The Theoretical Significance Of The Concept Of Public Deliberation

The generation and development of the idea of deliberative democracy is animportant phenomenon in the process of political theory development since the1980’s.No matter from the aspect of theory or of the practice, it is significant to understand andevaluate this theory properly. Based on the fact that the concept of deliberativedemocracy becomes diversified, it becomes more important to clarify and elucidate adeliberative democracy concept which could be defended. In addition, it is only possibleto view it from the aspect of the theory’s background of both the society and the theory,in order to understand the theoretical definition of the deliberative turn of democracytheory properly, and explore a deliberative democracy concept which could be defended.As a normative democracy theory generated from certain social background andproblematic situation, the significance of deliberative democracy theory could only beunderstood and evaluated properly under this certain background. At the same time, asthe theorization of deliberative democracy, the theoretical rationality of democracytheory in the form of deliberation could only be tested under this certain problematicsituation. The social and theoretical background to generate the concept of deliberationlies on the diversity of values towards the modern society and the conflict facts and theirconsequent theoretical influences. Therefore, it is only possible to clarify and evaluatethe concept of deliberation under this social and theoretical background.In modern society,the value conflicts not only exist as a social or political issuesbut also profoundly influence and reshape the social and political relations of themodern human’s life.It may be said that the modern society means that the value ofconflict,the modern politics means that the value of conflict too.Whether from the pointthat the conflicted value constitute the operating environment of it,or that from theconflicted value become an integral part of it,we can say that the conflict of the valuebecome an important prerequisite for practice and thinking of the modern politics. The essence of the modern value conflict as a modern political state is that the free, equalcitizens to make a choice for the value foundation of political community, in thepremise of the fact of reasonable pluralism of the basic political value.The theoreticalsignificance of the fact is that：First, it raises the requirements of theory to re-clarify themoral perspective or public standard which breeds the diversity of concepts and theconflict among them. Meanwhile, the reconstruction of the public moral perspective ortheoretical standards must meet the requirements of the situation of value conflicts onthe normative, the contradiction it has to adjust is not simply a conflict of interest, butthe claim of value which is associated with the person’s self-identity and publicrecognition.Second, it requires the theoretical reconstruction of the moral perspective toensure the neutrality of the substantive value, and to ensure clarity of cognition.Thus, onthe one hand it requires the standard of democratic legitimacy to be procedural,and onthe other hand, the standard must maintain the necessary moral cognition meaning.Third, the substantive content of different standpoints should not be involved in thereconstruction of this theory,but at the same time it has to provide principles for theinclusion of these differences.So, the fact of modern value conflict is an important eventthat needs theoretical explanation.It is important not only because it makes a direct challenge of the practices whichachieve integration and unity of the construction of a modern society; more important isthat it presents the theoretical requirements to re-explain " Individualization " which is aresult and a phenomenon produced in the process of human society.While to thenormative political and democratic conception, the more we try to explain these resultsand phenomena,or the more we try to understand and evaluate them from the normativesense, the more we can feel the deficiencies of relevant political (or democratic)theory,conception and even the idea. The idea of deliberative democracy is a product inresponse to the changing of modern society and its theoretical requirements.It is thereflect of introspection the Western intellectual make to the social development andchanges of the modern West in the field of democratic theory.To meet the requirementof theory and practice, a well-expressed conception of deliberative democracy must beestablished on the basis of moral universalism, procedural rationality andconsensus,thus it is the unity of the following three theoretical dimensions.First of all, in the view of this deliberative democracy, the democratic process isrational, because every part involved in the process is required to state their reasons when suggest, oppose or support any viewpoints, and in which every one of them hopethat it is their reasons not the power that determine the fate of their viewpoints andstandpoints. Yet in the modern condition that human being’ s values could becontroversial, the deliberative democracy bring the “rationality” sense back to thenormative democratic theory, and what it wants to show is a kind of basic position ofthe moral universalism. The deliberative concept thought that although the fact whichmodern values are in controversial make the moral foundation of modern politics incrisis, it did not deny the possibility of reconstruction of the common moral perspectiveof modern humans. In the meantime, this standpoint of the concept of the deliberativedemocracy is also the direct response to the liberalistic aggregative democracy whichhas been failed in the face of the modern conditions under which the values arecontroversial. In the view of the deliberative democracy, when deal with the politicaldilemma of controversial values, the liberalistic aggregative democracy is not a propersolution, neither in theory nor practice. The defects of the liberalistic aggregativedemocracy lie in its normative intension of the concept of democratic process, whichcould not satisfy the requirement to resolve the conflicts on the values. It considered thedemocratic process as to arrange the statement according to the social requirement, thestate was seen as a machine of public management, and the society is a system in whichindividuals exchange with each other under the market rules; In consequence, as theformation process of the public will,which linked the society and the state, thedemocratic process is interpreted finally as a way to control the state through unitingand enforcing the private interests, so citizens in the democratic process also deal therelationship with each other in the market principle. When this aggregative process,however, come across the conflicts between different value propositions whose contentare based on the ethical and moral identity, its normative defect will reveal that: theprinciple of prudence lack of the moral reason even though it has been focused on theacceptability; the impartiality principle emphasis the moral reason,but ignore theacceptability of the reasons however; and the principle of tolerance which regarded asthe subsidiary political principle is just a “modus vivendi”, which invalid on the face ofthe political fact that value conflicts have been common; At the same time, the idea ofpublic justification in the “subjective welfarism” which presupposed by theaggregative conception give the current situation excessive legitimacy; the inevitablearbitrariness made by the aggregative process on the regulation and result during its application is also difficult to meet the normative requirements by the choice on thevalues. So, in the face of the fact that modern values are in conflict, the liberalisticaggregative conception cannot be the proper theory to manage the difference politicswell due to its defects on the normalization. And the root cause of its failure lies in theconcept introduced by it during the reconstruction of the reasonable standard is theinstrumental rationality.At the same time, in this deliberative opinion, the theoretical basis of thereconstruction of public jusitification can not be completed in the ethical sense ofrepublican political concept for citizens of the modern state; because of the fact ofconflicting modern values which requires the standard of public jusitification mustremain neutral on the substantive value, and it led to the disintegration of the traditionalnorms of reasoning proposition which makes any normative theory to demonstrate thesubstantive value becomes credible. Deliberative notion advocated to meet thenormative requirements of adjusting the differences of values, and to ensure theneutrality of the substantive value.So,the reasonableness standard to look for must onthe premise of communicative that the people understand and accept a normativejudgment, and it means that the reasonableness standard only can be found in thelanguage contacts structure.Therefore, in deliberative notion, practical rationality isunderstood as communicative rationality, reasonableness standard is restored to rules ofdiscourse and forms of argumentation. Discourse principle required: Only those actionnorms are valid to which all possibly affected persons could agree as participants inrational discurse. Therefore, the principle of discourse is a principle of procedure that isused to justifying norm, it does not involve a specific moral content; nor does it provideany moral, legal or political principles. It only provides procedural principles, inaccordance with these procedures and principles of action we can find valid norms,valid legal and political principles. The concept of democracy theory which constructedup to the relevant basic of procedure concepts also changed.Deliberation or discoursebecomes a form of democratic interaction, and the basic form is argumentation;meanwhile, the concept of fundamental rights has also been updated which based on theidea of such a procedure concept,the right is the requirement of legalization of thenormal premise and procedures of discourse principles.In this idea of rights, theintrinsic unity relationship has been established between private autonomy and publicautonomy, the modern people’s freedom between the ancient human’s, human rights between sovereignty.The theory of deliberative democracy must also be consensus-oriented democraticconcept in term of practical significance.Because the fact that the difficulties in theclaims or the significance of action of the parties of modern values reflects the modernsociety in which people share the system of significance interpretation.Meanwhile, dueto the conflictive different claim has been rationalized, the consequences of this theoryis that it is impossible to reconstruct and generally justify the system of the explanativemeaning in normative theory which contains a wealth of substantive valuejudgment.Therefore, the absoluteness and justified fact of modern difference hereimposed a division between theory and practice.The proper expression of normativeconcepts or theories in such conditions should keep distance between substantiveculture or judgment and presumed value which can only done by the citizens incommon practice. The "public deliberation " as the core concept of deliberativedemocracy theory correctly grasp the requirements of this theory which opposes to thetheoretical path to the principle of substantive justice and the monologue on the criteriaof value’s evaluation that should be completed by common practice of citizens.whilethe political process effectively ensures the inclusive differences,which advocates thethe political process should be based on the principle of consultation, therefore itinherently contains a kind of consensus-oriented conception of democracy.Thisconcept bases on a kind of concept of strict “public use of reason” and requires “thepolitics of presence”.The politics of presence, on the one hand, requires from the mostbasic position of mutual values which contains the basic semantic connotation to theunderstanding of the meaning of mutual speech actions and the final clarification orreach of a common position of the parties;In order to make sure the achievement of thethis series goal under free use of reason, the premise of discurse or communication notonly must be strictly maintained and meet, and that this process must also be in real andopen practice which also means it is took place in fact. Because the difficulties causedby the fact that differences in the modern sense of understanding makes purelytheoretical standpoint monologue or the position of the observer,which is unable toexplain the diversity and differences of needs, life experiences,values,ethical stance andcognitive perspective,which happens to give some kind of legitimacy in terms of therequirements for autonomy and self-development;Therefore, to accommodate thesedifferences, we must ensure an equal of access in terms of political practice.Moreover, the consensus-oriented presence of politics also requires consultation on the scope ofthe topic should remain open in political process, therefore, practical issues, ethicalissues and moral issues are allowed to appear in the political process within the scope ofthe process of deliberative politics.Meanwhile the political process of compromiseshould also be kept in the fairness of its procedures on the basis of indirect impact of theprinciple of discurse.Therefore, formation process reasonable political will and politicalopinion contained the concept of deliberative democracy has different manifestations.Finally, the consensus of the concept of deliberative democracy also requests the use ofthe reason in deliberation,which claims that it can not be excluded on the grounds of itscontent in advance, in principle, for any reason, the process of deliberation remainopen; on the other hand, it requires the use of reason should be in an open condition.