Political Reason

Morality and the Public Sphere

A. Fives

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781137291622
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Political Philosophy

In modern democracies, existing moral pluralism conflicts with a commitment to resolve political disputes by way of moral reasoning. Given this fact, how can there be moral resolutions to political disputes and what type of reasoning is appropriate in the public sphere? Fives explores this by closely analysing the work of MacIntyre and Rawls.

1

Introduction – Political Reason after the Enlightenment

Background

In a democracy, not only is disagreement a fact that can be observed, but it is also something that morally speaking should be accepted. But what types of disagreement should be tolerated and where instead can and should we push for agreement? This is the more pressing issue and the more difficult question to resolve. Democratic politics is characterized just as much by disagreement, conflict, and discord as it is by consensus, unity, and shared commitments. Although fellow citizens may try to come to some agreement about the proper aims and goals of a society, the distribution of its benefits and burdens, as well as the values and principles that are to be cherished and promoted, nonetheless in the political realm disagreements arise. Democratic politics is both an arena where we can seek out or express our shared identity as members of the one group or society and also a site of clashing world views; it is the realm in which we pursue common goals but also make competing claims to scarce resources; and in politics the claims we make often are incompatible and also justified with principles that are or seem to be incommensurable.

This has led some to argue that if we are to continue to guarantee individual freedom, then in our political reasoning we must accept moral pluralism.

[The] diversity of doctrines – the fact of moral pluralism – is not a mere historical condition that will soon pass away; it is, I believe, a permanent feature of the public culture of modern democracies ... A public and workable agreement on a single general and comprehensive conception [of the good] could be maintained only by the oppressive use of state power. (Rawls, 1987: 425)

What we require therefore, according to Rawls, is a ‘political conception of justice’, a morality of the public sphere, whose purpose is to ‘specify a point of view from which all citizens can examine before one another whether or not their political institutions are just’ (ibid. p. 426). The alternative view, however, is that, despite the plurality of moral points of view, a much more substantial agreement is available than Rawls recognises. There are certain ‘inescapable frameworks’ of moral reasoning, frameworks that incorporate qualitative distinctions, which provide us with ‘the sense that some action, or mode of life, or mode of feeling is incomparably higher than the others’ (Taylor, 1989: 19). Even in modern pluralist societies, Charles Taylor contends, such frameworks ‘provide the background, explicit or implicit, for our moral judgements, intuitions, or reactions’ (ibid. p. 26).

What this illustrates is that, in studying politics, we are concerned with both the goals that we do or should pursue as well as the principles and values that we do or should cherish and promote. We must also address the way in which we do or should deal with disagreements in politics, and so we are concerned with both reason and morality. In short, we have been set the (daunting) task of coming to an understanding of what should count as good reasons in political debate and more precisely what should count as morally weighty reasons in political debate. In particular, we ask whether we may appeal to a supposedly shared background of qualitative distinctions, a comprehensive morality made up of judgements of what is better or higher, as Taylor and others argue, or instead that, so as to respect the liberty of our fellow citizens, in politics we must limit ourselves to a more narrowly defined ‘public’ morality, a morality that does not presuppose the truth of any one comprehensive moral doctrine, as Rawls and others argue.

Political reasoning is one type of moral reasoning, but what is political reasoning? What makes it different from other types of moral reasoning? We could say, to begin with, that political reasoning involves the giving of reasons in deliberation and debate, reasons that are to support or justify conclusions about identifiably ‘political’ ideas, actions, policies, institutions, and so on. A reason for something is ‘a consideration that counts in favour of it’ (Scanlon, 1998: 17). When we are concerned with the ‘standard normative sense’ of reason we are concerned with whether something is a ‘good’ reason, that is, an assessment of the grounds for taking something to be the case (ibid. p. 19). Although political reasoning includes many different categories or types of reasons, it is moral reasons and moral reasoning that will be addressed here.

It may be objected that we are unused to morality playing much of a role in real-world politics, as in many if not most cases political actors (whether ‘politicians’ or not) do not (or do not seem to) act from moral motives and do not offer moral justifications for their actions, at least, not moral justifications that are genuine. Nonetheless, when the reasons given to support a conclusion are non-moral (concerning say economics, popular opinion, legislation, lobbying, special interests, prejudice, ideology, and so on) it is still possible to ask, what moral reasons, if any, support the conclusion and are there moral reasons to revise or reject the conclusion?

However, there is, it seems, a serious tension in current political philosophy. There are a great number of theories of social justice, concerned with the morally justified distribution of benefits and burdens in society, and also many theories of political reasoning, which address the standards, principles, and logic of morally justified political debate. For example, concerning social justice there is the disagreement between Rawls, who claims that an injustice is an inequality not to the benefit of the least well-off, and Robert Nozick, who objects that such a principle would require the able bodied and advantaged to be used ‘simply as a means’ for the sake of the least advantaged (Rawls, 1971: 75; Nozick, 1974: 169–172). Similar debates continue concerning the rights of young people (Harris, 1996), and the rights of the distant poor (Pogge, 2008). When we consider political reasoning itself, there is disagreement between historicists, such as Alasdair MacIntyre, who believe that we need a hierarchical ordering of goods, with one overall good, something that a ‘tradition in good working order’ (MacIntyre, 1988) provides, and liberals, such as Rawls, who believe that although ‘to subordinate all our aims to one end does not strictly speaking violate the principles of rational choice ... , it still strikes us as irrational, or more likely as mad’ (Rawls, 1971: 554). In addition, post-modernists have entered the debate on social justice and political reason. They contend that conflicts around our identity are as important if not more so than those concerning the distribution of resources, and also that political interaction is and should be about the ‘contestation of identity’. ‘Hence the importance of leaving this space of contestation forever open, instead of trying to fill this gap through the establishment of a supposedly “rational” consensus’ (Mouffe, 2000: 56).

This plurality of approaches concerning both social justice and political reasoning is such that not only is there no agreement about what justice requires of us as political actors (for instance, as citizens of a democracy), but there is also no agreement about how disagreements such as these are to be rationally resolved in democratic debate. In political debate, should we reason from within a traditional horizon, as MacIntyre argues? Or establish what has intrinsic value and worth, as MacIntyre believes and as Taylor does with his ‘qualitative distinctions’? Or appeal to universal moral principles, as is the case with Nozick’s social contract approach? Or seek out reasons that can be shared by fellow-citizens, as Rawls argues? Or instead should we see this process as a type of conflict, as post-modernists claim? Furthermore, what claims can disadvantaged fellow-citizens make, and what claims can be made by disadvantaged non-citizens? Do the distant poor have the same claims on us as our fellow citizens, as cosmopolitans argue? And what is the moral status of children and young people, do they have rights and duties, and do they have many if not all of the rights that adults have, as is claimed by the children’s rights movement?

Political philosophers do not agree about these issues. Indeed, there are a variety of different approaches within political philosophy, offering different, often seemingly incommensurable, accounts of moral argumentation in politics. But if that is the case how can political philosophers provide any help when we try to rationally resolve disputes such as these?

Despite the appearance of irresolveable conflict, it is nonetheless possible to bring a considerable degree of order within current politics and political philosophy. That, at least, is the thesis of this book, and it rests on an analysis of the nature and cause of the disagreements among political philosophers. There is a clear distinction to be made, it will be argued, between those who reject the heritage of Enlightenment philosophy, thinking of it as a failed and/or dangerous project, and those whose political philosophy incorporates many basic premises and commitments of the Enlightenment while nonetheless retaining a critical attitude to the failings of other Enlightenment philosophers or Enlightenment political projects. It is also the thesis of this book that any wholesale rejection of Enlightenment philosophy, a rejection which post-modernists and historicists engage in, creates a barrier within political philosophy to the rational resolution of the moral disputes arising in political debate.

It will also be argued that, although distinctively ‘liberal’ versions of the Enlightenment heritage are less than completely successful here, many of the conceptual and moral resources needed for this purpose can be found within the heritage of the Enlightenment itself. In particular, what the Enlightenment heritage helps show is that the idea of ‘public reasoning’, or ‘reasonableness’, along with commitment to scepticism and to the moral equality of fellow citizens that reasonableness presupposes, are the prerequisites of morally justified political debate concerning issues of social justice.

The argument of this book

Enlightenment philosophy is by no means a single, uniform school of thought, and a greater number of commitments can be identified with it than will be presented here. Nonetheless, for the purposes of this discussion, it is possible to take the following two features as characteristic of Enlightenment political philosophy:

1.a commitment to rational justification, i.e. scepticism with respect to validity claims, in particular moral claims; and

2.a commitment to moral equality, i.e. that all should be viewed as moral equals and that all are owed equal moral consideration, in particular when offering reasons to others in justifying our beliefs and actions.

A note of caution is required before proceeding further. There are many who are committed to moral equality in some form and/or scepticism in some form who nonetheless would not be characterized as Enlightenment thinkers. This is the case as the terms ‘scepticism’ and ‘moral equality’ are open to multiple interpretations. First, scepticism can be either an extreme or a moderate position.

1.The extreme position involves scepticism either ‘about whether anything ever “counts in favour of” anything else ... , or about whether we are actually capable of making judgements about when this is the case’ (Scanlon, 1998: 19). This is scepticism about the very possibility of rationality, that is, scepticism about the existence of reasons and scepticism about our capacity to give such reasons.

2.Alternatively, one can be sceptical in the ‘moderate’ sense of not taking beliefs or convictions on trust from others; and in the sense of being willing to look for reasons to hold the beliefs one already has. Moderate scepticism is an approach to reasoning that stands opposed to MacIntyre’s historicism, and also to Hans-Georg Gadamer’s hermeneutics. Gadamer contended that reasoning must always proceed from what is not put to the question, our presuppositions or ‘prejudices’, and that such prejudices form our inescapable ‘horizon’ of understanding (Gadamer, 1975: 271 ff.). Although such a hermeneutic position involves commitment to rational justification, this is rational justification within a horizon or worldview or tradition, and therefore it is not sceptical. Such a tradition may be informed by accounts of human flourishing and human perfection and/or religious belief, and it is just such commitments that are not put in question by rational argumentation. These rather are the first principles of all genuinely rational argumentation (see MacIntyre, 1988: 118). In contrast, the moderate view of scepticism is that, in principle, all accepted truths are open to rational analysis and that, in principle, it is possible to look for reasons for such truths. One is not required to doubt that there is such a thing as rationality or to doubt that it can ever be attained. It is this second, moderate, version of scepticism that will be employed here when referring to the Enlightenment.

The commitment to moral equality can be interpreted in a number of ways as well. It can either be about the way others should be treated generally speaking, or it can be about the way others should be treated when offering moral justifications.

1.A commitment to moral equality in the treatment of others generally can be developed in a number of different ways. One can be committed to moral equality in the sense that one believes the interests of all should be given equal consideration when any decision is made that affects others, as utilitarians argue (Mill, 1861), or that all should be treated with equal concern and respect, as liberals argue (Dworkin, 1985), or that all are equally valuable and equally capable of living a meaningful life, as perfectionists argue (Hurka, 2001), or that as humans we are all equally weak and sinful and in need of moral aid, as Christians argue (Tawney, 1921). This would suggest that not everyone committed to moral equality is also an ‘Enlightenment’ thinker. While the utilitarian commitment to equal consideration of interests and the liberal commitment to equality of respect are recognizably Enlightenment positions, this is not the case with many perfectionist or Christian accounts of moral perfection and/or moral weakness, insofar as they are anti-sceptical in the moderate sense above.

2.The commitment to moral equality can also be about the way others should be treated when offering moral justifications. For Rawls, we must be willing to give an account of ourselves and our actions to others and in doing so acknowledge the moral equality of others (1993a). It would seem, one can be committed to moral equality in the first general sense without being committed to moral equality in the second more specific sense. This is the case with some utilitarian thinkers who insist on two levels of moral reasoning, a level of philosophical justification and a level of everyday deliberation. At the level of justification we can justify acts that ensure all are treated with equal consideration; but we are not required to disclose to those affected what the actual justifying reasons were. As the level of justification is separate from everyday moral deliberation we need not treat others as moral equals in the justification of those acts (this is discussed in Chapter 7). And it will be argued that it is the commitment to moral equality in offering moral justifications that has most significance for political action and political philosophy. As political philosophy is concerned with the proper way in which to address moral issues in political debate and action, then the central moral concern will be the way we view our fellow participants in that political debate and action. So the commitment to moral equality in the treatment of others generally is necessary but not sufficient for the definition of the Enlightenment: one must also be committed to moral equality in regard to the way others should be treated when offering moral justifications in political debate.

Coming now to contemporary political philosophy, it can be said to be after the Enlightenment in one of either two senses. Philosophical analysis can be after the Enlightenment in the sense that it continues ‘in the manner of’ or ‘in accordance with’ or ‘in conformity to’ the Enlightenment.¹ For such an approach, philosophical analysis does and should remain true to certain principles or commitments characteristic of the Enlightenment, even though it should jettison some of the premises and/or conclusions of some Enlightenment philosophers. The two commitments in question are, firstly, the willingness to view others as our moral equals, i.e. the commitment to moral equality, and secondly, the willingness to offer justifications for the claims we make and to judge the claims made by others on the merits of the justifications that can be offered in their defence: that is, the commitment to scepticism. An approach to political philosophy can be said to be ‘in the manner of’ the Enlightenment not only because of its content but more because of its style of doing philosophy.

To take just one example, Kantians argue that a maxim can be accepted as a moral principle only if it is compatible with the Categorical Imperative. That is, the maxim must be universalizable and also it must require that humanity be treated as an end in itself. The two relevant formulations of the Categorical Imperative are: ‘act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law’; and ‘act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end’ (Kant, 1785: § 51, 66–67). In these requirements of moral justification we can see the twin commitments to moral equality and scepticism. They express the view that we should view others as moral equals, and that is why we must treat the humanity of others ‘always as an end’ and never simply as means to our ends, and also that we should be willing to offer justifications to others with considerations that they as our equals should be able to accept, and that is why the maxims we put forward must be such that all persons could will that they be made into universal laws.

Similar commitments can be found in the works of the other major philosophers of the Enlightenment era and before. For example, Thomas Hobbes, in the 1650s, based political philosophy on the ‘passions’ of the ordinary or ‘natural’ person: read thyself, he urged us, for whoever looks into himself when he thinks, reasons, hopes, opines, etc. ‘and upon what grounds; he shall thereby read and know, what are the thoughts, and passions of all other men, upon like occasions’ (Hobbes, 1651: introduction, 3). Although Hobbes’s State, or Leviathan, was to exercise absolute power, its purpose was to guarantee the security and liberty of each. So not only must political reasoning proceed from the passions of each, political practice must be for the benefit of each. Again, David Hume, in the 1730s, called for a politics based on a general sense of common interest, but also a philos...

Table of contents

• Cover
• TitlePage
• 1   Introduction – Political Reason after the Enlightenment
• 2   Reason and Tradition
• 3   Reason and Faith
• 4   Agonism
• 5   Reasonableness
• 6   Civic Education for Democracy
• 7   Global Distributive Justice
• 8   Conclusions
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index