Abstract
The pragmatic political liberal in my conception approaches the political realm as an arena within which the boundaries of reasonableness, and thus of legitimate state action, are worked out through public inquiry over time. I therefore hold that the political liberal claim that public policies must be publicly justified does not mean that the policies in question must be shown to be immune to reasonable disagreement, but rather that they be shown to be reasonable candidates for public inquiry. While I have doubts about the attractiveness and viability of ‘Deweyan’ democracy as a political program, I think that it is a reasonable candidate for public action in this sense.
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Notes
The obvious exception to this rule is the late Richard Rorty, who in his book Contingency, Irony and Solidarity and in a number of related essays spells out a vision of a ‘liberal utopia’ that is based on his radically anti-foundationalist reading of the pragmatic tradition. I find Rorty's position to be rather idiosyncratic as a reading of liberalism, and rather tendentious as a reading of pragmatism, although I cannot defend these claims here.
Eric MacGilvray (2004).
See for example Robert J. Talisse (2008).
See for example Matthew Festenstein (1997, especially Chapters 1–3).
On this see for example Charles Larmore (1999).
MacGilvray (2004, pp. 160–162, 190–194).
I apply this line of argument to Rawls's theory of justice in MacGilvray (2004), and to the epistemic defense of democracy in MacGilvray (2007).
MacGilvray (2004, p. 172).
See especially MacGilvray (2004, pp. 163–167).
MacGilvray (2004, pp. 172–176).
On this see MacGilvray (2004, Chapter 5 passim).
MacGilvray (2004, p. 149).
References
Festenstein, M. (1997) Pragmatism and Political Theory: From Dewey to Rorty. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Larmore, C. (1999) The moral basis of political liberalism. Journal of Philosophy 96: 599–625.
MacGilvray, E. (2004) Reconstructing Public Reason. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
MacGilvray, E. (2007) Pragmatism and the epistemic defense of democracy. Contemporary Pragmatism 4: 3–9.
Rorty, R. (1989) Contingency, Irony and Solidarity. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Talisse, R.J. (2008) A Pragmatist Philosophy of Democracy. New York: Routledge.
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MacGilvray, E. Reply to Festenstein. Contemp Polit Theory 9, 50–55 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1057/cpt.2009.32
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/cpt.2009.32