| Popis: |
In an added introduction for a 1996 second edition of Political Liberalism, John Rawls tabled an “idea of legitimacy based on reciprocity” to accompany and supplement—arguably to modify—the prior proposed “liberal principle of legitimacy” that has so far stood at the focus of this book’s discussions. Chapter 7 asks whether Rawls meant by the new formulation to displace a public procedural test (of constitutional compliance, institutionally refereed) for the justifiability of acts of political coercion in a democracy by a subjective test of motivation by a spirit of reciprocity based in regard for reasonable disagreement among free and equal citizens. The chapter sorts through various ways of avoiding the inference of such a stark shift of grounds by Rawls. These include (among other ways) a suggestion that the public procedural criterion continues to apply to the lawmaking acts and policies of citizens acting collectively through their governmental agents, while subjective reciprocity applies to the political actions citizens severally take as voters, agitators, and so on. They include also a suggestion (left open by this chapter) that reciprocity is satisfied by sincere belief that the act or policy under consideration has passed, or predictably would pass, the public test of refereed constitutional compliance with a legitimation-worthy constitution currently in force. |
