According to some influential interpretations, Rawls’s later turn to political liberalism contributed significantly to the reorientation of contemporary normative political theory from justice to ...legitimacy – democratic legitimacy in particular. In this paper, I will not delve into whether these assumptions are correct. My main aim here is to show that we can already find the seeds of a later discussion concerning democratic legitimacy and democratic authority in A Theory of Justice. I will also defend the even stronger claim that Rawls’s considerations on democracy in A Theory of Justice are still relevant, both to justify democracy and democratic authority, and for normatively justifying certain democratic decisionmaking procedures. Moreover, I argue that his discussion of the epistemic dimension of majority voting and public deliberation points in the direction of later theories of deliberative democracy and epistemic democracy.
This paper examines the principle of public equality which, according to the view Thomas Christiano defends in his book The Constitution of Equality: Democratic Authority and Its Limits, is of ...central importance for social justice and democracy. Christiano also holds that the authority of democracy, and its limits, are grounded in this principle. Christiano’s democratic theory can be, broadly speaking, divided in two parts. The first part deals with the derivation and justification of the principle of public equality. The second part argues why and how the authority of democracy, and its limits, are based on this principle. This article will deal only with the first part of Christiano’s theory. While I believe that the second part is crucially important for Christiano’s democratic theory, I think that before examining the role of the principle of public equality, it is necessary to examine its nature. For that reason, this paper deals primarily with the nature of the principle of public equality as the requirement of social justice and the basis for the justification of democracy.
The usual justifications of democracy attach central importance to fair decision-making procedures. However, it is being increasingly emphasized that it is necessary to address epistemic ...considerations to justify democracy and democratic authority. In her book Democracy and Truth: The Conflict between Political and Epistemic Virtues, Prijić-Samaržija defends the view which places emphasis on the necessity of epistemic justification of democracy. In this paper, I will discuss her criticism of epistemic proceduralism, which can be considered major contemporary framework for epistemic justification of democracy. Within the framework of epistemic proceduralism, for justifying democracy and democratic authority it is necessary to take into account both political and epistemic values. Nevertheless, Prijić-Samaržija thinks that epistemic proceduralism is not sufficiently epistemic and that it reduces epistemic to political values. I shall argue that epistemic proceduralism can be defended from this kind of criticism.
PDF
