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"Democracy and Authenticity examines a basic problem for liberal democracies. In a polity that is characterized by real diversity of identities and values, what kinds of justifications are appropriate for coercive government actions? In particular, this book argues that justifications that are based on particular religious or other doctrines that are not accessible to nonadherents cannot be a proper basis for government actions that affect everyone. Instead, the book develops a model of public justification that is intended to guide citizens in a liberal democracy through the work of creating a politics that satisfies their responsiblities to one another"--
List of contents
Introduction: consensus liberalism and the challenge of pluralism; Part I. The Case for Constraint: 1. Three cases for constraint: Audi, Rawls, and Larmore; 2. Subjective standards and the problem of deliberative perfectionism; 3. Liberalism and the problem of authenticity; 4. Further reflections on authenticity; 5. The scope of constraint; Part II. Responding to the Case for Inclusion: 6. Arguments from consequences: pluralism and the role of culture; 7. The arguments from consequences: agnostic democracy and republican virtue; 8. Fairness as equality; 9. Fairness as recognition; 10. The argument from epistemology: claims of equivalence; 11. Empiricism and public justification; 12. Toward a theory of public justification.
About the author
Howard Schweber is an Associate Professor of Political Science and Legal Studies at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. In 2006, he received the William T. Kiekhoffer award for Distinguished Teaching at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. He is the author of The Language of Liberal Constitutionalism (Cambridge University Press, 2007) and The Creation of American Common Law, 1850–1880: Technology, Politics, and the Construction of Citizenship (Cambridge University Press, 2004).
