Religious Political Parties and the Limits of Political Liberalism

Political parties have only recently become a subject of investigation in political theory. In this paper I analyse religious political parties in the context of John Rawls’s political liberalism. Rawlsian political liberalism, I argue, overly constrains the scope of democratic political contestation and especially for the kind of contestation channelled by parties. This restriction imposed upon political contestation risks undermining democracy and the development of the kind of democratic ethos that political liberalism cherishes. In this paper I therefore aim to provide a broader and more inclusive understanding of ‘reasonable’ political contestation, able to accommodate those parties (including religious ones) that political liberalism, as customarily understood, would exclude from the democratic realm. More specifically, I first embrace Muirhead and Rosenblum’s (Perspectives on Politics 4: 99–108 2006) idea that parties are ‘bilingual’ links between state and civil society and I draw its normative implications for party politics. Subsequently, I assess whether Rawls’s political liberalism is sufficiently inclusive to allow the presence of parties conveying religious and other comprehensive values. Due to Rawls’s thick conceptions of reasonableness and public reason, I argue, political liberalism risks seriously limiting the number and kinds of comprehensive values which may be channelled by political parties into the public political realm, and this may render it particularly inhospitable to religious political parties. Nevertheless, I claim, Rawls’s theory does offer some scope for reinterpreting the concepts of reasonableness and public reason in a thinner and less restrictive sense and this may render it more inclusive towards religious partisanship.     

评罗尔斯的《政治自由主义》

政治哲学是当代西方哲学中最活跃和引人注目的领域 ,近几十年来 ,著名的思想家和重要的论著不断涌现。我国学术界在这方面的翻译、介绍工作相当积极、多产 ,尽管如此 ,由于起步很晚 ,不少重要篇章至今尚未译 ,本栏目将择要选介 ,以期研究者和读者能对当代西方政治哲学的脉络和进展有一全面、深入了解。哈贝马斯访华 ,进一步激起了对他的思想的关注 ;当代政治哲学中 ,平等问题和正义问题一样处于中心地位。本栏目的介绍工作从这两个话题做起。     

政治自由主义和公共理性的局限性

这篇论文分析了政治自由主义的局限性.这一点是通过批判其公共理性的不足来阐明的.这个论述分三部分来进行:第一部分分析公共理性和话语,第二、三部分分别进行民主缺陷和社会缺陷的解释.这些缺陷被分析为是对公民参与政治社会条件的一个根本限制.因此这个分析集中于过去十年最有影响的政治哲学家 J.罗尔斯的公共理性理论.这篇论文认为在他的理论中有两个缺陷:一是随着个体向社会的不完全整合而带来的缺陷--民主缺陷;二是与低估正义的社会分配维度相关的缺陷--社会缺陷.     

"权利优先于善"的自由主义政治伦理观

"权利优先于善"是自由主义政治伦理观的价值立场.自由主义者都从个人自由及其权利出发来考量国家权力的来源和性质,规范"国家道德中立"的行为准则和制度安排.以个人自由为政治伦理的思维原点,导致自由主义理论上的悖论和道德上的虚无化,造成自由主义内部的严重分歧并遭到保守主义、社群主义及后现代主义等流派的多维批判.     

Justice,Political Obligation and Public Reason: Rethinking Partisanship and Political Liberalism

In Partisanship and Political Liberalism in Diverse Societies I examine political parties and partisanship within the context of John Rawls’s (Political Liberalism, expanded edn. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2005a) theory of political liberalism. I argue that parties and partisanship are vital to Rawls’s political liberalism, since they offer a distinctive and crucial contribution to the process of public justification that is central to it, which combines the articulation of public reasons with the channelling into the public political realm of the particular values and conceptions of the good emerging from parties’ specific constituencies. Furthermore, I argue, partisanship generates a special kind of political obligations, and this further contributes to state legitimacy under conditions of reasonable pluralism. In this paper, I respond to three commentators who have raised important criticisms against my argument. More specifically, Section 1 provides a response to Lea Ypi’s argument that my normative account of partisanship wrongly presupposes that existing liberal societies are reasonably just. Section 2 answers Daniel Weinstock’s concerns regarding the plausibility and internal consistency of my account of partisan political obligations. Finally, Section 3 addresses Kevin Vallier’s criticisms, which challenge my account of public reason and propose an alternative one.

     

On Actualist and Fundamental Public Justification in Political Liberalism

Philosophia - Public justification in political liberalism is often conceptualized in light of Rawls’s view of its role in a hypothetical well-ordered society as an ideal or idealizing form...     

Political Correctness: the Twofold Protection of Liberalism

Philosophia - As understood today, political correctness aims at preventing social discrimination by curtailing offensive speech and behaviour towards underprivileged groups of...