Constrained Discourse and Public Life

T HE OBVIOUS BASIS FOR DECIDING moral and political issues is, as Plato argued long ago, the Truth. Unfortunately, it is not always, if ever, available. Some would deny that the notion of truth, understood in the traditional way as correspondence to reality, is a meaningful or useful concept at all. But even those who continue to adhere to some kind of realism are prepared to recognize that all that we have to work with is judgments, more or less well informed or thoughtful, where the our in question refers broadly to everyone who participates in moral and political life. When we agree, when we are able to respond to criticism and win over doubters, we have good (indeed, the best possible) reason to act on judgments. But agreement obviously does not mean that we have the truth, let alone the Truth, for we might discover later that we were wrong. It should go without saying that the judgments of many are never articulated and sometimes are not even formed in the first place. This silence is often due to the suppression of certain voices by structures of domination and oppression, though deciding what counts as domination is itself problematic. However, the possibility of domination reminds us that the alternativc to agreement is imposition, whether by force or by more subtle forms of manipulation. No doubt, the best justification of imposition is that the norm or structure one imposes on others is true, and so one's exercise of force or manipulation is legitimate. Plato spoke of noble lies. But if we can never get the Truth, if we only have judgments, the failure to reach agreement should at least give us pause: If we have such good grounds for beliefs, why have we been unable to convince others

Aesthetics · Criticism · Epistemology · Norm (philosophy · Oppression · Political science · Politics · Realism · Silence · Sociology · Critical Theory and Philosophy · Law · Philosophy · Political Philosophy and Ethics

• “Right” Discourse in Citizen Participation

  Thomas Webler•Fairness and Competence in…•1995

  Incluir item

• The Political Theories of Risk Analysis

  Open Access•Nicholas P Guehlstorf•Political Theories of Risk Analysis•2004

  Incluir item

• Public Justification and the Right to Private Property

  Corey Brettschneider•Law & Ethics of Human Rights•2012

  Incluir item

• Does Deliberative Democracy Work

  David Ryfe, David M Ryfe•Annual Review of Political Science•2005

  Incluir item

• Can Participatory Democracy Produce Better Selves? Psychological Dimensions of Habermas's Discursive Model of Democracy

  Mark E Warren•Political Psychology•1993

  Incluir item

• The Ambivalence of Political Courage

  Open Access•Jason A Scorza•The Review of Politics•2001

  Incluir item

• Abortion and the Politics of Motherhood

  Kristin Luker•Abortion and the Politics of…•2019

  Incluir item

• Justice as Fairness

  John Rawls•Equality and Liberty•1991

  Incluir item