Listening to the Public: An Inductive Analysis of the Good Citizen in a Deliberative System

Significant research has demonstrated that deliberative participation has a number of benefits for participants, leaving them more informed, efficacious, and engaged. Unfortunately, this model of the good citizen may be at odds with both what citizens want out of engagement and what might be most beneficial for self-empowerment. Activism, rather than deliberation, might be a more effective means of influencing public decisions, but traits associated with activism are often considered antithetical to deliberative participation. This paper utilizes a case study to ask what participants want out of engagement and whether their conception of the good citizen aligns with theoretical deliberative norms. Findings suggest that participants in a hybrid model of engagement that blends deliberative discussion with interest group politics want opportunities for public input that center interest formation and recognition, equity, and empowerment. These results suggest a need to better integrate the voices of citizens in normative deliberative theory and research.

Social Contract, Extended Goodness, and Moral Disagreement

This article discusses the role played by interpersonal comparisons (of utility or goodness) in matters of justice and equity. The role of such interpersonal comparisons has initially been made explicit in the context of social choice theory through the concept of extended preferences. Social choice theorists have generally claimed that extended preferences should be taken as being uniform across a population. Three related claims are made within this perspective. First, though it is sometimes opposed to social choice theory, the social contract approach may also consider the possibility of interpersonal comparisons. This is due to the fact that justice principles may be partially justified on a teleological basis. Second, searching for the uniformity of interpersonal comparisons is both hopeless and useless. In particular, moral disagreement does not originate in the absence of such uniformity. Third, interpersonal comparisons should be accounted for both in social choice and social contract theories in terms of sympathetic identification based on reciprocal respect and tolerance, where each person’s conception of the good partially takes care of others’ good. From the moral point of view, any person’s conception of the good should thus be ‘extended’ to others’ personal conceptions. This extension is, however, limited due to the inherent limitations in sympathetic identification and is a long way from guaranteeing the uniformity assumed by social choice theorists.

From the necessity of being human to the possibility of pursuing a good life: cognitive enhancement and the emergence of personhood

Throughout human history, cognition enhancement has not only been a constant, but also imperative for our species evolution and well-being. However, philosophical assumptions that enhancing cognition by biomedical means goes against some immutable human nature, combined with the lack of conclusive data about its use on healthy individuals and long-term effects, can sometimes result in prohibitive approaches. In this context, the authors seek to demonstrate that cognition enhancement, whether by “natural” or biotechnological means, is essential to the emergence of personhood, and to existence of an autonomous life that is guided by a person’s own conception of the good. In order to do so, the main possibilities of enhancing cognition through biotechnologies, along with its benefits and potentialities, as well as its risks and limitations, will be presented. Following Savulescu and Sandberg’s account on cognitive enhancement, it will be argued that it constitutes both a consumption good, being desirable and happiness-promoting to have well-functioning cognition, and a capital good that reduces risks, increases earning capacity, and forms a key part of human capital. Finally, having in mind that progress in the field of biotechnology aimed at cognition enhancement may improve a person’s (and society’s) well-being, the authors will argue that further research in the field is necessary, especially studies that takes into consideration dimensions such as dose, individual characteristics and task characteristics.

Liberal Non-Domination

This chapter develops the fundamental features of liberal non-domination. It connects the expressive perspective (chapter 2) to a liberal framework for social justice, aiming at fair cooperation between free and equal individuals endowed with two moral powers—sense of justice and capacity for a conception of the good—and derives a conception of non-domination from it. Domination consists of the asymmetrical capacity of one agent to arbitrarily interfere in the choices of another; interference is arbitrary when it is not forced to respect others’ prima facie relevant claims arising out of cooperation. This conception improves upon neo-republican accounts of non-domination by showing that domination is a very important, but not the only, requirement of social justice, and by giving a substantive determination to the claims and choices justice requires it to range over. Concluding critical analyses of Lovett’s, Forst’s, and Pettit’s rival conceptions of just non-domination confirm its advantages.

International justice: a view of western communitarianism

Does the communitarian perspective on politics offer a credible account of the conception of the relationship between the self and the other, which can provide a valid conceptual basis for justice among states? How does the understanding of the state as a nation-state impact the possibility of international justice? These questions constitute the primary concern of this work. It must be mentioned that although any attempt to analyze the international realm through the lens of communitarianism would necessarily entail invoking the politics of nationalism, this study deals with nationalism only to assess how communitarianism contributes to international justice. The study is not concerned with the validity or authenticity of a people's claims to nationalism; rather, the aim is to work out a communitarian perspective on international justice. This work argues that though the communitarian understanding of justice does offer a valid and credible account of the conception of the self and his relationship with the other, it fails to apply to the international context. Justice can only be required, negotiated, and implemented among members of a community. To understand international justice, what is required is the recognition of common humanity, a commonly shared conception of the good outside the boundaries of the nation-state. The communitarian perspective does not offer space for such recognition.

Political Boundedness and the Role of Cartography

"I will question the legitimacy of borders via its underlying premise: the supposedly natural boundedness of communities. Two avenues are usually used to show the legitimacy and necessity of borders: either as a way to protect and preserve the conception of the good and the values of an already existing bounded community; or as a way to create a democratic polity, the limits of which are required to uphold the rights of citizens. Either way, what is presupposed is that communities are and/or should be bounded. I will argue that the arguments in favour of political boundedness do not hold up to scrutiny, least of all in the form of territorial borders. This will lead me to a discussion on the precedence of the graphic gesture of drawing the line, and hence on the violence of boundary-making. Keywords: Boundaries, space, nation, state, cartography, line "

Dilemmas of Political Agency and Sovereignty: The Omelian Allegory

This essay is a political reading of Ursula K. Le Guin’s ‘The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas’, which examines agency and resistance in situations of political wrong. Le Guin’s short story allows us to reformulate the questions of the boundaries of popular sovereignty and the opposition to general consent. These concerns will be here regarded as elements of a critique of neoliberal capitalism, in which freedom and self-realization are founded on injustices that persist because of a prevalent conception of the good life. The case of ‘Omelas’, moreover, challenges our understanding of resistance in revealing the blurred boundary between political action and mere noncompliance. The question asked will be about the nature of noncompliance: is noncompliance a form of resistance, and, if so, can it transform the political reality?

Conclusions

The model of craft and the craft workshop illuminates Christian authors’ literary activity, in particular their use of ekphrasis and prosōpopoeia. Their use of these techniques shows they emulate a literary craft tradition but adapt and experiment within it. They use these techniques to provoke an active response from their audience. These texts are intended to be useful as well as beautiful. They are creating a truly rhetorical and persuasive art in some ways similar to that set out in Plato’s Republic: grounded on knowledge, learning by experience and aimed at a good end. However, their conception of the good is defined in terms of Christian doctrine and they emphasize the importance of the fact that their craft is productive: it generates texts. Finally, this craft of words puts a great deal of weight on human experience: this is due to the importance of the doctrines of the incarnation and creation.

Friendship

The surviving evidence for Epicurus’s view of friendship has given rise to divergent scholarly interpretations. For some, Epicurus recommends narrowly self-regarding relations with friends, while for others, he seems to recognize the commonly held opinion that reliable and rewarding friendships require us to treat our friends not solely as instruments to our own pleasure. Both of these views have been bolstered by larger considerations from within the wider theory, practice, and history of Epicureanism. Thus, some have made inferences from what they take to be Epicurean social practices, while others have tried to view friendship within the larger context of Epicurean social theory. Still others have posited various kinds of developmental accounts that see Epicurus’s original theory changing as later Epicureans confronted new practical and theoretical questions raised by their conception of the good life. A further question is raised by later Epicurean evidence about divine friendships, which are not based on mutual need. To what extent can humans, enmeshed in the practical demands of human friendship, hope to realize Epicurus’s injunctions to live a life worthy of the gods, and hence, perhaps, form friendships untainted by mutual need? Again the evidence seems muted, but Epicurus’s concerns about the nature of ataraxia, autonomy, and our invulnerability to chance puts questions about the relations among philosophical philoi at the very center of what we might call his high philosophical discourse about the nature of the individual self and the external requirements of hedonistic happiness.

Rawls’s Underestimation of the Importance of Economic Agency and Economic Rights

In Rawls’s justice as fairness, the moral powers of democratic citizenship are the capacity for a conception of the good and the sense of justice, and basic rights are those necessary for the development and exercise of these two powers. Since economic agency is not a power of democratic citizenship, economic rights are not basic. To libertarians, this relative devaluation of economic agency and economic rights is a mistake, since economic agency and economic rights are the main concerns of justice. This libertarian critique is correct: justice as fairness underestimates the importance of economic agency and economic rights. Yet libertarian critics mistake how we should care about economic agency and which economic rights are basic. The economic agency that matters for justice as fairness is the capacity to work together with others, and the basic economic rights are those that enable and protect this capacity.