance Prospects for Dialogue

2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 281-295 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Chaplin
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
North America ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Review Article ◽  
Public Religion ◽  
Relative Paucity

This review article assesses the usefulness of two substantial recent books on religion by liberal political philosophers, Cécile Laborde and Aurélia Bardon (eds), Religion in Liberal Political Philosophy, and Cécile Laborde, Liberalism’s Religion. It opens by situating these books against the landscape of UK-based work on the place of public religion in liberal democracy by both liberal political philosophers and Christian political theologians. Noting the relative paucity—by comparison with those from North America—of contributions on the theme from both quarters, it welcomes these books as providing important clarifications for political theologians of how many of the precise tensions between religion and liberal democracy might be better understood and how debate between the two disciplines might thereby be enhanced.

The Open Society and Its Complexities

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerald Gaus
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Democratic Governance ◽  
Moral Justification ◽  
Moral Foundations ◽  
Formal Models ◽  
Open Society ◽  
Moral Science ◽  
Self Organized ◽  
Diverse Society

Two decades ago it was widely assumed that liberal democracy and the Open Society had won their century-long struggle against authoritarianism. Although subsequent events have shocked many, F. A. Hayek would not have been surprised that people are in many ways disoriented by the society they have created. For him, the Open Society was a precarious achievement, in many ways at odds with the deepest moral sentiments. He argued that the Open Society runs against humans’ evolved attraction to “tribalism”; that the Open Society is too complex for moral justification; and that its self-organized complexity defies attempts at democratic governance. In this wide-ranging work, Gerald Gaus re-examines Hayek’s analyses. Drawing on work in social and moral science, Gaus argues that Hayek’s program was prescient and sophisticated, always identifying real and pressing problems, though he underestimated the resources of human morality and the Open Society to cope with the challenges he perceived. Gaus marshals formal models and empirical evidence to show that the Open Society is grounded on the moral foundations of human cooperation originating in the distant evolutionary past, but has built upon them a complex and diverse society that requires rethinking both the nature of moral justification and the meaning of democratic self-governance. In these fearful, angry, and inward-looking times, when political philosophy has itself become a hostile exchange between ideological camps, The Open Society and Its Complexities shows how moral and ideological diversity, far from being the enemy of a free and open society, can be its foundation.

Approaches to Democracy

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
Michael Saward
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Comparative Study ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Current State ◽  
Key Points ◽  
The World ◽  
The Comparative Study ◽  
Models Of Democracy

This chapter offers a critique of the current state of play in the study of democracy. It aims to pinpoint both strengths and limitations of current theories and approaches. A broad range of approaches is covered: the discourse of ‘models of democracy’; the conception of ‘liberal democracy’ that prevails in the comparative study of democratic states and democratization; the deliberative model; normative political philosophy approaches; the world of ‘democratic innovations’, including direct and participative innovations; and recent ‘pragmatic’ and problem-driven approaches. The chapter identifies through these critiques a set of lessons to carry forward, including key points about embracing plurality and the role of experimentation in rethinking democracy.

Liberal Democracy And Cultural Diversity – Between Norms And Facts

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-186
Author(s):  
Plamen Makariev ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Cultural Diversity ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Main Thesis ◽  
Stark Contrast

This article has been written in response to the texts by Richard Robson (“In What Sense is Multiculturalism a Form of Communitarianism”), and Slobodan Divjak (“Communitarianism, Multiculturalism and Liberalism”) with which the Balkan Journal of Philosophy (vol. 10, no 2, 2018) started a discussion on the theme Liberal Democracy and Cultural Diversity. I try to contest the position of these two authors–that multiculturalism and communitarianism belong to one and the same paradigm in political philosophy–by pointing out essential liberal normative elements in multiculturalist theory. My main thesis is that in order to clarify the relation between multiculturalism and communitarianism, we have to differentiate between descriptive and normative communitarianism. The latter is guided, in my opinion, by values, which stand in stark contrast with the liberal ones, whilst this is not the case with multiculturalism.

Liberalism, Democracy, and Development: Philosophical Dilemmas in Third World Politics

1982 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 333-349 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ramesh Thakur
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Judicial Review ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Third World ◽  
World Politics ◽  
The State ◽  
Individual Rights ◽  
Liberal State ◽  
Democratic Equality

In Western societies, the democratic franchise came after the liberal state was firmly established. In Third World countries, the imposition of liberal democracy may generate contradictions between the market and traditional sectors of the polity. Furthermore, liberalism favours restrictive authority in order to safeguard individual rights against the state. In Third World contexts, the more urgent need may be for an interventionist state that will create conditions of minimum democratic equality for all. A government subject to constitutional checks and judicial review may cut across the developmental requirement of permissive authority. These abstract issues of political philosophy can be profitably discussed with respect to recent controversies in India.

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