Abstract
This contribution is an analysis of the circumstances of the debate about justice. The furtherance of particular claims or interests in public debate is crucially dependent upon contingent circumstances. Building on insights from collective action theory, the theory of normative dynamics and constitutional analyses of the nature of argument, it is argued that, when compared with more liberal values, less liberal values face more difficult argumentative contexts in a seemingly neutral liberal framework. Correcting for such a bias is identified as a normative issue.
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Notes
- 1.
A number of political theorists have placed their bets on institutionalized disagreement and compromise rather than moral consensus; see Bellamy (1999), Hampshire (2001), Arnsperger and Picavet (2004) and the essays by Bernard Dauenhauer, Scott Hershovitz and Claudia Mills in Davion and Wolff (2000).
- 2.
Many examples of such concern are to be found in communitarian reactions to John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice.
- 3.
This amounts to taking seriously the very nature of claims and arguments. Emerging models of debate and policy-making, for example, in the work of Randall Calvert and James Johnson (1999), broadly support and illustrate this approach.
- 4.
- 5.
Hirschleifer (1995).
- 6.
I do not imply, of course, that the achievement of normative results was the only motivation of professionals and scientists. Another probable kind of motivation can be derived from the effects on careers, in their respective corporations, of the public demonstration of a militant attitude (irrespective of the success or lack of success).
- 7.
Private interests are not “born” private. This was beautifully brought out in many examples given by Andrew Wilson Green (1969).
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Picavet, E. (2013). Participation in Public Debate and Ethical Division Within Nations. In: Merle, JC. (eds) Spheres of Global Justice. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5998-5_7
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