Can Christians Join the Overlapping Consensus? in advance

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Billingham ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Overlapping Consensus

Political Parties and the Overlapping Consensus

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matteo Bonotti
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Public Reason ◽  
Overlapping Consensus ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
Creative Agency ◽  
Public Reasoning ◽  
The Common ◽  
Comprehensive Doctrines ◽  
Political Liberal

This chapter rejects the ‘extrinsic’ view of public reason examined in Chapter 4, and argues that political parties can play an important role in helping citizens to relate their comprehensive doctrines to political liberal values and institutions. Once we understand the distinctive normative demands of partisanship, this chapter claims, we can see that there is no inherent tension between them and the demands of the Rawlsian overlapping consensus. This is because partisanship (unlike factionalism) involves a commitment to the common good rather than the sole advancement of merely partial interests, and this implies a commitment to public reasoning. The chapter further examines three distinctive empirical features of parties that particularly enable them to contribute to an overlapping consensus. These are their linkage function, their advancement of broad multi-issue political platforms, and their creative agency.

Social Investment as a Policy Platform

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Vandenbroucke
Keyword(s):  
Social World ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
Education Spending ◽  
Overlapping Consensus ◽  
Member States ◽  
Policy Perspective ◽  
The Social ◽  
Broad Consensus ◽  
The Eu

This contribution argues for a truly reciprocal social investment pact for Europe: member states should be committed to policies that respond to the need for social investment; simultaneously, member states’ efforts in this direction—notably efforts by those in a difficult budgetary context—should be supported in a tangible way. Social investment is a policy perspective that should be based on a broad consensus between people who may entertain certain disagreements regarding the level of their empirical and/or normative understanding of the social world. For that reason, the expression of an ‘overlapping consensus’ is used for delineating social investment advocacy. Data on education spending show that we are far removed from a social investment perspective at the European Union (EU) level. This underscores the fact that social investment advocates need to clearly consider the role the EU has to play in social investment progress.

Moral Norms in Social Contexts

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Herzog
Keyword(s):  
Division Of Labour ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Moral Norms ◽  
Overlapping Consensus ◽  
Social Sphere ◽  
Moral Theories ◽  
Moral Dimensions ◽  
Collective Harm ◽  
Normative Foundations

This chapter sets out the normative foundations on which the book is based. It starts by defending the case for the ‘pervasiveness’ of morality: no social sphere is ‘beyond’ morality, even if there is some degree of institutional ‘division of labour’. Next, it states and explains the moral norms this study is based on: the norm to respect all individuals as moral equals, and norms about the avoidance of individual harm, and about avoiding contributing to collective harm. These norms lie within an ‘overlapping consensus’ of different moral theories and worldviews. In pluralist societies, we should focus on such a consensus—even if it may sometimes be hard to delineate—when reflecting on the moral dimensions of organizations.

scholarly journals In the Region of Middle Axioms: Judicial Dialogue as Wide Reflective Equilibrium and Mid-level Principles

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
José Juan Moreso ◽  
Chiara Valentini
Keyword(s):  
Public Reason ◽  
Reflective Equilibrium ◽  
Legal Pluralism ◽  
Wide Reflective Equilibrium ◽  
Overlapping Consensus ◽  
Foreign Law ◽  
Comprehensive Doctrines ◽  
Constitutional Adjudication

AbstractThis article addresses the use of foreign law in constitutional adjudication. We draw on the ideas of wide reflective equilibrium and public reason in order to defend an engagement model of comparative adjudication. According to this model, the judicial use of foreign law is justified if it proceeds by testing and mutually adjusting the principles and rulings of our constitutional doctrines against reasonable alternatives, as represented by the principles and rulings of other reasonable doctrines. By this, a court points to a wide reflective equilibrium, justifying its own interpretations with reasonable arguments, i.e. arguments that are acceptable from the perspectives defined by other constitutional doctrines, as endorsed by other courts. The point of a judicial engagement of this sort is to work out an overlap between different, reasonable, doctrines in the judicial forum, as part of a liberal forum of public reason. Here, the exercise of public reason filters out the premises of comprehensive doctrines so as to leave us in the region of an overlapping consensus: a region of mid-level principles that can be shared, notwithstanding the fact of legal pluralism.

scholarly journals Should we Ascribe Capabilities to Species and Ecosystems? A Critical Analysis of Ecocentric Versions of the Capabilities Approach

2021 ◽  
Vol 34 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anders Melin
Keyword(s):  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Capabilities Approach ◽  
Overlapping Consensus ◽  
As Species ◽  
Theories Of Justice ◽  
Comprehensive Doctrines ◽  
Sentient Beings

AbstractMartha Nussbaum’s capabilities approach is today one of the most influential theories of justice. In her earlier works on the capabilities approach, Nussbaum only applies it to humans, but in later works she extends the capabilities approach to include sentient animals. Contrary to Nussbaum’s own view, some scholars, for example, David Schlosberg, Teea Kortetmäki and Daniel L. Crescenzo, want to extend the capabilities approach even further to include collective entities, such as species and ecosystems. Though I think we have strong reasons for preserving ecosystems and species within the capabilities approach, there are several problems with ascribing capabilities to them, especially if we connect it with the view that species and ecosystems are subjects of justice. These problems are partly a consequence of the fact that an ascription of capabilities to species and ecosystems needs to be based on an overlapping consensus between different comprehensive doctrines, in accordance with the framework of political liberalism on which the capabilities approach builds. First, the ascription of capabilities to species and ecosystems presupposes the controversial standpoint that they are objectively existing entities. Second, the ascription of capabilities to ecosystems and species and the view that they are subjects of justice is justified by claiming that they have integrity and agency, but these characteristics have different meanings when applied to collective entities and humans, respectively. Third, the view that species and ecosystems are subjects of justice seems to require the controversial assumption that they have interests of their own, which differ from the interests of the sentient beings that are part of them. However, even if we do not ascribe capabilities to species and ecosystems and regard them as subjects of justice, there are still strong reasons to protect them within the capabilities approach, as the preservation of ecosystems and species is an important precondition for many human and animal capabilities.

Commentary: Beyond Common or Uncommon Morality

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 426-428
Author(s):  
LESLIE FRANCIS
Keyword(s):  
Medical Ethics ◽  
Common Morality ◽  
Medical Professionals ◽  
Ethical Standards ◽  
Overlapping Consensus ◽  
Healthcare Professions

In “Medical Ethics: Common or Uncommon Morality,”1 Rosamond Rhodes defends a specialist view of medical ethics, specifically the ethics of physicians. Rhodes’s account is specifically about the ethics of medical professionals, rooted in what these professionals do. It would seem to follow that other healthcare professions might be subject to ethical standards that differ from those applicable to physicians, rooted in what these other professions do, but I leave this point aside for purposes of this commentary. Rhodes’s view includes both a negative and a positive thesis. The negative thesis is that precepts in medical ethics—understood as the ethics of physicians—cannot be derived from principles of common morality. The positive thesis is two-fold: that precepts in medical ethics must be derived from an account of the special nature of what physicians do, and that this account is to be understood through an overlapping consensus of rational and reasonable medical professionals. While I agree emphatically with, and have learned a great deal from, Rhodes’s defense of the negative thesis, I disagree with both claims in Rhodes’s positive thesis, for reasons I will now explain after a brief observation about the negative thesis.

scholarly journals How “political” is Quong’s political liberalism?

2014 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-56
Author(s):  
Enrico Zoffoli
Keyword(s):  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Sharp Contrast ◽  
Short Paper ◽  
The Political ◽  
Overlapping Consensus ◽  
Political Conception ◽  
Comprehensive Doctrines

In this short paper I ask to what extent the sharp contrast between the political and the comprehensive, on which political liberals such as Rawls and Quong place primary emphasis, caters to a truly ?political? conception of liberalism. I argue that Quong?s own take on this point is more distinctively ?political? than Rawls?s, in that it assigns far less weight to citizens? comprehensive doctrines. Indeed, I suggest that Quong?s exclusion of comprehensive doctrines (exemplified by his worries about an ?overlapping consensus?) has more radical implications than Quong himself seems to think. In doing so, I offer a streamlined version of Quong?s critique, which encompasses two more or less direct criticisms of Rawls?s doctrine of the overlapping consensus. I will call them the ?sincerity objection? and the ?liberal objection?.

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