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From Individual Consent To Public Reason

Posted on:2010-05-30Degree:MasterType:Thesis
Country:ChinaCandidate:Y H WangFull Text:PDF
GTID:2166360272498762Subject:Political Theory
Abstract/Summary:PDF Full Text Request
Political legitimacy is the core proposition of political philosophy, it is to solve the problem of how the institution has an exclusive moral right to impose a binding obligation on the crowd, require them to obey and enforce the implementation of these obligations.That is to say political legitimacy is to explore the relationship between the right to rule and the obligation to obey. This requires to solve three questions: Why can the rulers rule the governed and why do the governed obey to the rulers (based on city-state order, the sacred will of the god, political tactics or the consent of the governed)? By what kind of institutional arrangement can rulers obtain the reason to rule (the autocratic institution or the democratic institution)?And how to carry out feasibility studies of power in a democratic institution(the relationship between political legitimacy and the design of the democratic institution)? In this paper, I adopt a normative paradigm to number up the argument for political legitimacy of four western thinkers since age of enlightenment and come to the conclusion that the basement of modern political legitimacy is undergoing the transformation from individual consent to public reason.This paper is divided into five parts:The main content of the first part is to talk over the argument for political legitimacy of John.Locke, that is individual consent based on natural rights. In order to criticize the patriarchy theory of Filmer and the absolute monarchy proposed by Hobbes, Locke put forward the consent theory by way of the reasoning method of social contract. In the state of nature described by Locke, individuals have three natural rights, the right to life, liberty and property, but the state of nature has three types of defects. In order to protect individual natural rights, the rational people consent to give up the political power of implementing the natural law they had in the state of nature in the enlightenment of the natural law and authorize it to the state conditionally.The state's authority is limited to the protection of individual natural rights. Once after the establishment of the state, political legitimacy based on individual consent could be frustrated, and then Locke turned to the tacit consent and the principle of majority decision, which later lead to much criticism of consent theory.The main content of the second part is to talk over the argument for political legitimacy of Rousseau, that is individual consent as general will. Rousseau put forward the consent theory by way of the reasoning method of social contract social contract as well. In the state of nature he depicted, people have freedom, peace, health and happiness. However, with the development of economy, human started to corrupt, inequality came out and people lost their freedom they ever owned in the state of nature. The issue Rousseau tried to resolve is how to construct the legitimate political authority to ensure civil liberty. How is a person freedom when she obey the law? Rousseau's answer is that the will condensed in the law must be fully consistent with each individual's will, that is to say the law embodied the general will. The general will condensated in the majority will always be correct. Obeying the general will means liberty.The main content of the third part is to talk over the argument for political legitimacy of John.Rawls. argues the question of political legitimacy. In the face the reality of pluralism of modern society, Rawls pointed out that the political identity below the premise of rational pluralism can not be built on a variety of comprehensive doctrines with reasonableness. It seems impossible to talk over political legitimacy with each individual's consent. Rawls proposed the concept of public reason and imitated the best show of the idea of public reason by a thought trial about the two principles of justice. Public reason's contribution to political legitimacy lies in its value of publicity. As a mutually acceptable reason given by free and equal citizens, the public reason concern about the public good and demonstrate political legitimacy by means of public reasoning.The main content of the fourth part is to talk over the argument for political legitimacy of Habermas. Because this is an era of post-metaphysics, and metaphysics (including cosmology, ontology) can not continue to serve as resources for political legitimacy. Equating political legitimacy with legality can not explain the legitimacy of the law itself. The strategy Habermas adopted in the reconstructive legitimacy theory is to base procedure on a rational discourse and reasonable consent. That is to say in an ideal situation of discourse, the freedom, equal and rational subject can reach a consensus by means of the intersubjective discourse. Only this model of democracy which considers discourse as core can provide the basis for political legitimacy. Habermas endow the democratic procedure with the substantive value through discourse ethics, communicative rationality and discourse democracy, thus demonstrating the reconstructive legitimacy which considers communicative rationality as core.The last part of this paper talks over the transformation of the basis of modern political legitimacy. First of all, I point out the failure of liberal and republican democracy in expressing consent through election\participation model. And I demonstrate that deliberative democracy give public reason institutional support. It is the procedure of deliberation rather than consent become the basis of political legitimacy. In addition, public reason transcend individual consent in three aspects. Public reason questions the predetermination of the will, find out the institutional arrangement of deliberative democracy and introduce a better understanding of the value of equality. All these make the basis of modern political legitimacy transform from individual consent to public reason.
Keywords/Search Tags:political legitimacy, consent, public reason, deliberative democracy
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