From Consent To Public Reason

The theory of political legitimacy is a very important theory in political philosophy, itrevolves around the right to rule possessed by a state or government, the right will makethe members of the state or government obligated. In modern states, legitimacy not onlymeans the moral right of a state or government specially but also a character ofdemocratic decisions. A democratic decision is legitimate shows why the people towhom the decision is exerted have a moral obligation to comply with the decision. Whatis the source of the legitimacy of a state, a government or a decision on earth? In otherwords, how to justify political legitimacy? Whether the justification of politicallegitimacy changes with the development of the theory of political legitimacy? Theabove questions are the core problem I will try to deal with in this dissertation. From the era of ancient Greek democracy to the Enlightenment, the source ofpolitical legitimacy utterly changes in western political theory. It is not city state, thegod or the monarch any more, but the people who become the arguer or judge ofpolitical legitimacy at last. The source of political legitimacy changes from holy law andorder to mundane experience of power, with which happens the innovation ofjustification of political legitimacy. The authorization of an authority is not self-evidentany more, social contract theory becomes the mainstream to help justify legitimacy. Theessential concept in social contract theory is consent, people who are in the pre-politicalstate of nature consent to authorize a sovereign to arrange their social life politicallyaccording to their rational judgement under the enlightenment of the law of nature andthen leave the state of nature and form a state. The legitimacy of the political system liesin the consent of the people when it is built and their expressed political attitude towardsthe ruler through certain political procedure, rules and institutional arrangement basedon certain political value so as to keep stability and development of the political system.The reason why the right to rule of the ruler requires the consent of the governedexpressed through the institutional procedure is that public power grasped by the ruleroriginates from people’s permission and endowment.In this dissertation, I will begin with the justification of political legitimacy byconsent from the era of Enlightenment, discuss the consent theory of Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau and try to find out different definitions and bases from their logicalarguments. The consent theory of Hobbes starts with human nature and takes on aspecial explanation of consent by a rigorous logical argument of the right of nature, thestate of nature and the law of nature. To consent is to permit, permit the sovereign to bein the state of nature, except whom all the people must promise to renounce power.Only the power of the sovereign is permitted. The establishment of the consent theoryof Hobbes is based on three preconditions such as (1)peace is more important thanliberty in respect of value,(2)independent individual adopts a mutual perspective inliberty transfer,(3)an efficacious common power is needed. In the meanwhile, it mustbe admitted the force of constraint of permission and the coexistence of consent andcoerce, which leads to the conclusion that in the consent theory of Hobbes, what peopleconsent to is under the protection of a despotic Leviathan. Even though the above claimmeets with many criticisms, it is true that the consent theory of Hobbes justifies theright to rule by individuals right and becomes the beginning of the transformation of thejustification of political legitimacy from holy order to humans will.The consent theory of Locke begins with the Lockean equal state of nature whichtakes on a beautiful prospect ruled by the law of nature through an explanation of thetrinity of the right of nature. The speciality of the consent theory of Locke consists inthat people in the state of nature are endowed with the political power to exert the law of nature, which is self-evident for Locke. Locke justifies the power to rule of a state byindividuals political power. However, there are still some difficulties in the relationshipbetween consent and political legitimacy in the consent theory of Locke, such as thedifficulty of tacit consent and paradox of consent and majority principle. What need tobe admitted is the consent theory of Locke is the best paradigm for justifying politicallegitimacy within liberalism.The consent theory of Rousseau adopts a method of historical description,describes a state of nature within which people are lonely and solitary, shows theprocess of degeneration of human nature from kindness and loss of natural freedom.Rousseau tries to create social liberty instead of natural freedom by social contract andthen a republican consent theory taking general will as the core comes out. Rousseautries to reconcile the relationship between liberty and coercion and his great enthusiasmfor political participation makes him the precursor of republican democracy theory anddeliberative democracy. However, just as Habermas’ criticisms towards Rousseau’stheory have pointed out, Rousseau keeps an eye on the ethical homogeneity of acommunity and uniformity of the public interest of a community and individuals interestoverly, overlooks the disparity of interest and the possibility that collective will cansuppress individuals liberty, which is beset with difficulties under the background ofpluralism. It concludes three dilemmas of consent theory based on the analyses of the consenttheory of the above three theorists: the difficulty of tacit consent, the institution ofdemocracy is not equivalent to consent and the absence of consensus, which becomesthe reason for the development of source of political legitimacy from consent to publicreason. The representatives of the theory of public reason are Rawls and deliberativedemocrats. In order to assure the validity of the agreement about political justice peoplereach, Rawls proposes the concept of public reason. As guidelines of public inquiry,some aspects of public reason such as the fundamental political questions to which itapplies, the persons to whom it applies and the content of which are confined by Rawls.In his theory, Rawls shows the most essential value of the concept of public reason, thatis publicity. Carrying on Rawls’ theory, deliberative democrats claim political legitimacyoriginates in the procedure of deliberation, the essential value of which embodies publicreason. Compared with Rawls’ theory, deliberative democrats argue that thefundamental political questions to which public reason applies and the persons to whompublic reason applies can be more. The essential value of public reason still lies in thepublicity of reasoning which embodies in that reasoning needs to proceed in publicforum, reasons must be claimed publicly and reasonable and the content of publicreason must be public, reasons must be based on justice and common good and so on.Through the explication of the concepts of consent and public reason respectively, it concludes that as for the justification of political legitimacy, public reason has moreadvantages than consent in four aspects: first, they have different understandings ofpeople. As an institutional arrangement for the expression of consent and exertion ofpublic reason respectively, liberal democracy takes individuals as negative carriers ofpreferences while deliberative democracy takes people as positive political participants.Second, they have different understandings of preferences. On the one hand, the theoryof deliberate democracy claims preferences are not predetermined but endogenous andcan be changed in the procedure of public deliberation. On the other hand, thepreferences expressed in the institution of liberal democracy are not always people’strue preferences. Third, the decision-making rule of liberal democracy has met somesuspicions because different decision-making rules will lead to absolutely differentoutcomes. Finally, they have different understandings of the nature and essential valueof democracy which is political equality. Political equality for liberal democracy isformal equality as ‘one person one vote" because it treats all the preferences of all thepeople equally while deliberative democracy takes political equality as equal politicalparticipation.As an institution for the achievement of public reason, deliberative democracy isnot perfect and still has some dilemmas which challenges the actual operation of publicreason. Showing that the development of source of political legitimacy from consent to public reason realizes the dilemmas of consent theory objectively, the advantages andthe difficulties of public reason with the development of the theory of public reason.From the age of Enlightenment, consent theory has developed for several centuries,which shows it still has enchantment for the justification of political legitimacy.However, the modern age takes on the character of pluralism, which requiresinter-subjective interaction and mutual respect under the guide of publicity for thejustification of political legitimacy. The emergence and development of public forumprovides the prerequisite for deliberative democracy and makes public reason the basisfor the justification of political legitimacy.