The Political Theology of Prerogative

The Jurisprudential Miracle in Liberal Constitutional Thought

Datos Bibliográficos

ID6325294
AutoresClement Fatovic (0009-0008-0755-706X, Florida International University, autor de correspondencia)
Año2008
Volumen6
Número3
Páginas487-501
Fecha de publicación2008-09-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaPerspectives on Politics (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1537-5927 • E-ISSN: 1541-0986
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s1537592708081243
OpenAlexW2106528999
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas6
Referencias citadas37

Liberalism ordinarily requires authorities to provide a full public account of their actions so that citizens can critically evaluate those actions for themselves, but in times of life-threatening emergency, liberalism sometimes evinces a willingness to place unquestioning faith in executives who promise to deliver it from such evil. In doing so, liberalism violates its moral and epistemological commitment to “makepublic useof one's reason in all matters.” This article uses the framework provided by Carl Schmitt's concept of political theology to analyze the reluctance of liberals to ask questions of the executive in times of danger and uncertainty. That framework helps explain how both the content and the structure of liberal thought can shift in a theological (and specifically theistic) direction when faced with an emergency. This article demonstrates that the quasi-religious rhetoric sometimes used to justify expansions of executive power in practice has precedents in the theories of John Locke, William Blackstone, and Alexander Hamilton. Analysis of their writings suggests that the use of quasi-theistic language in discussions of emergency powers can have the effect of insulating “godlike” executives from the kind of scrutiny and criticism that liberalism usually promotes

Criticism · Epistemology · Faith · Law and economics · Liberalism · Miracle · Neutrality · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Prerogative · Public reason · Rhetoric · Scrutiny · Sociology · Theism · Theology · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Law · Philosophy · Political Theology and Sovereignty · Seventeenth-Century Political and Philosophical Thought