What is a deliberative system? A tale of two ontologies

Deliberative systems theorists have not explained what a deliberative system is. There are two problems here for deliberative systems theory: an empirical problem of boundaries (how to delineate the content of a deliberative system) and a normative problem of evaluation (how to evaluate the deliberation within a deliberative system). We argue that an adequate response to these problems requires a clear ontology. The existing literature suggests two coherent but mutually exclusive ontologies. A functionalist ontology postulates self-sustaining deliberative systems with their own functional goals and logics independent of human intentionality. In contrast, an interpretive ontology conceives of deliberative systems as the products of the beliefs and actions of the actors in the relevant practices—deliberative systems derive from human intentionality. We conclude by showing how these conflicting ontologies lead to different empirical and normative agendas.

Is the privatization of state functions always, and only intrinsically, wrong? On Chiara Cordelli’s The Privatized State

The legitimacy of putting public activities – such as providing education and welfare, but also running prisons or providing military services – into the hands of private companies is hotly contested. In The Privatized State, Chiara Cordelli puts forward an original argument, from a Kantian perspective, for why it is problematic: it replaces the omnilateral will of all citizens, which is realized through public institutions, with the unilateral will of agents to whom these activities have been delegated. While adding an important dimension to the debate, I am not fully convinced that private institutions always fail to realize the omnilateral will, and that this is the only, or always most central, normative problem of privatization. Instead, many concrete cases of privatization seem normatively overdetermined in their wrongness. Nonetheless, Cordelli’s brilliant discussion invites us to rethink these phenomena from an important angle and helps us to better understand what an ideal civil service would look like.

For an immanent critique of a neoliberal form of life

This paper departs from the assumption that the critique of neoliberalism should not restrict itself to a criticism of an economic project. Another possible criticism of neoliberalism consists of a critique of how this specific form of life forms subjects. In this paper, we argue that a critique of a form of life is only justified in a reasonable way if it starts from the experiences of suffering produced by this form of life. As we will show, we must criticise neoliberalism not because it is inadequate for solving problems, since for a specific portion of the world population it has been extremely effective, but because it causes suffering. Suffering, unlike mere unsolved problems, represents sufficient grounds for highlighting the existence of a normative problem in a form of life. According to Max Horkheimer, the first step of a critical project committed to the transformation of a form of life are the crises of the present, which are not fully understood through the theoretical tools of “problem solving” or “learning processes”, as Rahel Jaeggi resorts to in her critical theory of society.

A Holy Being, Incarnate

This chapter develops two lines of argument. The first concerns a very fundamental normative problem of Christology. Since the assumption of a human nature is the most intimate relationship that a divine person could stand in with respect to a created being, and all created beings are dramatically limited, it seems a divine person would have overwhelmingly strong reasons against becoming incarnate. The solution appeals to contingent love toward creatures: acting contingently on reasons of love, God chooses (but did not have to choose) to accept the unfittingness resultant upon becoming incarnate for the sake of creatures. The second line of argument concerns the relevance of the holiness framework to the claim that Christ is not just sinless but impeccable. The best explanation for impeccability is from the holiness framework: it is unsurprising that God could not be willing to enter into the most intimate sort of relationship possible with a creaturely nature that exhibits the worst sort of defect, that is, sin.

Identidade prática e normatividade: considerações sobre o problema a partir de Heidegger e Korsgaard

The purpose of this article is to present Martin Heidegger's and Christine Korsgaard's conceptions about the normative problem and the practical identity problem. The work goes through a brief reconstruction of the debate raised by Mark Okrent and Steven Crowell in relation to the thesis of normativity and agency in Korsgaard, recognizing that despite the possible approximations, Heidegger's interpretation would be more pertinent to address the problems. First, it presents how Heidegger interprets and elucidates the existential possibilities based on the structure of comprehension and what he calls in-order-to. Then, Korsgaard's theory is presented, already recognizing the approximations and distances with the Heideggerian elucidations. Finally, the critics made to Korsgaard by Okrent and Crowell and the possible interpretive advantage over the normative questions of the problem of personal identity constituted from practical terms are reconstructed.

An Epistemic Argument for an Egalitarian Public Sphere

The public sphere should be regulated so the distribution of political speech does not correlate with the distribution of income or wealth. A public sphere where people can fund any political speech from their private holdings is epistemically defective. The argument has four steps. First, if political speech is unregulated, the rich predictably contribute a disproportionate share. Second, wealth tends to correlate with substantive political perspectives. Third, greater quantities of speech by the rich can “drown out” the speech of the poor, because of citizens’ limited attention span for politics. Finally, the normative problem with all this is that it reduces the diversity of arguments and evidence citizens become familiar with, reducing the quality of their political knowledge. The clearest implication of the argument is in favour of strict contribution limits and/or public funding for formal political campaigns, but it also has implications for more informal aspects of the public sphere.

The Theory of Informative Fictions: A Character-Based Approach to False News and other Misinformation

This article derives a theory of informative fictions (TIF). Common forms of misinformation—fake news, rumors, and conspiracy theories—while dysfunctional for communicating property information—information about the state and operation of things—can actually be valuable for communicating character information—information about the motivations of social agents. It is argued that narratives containing “false facts” can effectively portray a speaker's theory of another individual's character. Thus, such narratives are useful for gathering information about leaders and other important individuals who are evaluated in the community. After deriving the theory, TIF is used to derive propositions predicting the empirical conditions under which misinformation will be accepted, tolerated or promoted. The implications of the theory for addressing the normative problem of misinformation are also discussed.

Kant on Structural Domination and Global Justice

This paper offers a novel reading of Immanuel Kant’s mature political philosophy. It argues that Kant’s doctrine of right is best understood as dealing with the question of how to justify practices of social power. It thereby suggests that the main object of Kant’s doctrine of right should be read in terms of individuals’ higher order power of free choice and action (“Willkür”). It then argues that the main normative problem Kant discusses in the doctrine of right is the problem of domination. While Kant must allow persons the exercises of their capacities for free choice and action for reasons of freedom, the structural upshots of such exercises by a multitude of empirically interconnected persons leads to a structure of private right, which is normatively problematic. This paper suggests interpreting this problem as one of structural domination. This reading sheds new light on Kant’s institutional theory of global justice. It enables us to better understand Kant’s theory of global institutionalization, particularly with regard to the question of why national and global institutionalization are so important in Kant’s theory and with regard to the question of what type of law cosmopolitan law is.

Toward a Normative Theory of Equal Culpability Imputation

This chapter aims to defend a general theory of equal-culpability-based imputation of mental states in the criminal law. The willful ignorance doctrine is one example of an equal culpability mens rea imputation principle. After all, what grounds imputing knowledge to a willfully ignorant actor is that her conduct is as culpable as the analogous knowing conduct. Chapters 3 and 4 examined the scope of this imputation principle. But deeper worries linger. Even if equal culpability is necessary for this mode of imputing knowledge to the willfully ignorant, does it provide sufficient justification for such imputation? This chapter confronts two of the deeper objections that remain. One is pressing for practitioners within an existing legal framework (courts and litigants). But it admits of straightforward answers. The other is a harder normative problem for those who make law. Why should lawmakers take equal culpability to be a legitimate basis for imputing missing mental states? Answering this challenge requires a general theory of equal culpability imputation, which it is the aim of this chapter to provide. This theory will then serve as the basis for the remaining chapters in the book.