Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Reidy, David A.

Titel

Reciprocity and Reasonable Disagreement: From Liberal to Democratic Legitimacy

Ist Teil von

• Philosophical studies, 2007-01, Vol.132 (2), p.243-291

Ort / Verlag

Heidelberg: Springer

Erscheinungsjahr

2007

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• At the center of Rawls's work post-1980 is the question of how legitimate coercive state action is possible in a liberal democracy under conditions of reasonable disagreement. And at the heart of Rawls's answer to this question is his liberal principle of legitimacy. In this paper I argue that once we attend carefully to the depth and range of reasonable disagreement, Rawls's liberal principle of legitimacy turns out to be either wildly utopian or simply toothless, depending on who one reads the ideal of reciprocity it is meant to embody. To remedy this defect in Rawls's theory, I undertake to develop the outlines of a democratic conception of legitimacy, drawing first on Rawls's generic conception of legitimacy in The Law of Peoples and second on a revised understanding of reciprocity between free and equal citizens. On this revised understanding, what free and equal citizens owe one another is not reciprocity in judgment, but reciprocity of interests.