Which Kind Of Political Equality Is Required By Deliberative Democracy

In general, this article subordinates in the normative aspects of political theory. However, we simultaneously try hard in other two levels to develop the related discussion of this article thesis. The first level is that we are trying to seek for a moral foundation for this article on the basis of the moral philosophy. Moreover, the contemporary moral philosophy itself can not avoid the question of the deliberative consensus . The second level is that we also attempt to explore a insitutional program for the defended position on the basis of normative discussion;because we can not avoid the fact that both the moral philosophy and the nomative political theory aim at the practice. Because I personally think that this way is a good one of researching in the related fields, we have the necessity to give a briefly concrete explanation below.Moral philosophy, especially the nomative ethics,provides a basis for the normative political theory,and this point seems to come to a consensus in the framework of the contemporary practical philosophy. On the other hand, moral philosophy itself can not provide a satisfactory solution and explanation for the questions raised by moral philosophy.Just because of this reason,in "Equality and partiality",Nagel called for that we should develop a set of political theory from the ethics theory.In fact,the discussion of"public deliberation"builds a connection of those two fields. Concretely speaking, on the one hand, as MacIntyre, Weber and other theorists claimed, "good" has been privatized after the Enlightenment, and it is difficult to draw a concensus on the kinds of strongly substantive subjects ,such as"how to live",in the modern society; On the other hand, the moral theory and political theory are impossible to be complete suspectism and relativism, because an effectively social cooperation and the progress of human civilization need an basic "bottom -line -consensus."Then the two core questions left are as follows:(1)In which kind of topic the consensus can be realized?(2)How to realize the consensus?The issue of deliberative democacy answers those two questions in the domains of political philosophy and normative political theory. First of all, now that the consensus of the concept of "good" is difficult to achieve in the modern society,then we can search the consensus in the domain of basic rights, which is the basic idea of contemporary liberalism.The liberal thinkers avoid the debates between varieties of reasonable " good concept",but try to achieve the basic cosensus in the fields of the fundamental freedoms and the fundamental rights. Of course, some of the liberals also try to extend the scope of consensus to the fundamental conditions of those basic rights. However,whether it is the consensus of the fundamental rights or the consensus of the basic conditions of those rights, they are not related to the diagnosis of MacIntyre's "good". It is precisely because of this,this article has stressed that equal political rights and the basic conditions of political equality can be defensed in the domain of fair process, and they also can be supported by some kind of political neutrality. In that case, how to achieve the consensus of the fundamental rights and the required basic conditions?In resolving this question,the equal deliberation may provide for us a most persuasive way. Simply speaking, God's command, the Kantian moral imperative, hypothetical consent and other traditional ways aways lose their validity in the way of searching for the consensue because of their metaphysical flaws and contained Compulsion.On the other hand, the public deliberation that everyone can participate in overcomes the above deficiencies.Then, the remaining question is:how to relize the equal deliberation required by the validity of consensus? this article is just attempting to reply this question.Therefore,it is necessary to explore a defensed moral foundation for this article. At the same time, we are also trying to expand the subject of this paper to the level of institutional arrangements as mentioned above. In fact, as a separately normative thesis, there is no need for us to make this expansion. The reason here to make this effort is to emphasize such two points: first, institutional arrangements are necessary to the implementation of the basic moral idea and political ideas ;otherwise, the normative discussion may have no validity. Second,our current nomative discussion and institutional approach run a risk of coming apart. concretely speaking, on the one hand,the nomative discussion of moral philosophy and political philosophy rarely care the institutional arrangements, and on the other hand, institutional discussion is constrained in the behavioral science and the purely experience fields,and therefore,its validity is also questionable.In that case, we in fact have provided an explanation and the defense for the full text structure,and I hope this logical construction itself is a breakthrough idea for the currently related study.Then let us return to the substantive issues mentioned by this article,namely"the deliberative democracy requires which kind of political equality?"this question does a complete "revolution" to the traditional discussion of the issue of political equality. Specifically, in the traditional framework of representative democracy, the traditional discussion of political equality mainly focused on such two aspects: (1 ) "one person, one vote, and each vote has equal value", and every person has equal right to be elected;(2) every person has equal right of basic political liberty that guaranteed by the constitutional democracy, such as freedom of speech, freedom of association and so on. Those two approaches to explore the political equality can be usually ensured by purely formal procedures of democracy, however, the democratic form of public deliberation proposes new requests to the discussion of deliberative democracy. Concretely speaking, as the body of the text argued, it not only requires some formally democratic procedures to ensure the requirements of equality, but also the democratic process should consider some of the substantive requirements of equality, such as equality of resources and capacity equality. What is more essential is that if this new kind of moral defense of political equality is effective, then it can have a legal claim on the institutional arrangements.Thus, generally speaking, this paper attempts to search for a breakthrough on the following three big levels.Firstly,from the perspective of logic methods, this article attempts to seek for a morally defensed basis for the normative political theory,and the political position that defensed on moral level should have feasibility on the level of institutional arrangements. secondly, from the perspective of content, this article carries out a major "change" for the discussion of political equality.in other word, this paper introduces certain substantively stronger moral advocates and political opinions into the requirments of political equality.But, precisely speaking, this kind of "change" in the English-speaking world has been discussed more sophisticated, this paper is just to do a repeating job. Thirdly, the text is doing an effort from beginning to end that it attempts to explore an harmony between the normative discussion and practical discussion,so that our discussion is not simply "utopian", and it is also not completely realism and empiricism. That is to say, our discussion must leave enough space for the improvement of moral practice and political practice.Simultaneously,that improvement also must has its feasibility on the level of institutional arrangements, and it also should be able to get the psychological acceptance of majority of a rational group.