Handling the Agenda Problem - Justification beyond Substantivism and Proceduralism

• Multicultural societies are likely to contain a wide range of opposing views not only on the good life, but also on political governance, the content and limits of politics, how issues are to be dealt with in the political agenda, on what conditions opinions can enter the public sphere etc. In light of this, what I call “the Agenda Problem” points to a principal difficulty for liberal-democracy to fulfil its own criteria of fair procedures. Its permissibility with regard to conceptions of the good life still admits that effective political influence is an option only for citizens using the ways to adjust the agenda offered by the agenda itself. Rejecting this agenda requires conformation to, and confirmation of, the democratic rules and norms one opposes. Thus, in multicultural settings, liberal-democracy impedes certain citizens from openly arguing against democracy; their basic outlooks are denied access to the public sphere. The answer that this is acceptable since the majority condones it, presupposes the validity of the premise that democracy is preferable. Due to the agenda problem, then, just holding out liberal-democracy as a supreme political arrangement (Gutmann 1993, Macedo 2000, Raz 1990) violates the basic principles of this very same idea. The idea of Rawls (2005) to dodge this problem by appealing to the procedural rather than the substantial side of politics does not work, since the issue of what procedures to apply is itself a substantial issue that is up for debate in cases when the agenda is questioned. Hence, any procedural suggestion can be criticised on democratic grounds for delimiting the range of opinions given room within the agenda too generously (Okin 1989), or too narrowly (Taylor 1994, Young 2000). For this reason, justifying liberal democracy in multicultural settings requires something beyond appeals to liberal-democratic values (whether substantial or procedural). I suggest that this need can be met by an appeal to legitimacy – i.e. a particular democratic system may be justified by reasons that are acceptable from a sufficient range of competing views of a good society, which are actually held in the society in question. In the multicultural case, this moves the justification of democracy out of efforts to justify the liberal-democratic ideology itself, and also has to proceed on a case to case basis. In light of the overarching interest of keeping society together, appeals to legitimacy must consider the actual effects of citizens being more or less excluded from political influence. If the exclusion comprises many citizens or social groups of a certain sort, social stability may be jeopardized. Whether there might be pragmatic reasons for policies to be based on less liberal ideals (in virtue of being more likely to remain social order) is thus a philosophical matter to be settled in collaboration with empirical research on the concrete accomplishments of existing democracies.

Ämnesord

HUMANIORA  -- Filosofi, etik och religion -- Filosofi (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Philosophy, Ethics and Religion -- Philosophy (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Statsvetenskap -- Statsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Political Science -- Political Science (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Legitimacy

Liberalism

Multiculturalism

Agenda

Justification

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