The Politics of Justification

Bibliographic Data

ID6350255
AuthorsStephen Macedo (0000-0003-3083-2636, Harvard University, corresponding author)
Year1990
Volume18
Issue2
Pages280-304
Publication date1990-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePolitical Theory (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0090-5917 • E-ISSN: 1552-7476
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0090591790018002006
OpenAlexW2031905361
LanguageEN
Citations received24
References cited2

THE PRACTICE OF POLITICAL JUSTIFICATION is not just for philosophers, and it does not simply lie behind (as we may hope) our political arrangements. Commitments to reason giving and reason demanding inform some of our most valuable political practices. Judicial review, most obviously, helps ensure legislative and executive acts are reasonable in constitutional terms: In court it is not the fact of power but the display of reasons and evidence counts. Not only the courts, but also Congress and the executive branch sometimes (and quite properly) conscientiously justify their actions in constitutional terms. Constitution aside, much takes place in and around legislatures, elections, and other political fora can be understood as efforts to justify particular policies and programs.1 Liberals demand, as Jeremy Waldron puts it, that the social order should in principle be capable of explaining itself at the tribunal of each person's understanding.2 Liberal, democratic politics is not only about individual rights and limited govemment, it is also about justification, but not about any kind of justification at all. Liberal political justification, even in its ideal form, should be understood politically this article considers why and how. Liberal contractualists typically seek justifications are widely acceptable to reasonable people with a broad range of moral, philosophical, and religious commitments.3 The aim is reasonable agreement: to be both reasonable and agreeable in a widely pluralistic society.4 The appropriate means is a process of reasoning is publicly accessible, but genuinely justificatory

Epistemology · Law and economics · Political science · Politics · Sociology · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Law · Philosophy · Political Philosophy and Ethics

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