The Legal Theory of Jürgen Habermas

Mathieu Deflem has uploaded an interesting chapter on

"The Legal Theory of Jürgen Habermas"
Between the Philosophy and the Sociology of Law

The chapter is published in "Law and Social Theory", ed. by Reza Banakar and Max Travers (Hart Publishing, 2nd ed. 2013).

Mathieu Deflem is Professor of Sociology at the University of South Carolina. He is the editor of "Habermas, Modernity and Law" (Sage, 1996). Available as pdf copy here.

Charles Larmore: "What is Political Philosophy?"

"Journal of Moral Philosophy" (vol. 10, issue 3, 2013) features an article by Charles Larmore:

"What Is Political Philosophy?" [pdf]

Abstract
"What is political philosophy’s relation to moral philosophy? Does it simply form part of moral philosophy, focusing on the proper application of certain moral truths to political reality? Or must it instead form a more autonomous discipline, drawing its bearings from the specifically political problem of determining the bounds of legitimate coercion? In this essay I work out an answer to these questions by examining both some of the classical views on the nature of political philosophy and, more particularly, some recently published writings by Bernard Williams and G.A. Cohen."

Charles Larmore is Professor of Philosophy at Brown University. He is the author of "The Morals of Modernity" (Cambridge University Press, 1996) and "The Autonomy of Morality" (Cambridge University Press, 2008). 

Neues Buch: "Politik und Religion. Zur Diagnose der Gegenwart"

Politik und Religion
Zur Diagnose der Gegenwart

Hrsg. von Friedrich Wilhelm Graf & Heinrich Meier 

(C. H. Beck, 2013)


 

 
Kurzbeschreibung

Das Spannungsverhältnis von Politik und Religion ist zu einem zentralen Gegenstand öffentlicher Aufmerksamkeit geworden. Der politischreligiöse Radikalismus der Gegenwart hat die Sprengkraft augenfällig gemacht, die die Religion in sich birgt. Zugleich verbindet sich mit der Religion die Hoffnung, dass sie den gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhalt in der Moderne zu stärken vermag. 

International renommierte Wissenschaftler und führende Intellektuelle behandeln u. a. die Oszillationen von Politik und Religion in den USA und in Russland, das lange Streben nach dem Islamischen Staat, das Konzept der Theokratie, Judentum und Antike. Sie analysieren den Prozess der Sakralisierung und Entsakralisierung und formulieren grundsätzliche Positionen zur Bestimmung des Verhältnisses von Politik und Religion aus der Sicht der Theologie und der Philosophie. 

Inhalt

Einleitung [pdf]
- Friedrich Wilhelm Graf

Religion und Politik in den Vereinigten Staaten
- Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht

Von der Entkirchlichung zur Laisierung. Staat, Kirche und Gläubige in Rußland
- Gregory L. Freeze

Die lange Suche nach dem Islamischen Staat
- Hillel Fradkin

Religion und Politik in der klassischen politischen Wissenschaft
- Robert C. Bartlett

Theokratie: Die Herrschaft Gottes als Staatsverfassung in der jüdischen Antike
- Peter Schäfer

Archäologie des Befehls
- Giorgio Agamben

Sakralisierung und Entsakralisierung
- Hans Joas

Politik und Religion
- Jürgen Habermas

Epilog: Politik, Religion und Philosophie
- Heinrich Meier

Friedrich Wilhelm Graf ist Professor für Systematische Theologie und Ethik an der Universität München.

Heinrich Meier ist Professor der Philosophie an den Universitäten München und Chicago.

Kommentar:
Uwe Justus Wenzel - "Sollen die Gläubigen an die Demokratie glauben?" (Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 23. Juli 2012)

Ronald Dworkin - "Religion without God"

Religion without God

by Ronald Dworkin

(Harvard University Press, October 2013)

192 pages

 



Description

In his last book, Ronald Dworkin addresses questions that men and women have asked through the ages: What is religion and what is God’s place in it? What is death and what is immortality? Based on the 2011 Einstein Lectures, Religion without God is inspired by remarks Einstein made that if religion consists of awe toward mysteries which “manifest themselves in the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, and which our dull faculties can comprehend only in the most primitive forms,” then, he, Einstein, was a religious person.

Dworkin joins Einstein’s sense of cosmic mystery and beauty to the claim that value is objective, independent of mind, and immanent in the world. He rejects the metaphysics of naturalism—that nothing is real except what can be studied by the natural sciences. Belief in God is one manifestation of this deeper worldview, but not the only one. The conviction that God underwrites value presupposes a prior commitment to the independent reality of that value—a commitment that is available to nonbelievers as well. So theists share a commitment with some atheists that is more fundamental than what divides them. Freedom of religion should flow not from a respect for belief in God but from the right to ethical independence.

Contents

1. Religious Atheism?
2. The Universe
3. Religious Freedom
4. Death and Immortality

Read an except from the book here.

The book is based on three lectures Dworkin gave at the University of Bern, Switzerland, in December 2011. See the videos here.

Reviews:

* Stanley Fish (The New York Times, blog)

* James Carroll (The Boston Globe)

* Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux (The American Prospect)

* Scott McLemee (Inside Higher Ed)

* Jeremy Waldron (The Guardian)

* Michael Rosen (The Nation)

Symposium on Axel Honneth at Stony Brook

A symposium on Axel Honneth's political philosophy will be held September 20-21 at Stony Brook University:

"Freedom's Right" [pdf]

The program:

"The Normativity of Ethical Life” [poster]
- Axel Honneth

"Self-Defensive Subjectivity: The Diagnosis of a Social Pathology"
- Chad Kautzer

"The Insufficiency of Recognition"
- Michael Thompson

“The Ineliminability of Progress?”
- Amy Allen

“Juridification and Politics”
- Daniel Loick

“Reconstructivism: On Honneth's Heglianism”
- Robert Pippin

"Response"
- Axel Honneth

New Book: "Religion in a Liberal State"

Religion in a Liberal State

Ed. by Gavin D'Costa, Malcolm Evans, Tariq Modood, & Julian Rivers

(Cambridge University Press, 2013)

272 pages



Description

As religion has become more visible in public life, with closer relations of co-operation with government as well as a force in some political campaigns, its place in public life has become more contested. Fudged compromises of the past are giving way to a desire for clear lines and moral principles. This book brings the disciplines of law, sociology, politics and theology into conversation with one anther to shed light on the questions thrown up by 'religion in a liberal state'. It discusses practical problems in a British context, such as the accommodation of religious dress, discrimination against sexual minorities and state support for historic religions; considers legal frameworks of equality and human rights; and elucidates leading ideas of neutrality, pluralism, secularism and public reason. Fundamentally, it asks what it means to be liberal in a world in which religious diversity is becoming more present and more problematic.

Contents [preview]

Introduction

1. Religion in a Liberal State - Raymond Plant
2. The European Court of Human Rights and Religious Neutrality - Ian Leigh
3. Religion and Sexual Orientation - Maleiha Malik
4. Liberal Religion and Illiberal Secularism - Linda Woodhead
5. Moderate Secularism in Liberal Societies? - Derek McGhee
6. Excluded, Included or Foundational? - Veit Bader
7. Justificatory Secularism - Cécile Laborde
8. What Lacks is Feeling: Hume versus Kant and Habermas - John Milbank
9. Arguing Out of Bounds: Christian Eloquence and the End of Johannine Liberalism - John Perry

Ulrich Beck on Cosmopolitanization

In "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" (September 5, 2013) Ulrich Beck writes about 

"Das Zeitalter der Kosmopolitisierung"

Excerpts
"Politik, Medien und Sport tun so, als ob der Nationalstaat ewig bestehen müsste. In Wahrheit sind wir längst alle Weltbürger, gestehen es uns aber nicht ein. Höchste Zeit, sich über Chancen und Risiken Gedanken zu machen." [......]

"Es ist (....) zentral, klar zwischen Kosmopolitismus und Kosmopolitisierung zu unterscheiden. Kosmopolitismus handelt von Normen, Kosmopolitisierung von Fakten. 

Kosmopolitismus im philosophischen Sinn, bei Immanuel Kant wie bei Jürgen Habermas, beinhaltet eine weltpolitische Aufgabe, die von oben, also Regierungen und internationalen Organisationen, oder von unten, etwa zivilgesellschaftlichen Akteuren, durchgesetzt wird.

Kosmopolitisierung dagegen vollzieht sich von unten und innen, im alltäglichen Geschehen, oft erzwungen, unbemerkt, ungewollt - selbst wenn weiterhin Nationalflaggen geschwenkt werden und Politiker die nationale Leitkultur ausrufen und den Tod des Multikulturalismus verkünden.

Wie tief geht der Epochenwandel, der einen anderen Blick auf die Welt fordert? Erleben wir vielleicht sogar eine neue Achsenzeit? Wir wissen es nicht."

Habermas on the German election

"Die Zeit" (September 5, 2013) asked 48 artists and intellectuals how they are going to vote in Germany’s federal election on September 22. 

Here is what Jürgen Habermas answered:

"Nach meinem Eindruck steht die ungare Stimmungslage vor der Bundestagswahl in Zusammenhang mit der Tabuisierung des Themas, das eine kleinmütigperspektivenlose Kanzlerin aus machtopportunistischen Gründen unter dem Deckel halten möchte. Ich meine die Krise einer Währungsunion, die auch aufgrund der Kurzsichtigkeit und des national bornierten Gerangels der in Brüssel versammelten Regierungschefs auf dem halben Weg zu einer politischen Union feststeckt. Zu Hause legt sich der Wortschwall der Verleugnung wie ein Schaumteppich auf die Köpfe einer verunsicherten Bevölkerung, die es besser weiß und doch an die unglaubwürdige Botschaft des im eigenen Garten gesicherten Wohlstandes glauben möchte – mag es den Nachbarn noch so schlecht gehen.
In dieser Situation empfiehlt sich Peer Steinbrück als ein Politiker von ganz anderer Statur – durchsetzungsfähig, zukunftsorientiert und verantwortungsbereit, ein Charakter mit Sinn für das, was relevant ist. Rot-Grün traue ich den Mut zu, die Alternativen offen auf den Tisch zu legen und Frankreich fur einen echten Politikwechsel zu gewinnen. 
Um für den Kurs in Richtung eines demokratischen Kerneuropas Mehrheiten zu schaffen, wird sich freilich am Ende die ganz große Koalition der zwei einhalb europafreundlichen Bundestagsparteien zusammenfinden müssen. Dafur haben SPD und Grüne schon in der Opposition Vorleistungen erbracht. Deshalb sollten sich beide Parteien, wenn es denn weder für sie noch für Schwarz-Gelb reichen sollte, auch nach der Wahl nicht trennen – und, sei's drum, mit einer in Europafragen tief zerstrittenen Union nur gemeinsam die nächste Regierung bilden."

See also my post: "How Germany's Political Elite is Failing".

Habermas and Intellectual Freedom

A new paper by John Buschman:

“Habermas and Intellectual Freedom: Three Paths”

[Forthcoming in Mark Alfino & Laura Koltutsky (eds.) - "The Library Juice Press Handbook of Intellectual Freedom: Concepts, Cases, and Theories" (Library Juice Press, 2014).]

John Buschman is Dean of University Libraries at the Seton Hall University.

How Germany's Political Elite is Failing

Andreas Kluth at The Economist:

"How Germany's Political Elite is Failing"

"Jürgen Habermas ..... recently diagnosed a collective failure of Germany's political elites. At a time when Germany faces historic decisions about the future of the European Union, its politicians are waging an election campaign about banalities. At the same time, German and foreign academics are discussing these historic challenges in great depth [......] I've tried to capture the strange asynchrony between this year's election campaign with its bizarre controversies and the academic range of opinions about the current German Question in an essay for the journal Juncture, which belongs to a progressive British think tank, the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR)".

Property-Owning Democracy: A Short History

Ben Jackson (Oxford) has posted a very interesting paper at academia.edu:

"Property-Owning Democracy: A Short History"

Excerpt
"The rise to prominence of the term “property-owning democracy” in late twentieth-century political discourse and political theory is, on the face of it, a confusing and contradictory story. Political theorists following in the footsteps of John Rawls alighted upon the idea of a property-owning democracy in the 1980s and 1990s as a non-socialist model for the advancement of egalitarian distributive objectives. In the same period, intellectuals and politicians associated with the rise of neo-liberalism, in particular those attached to the Thatcher government in the UK, sought to foster a property-owning democracy that was indifferent to a significant widening of income and wealth inequalities and was explicitly intended to undermine the electoral base of egalitarian politics. But these two versions of this fertile objective were not as distinct as they might appear, since both had in fact grown from the same historical root."

The paper is published in Martin O’Neill and Thad Williamson (eds.) - "Property-Owning Democracy: Rawls and Beyond" (Wiley-Blackwell, 2012). See my post on the book here.

Ben Jackson is Lecturer in Modern History at the University of Oxford.

Five new papers on deliberative democracy

At the American Political Science Association (APSA) 2013 Annual Meeting August 29 - September 1 in Chicago, there will be presented many new papers on deliberative democracy. Here are some of them:

* Two Ideals of Deliberation?
by Graham Smith (University of Westminster)

Abstract:      
This essay offers a provisional critique of the current trajectory of work on the ‘deliberative system’ and to propose a more cogent approach to thinking through the relationship between deliberative practices and the broader social, political and economic systems focused on the cultivation of what we term a ‘deliberative stance’. To this end, the paper engages primarily with two essays authored by Jane Mansbridge generally considered the cornerstone of the development of the deliberative system approach: the 1999 essay ‘Everyday talk and the deliberative system’ and the more recent 2012 piece ‘A systemic approach to deliberative democracy’, which can be reasonably seen as a manifesto for the deliberative system approach given its wide range of co-authors well-known within deliberative circles: James Bohman, Simone Chambers, Thomas Christiano, Archon Fung, John Parkinson, Dennis Thompson and Mark Warren.

* Comprehensive Deliberation: Democratic Reasoning Across Religious Difference
by Benjamin Hertzberg (Harvard University)

Abstract:      
Many now believe that democracy grants citizens the moral permission to contribute religious arguments to democratic discussions. This permission poses a puzzle: because religious arguments are not broadly persuasive, the citizen who makes such an argument intending to persuade seems irrational. Further, it seems irrational for citizens to attempt to persuade some of their religious fellows. So the permission to contribute religious arguments seems practically incoherent. In this essay, I draw on a deliberative systems approach to argue that it is possible for citizens to mutually persuade each other even if they argue from their comprehensive commitments. Demonstrating the possibility of comprehensive deliberation shows why the intention to persuade via comprehensive arguments is not irrational. It also shows that religious citizens fully participate in democratic deliberation and that such deliberation can potentially transform citizens’ religious commitments. The possibility of comprehensive deliberation explains how democratic citizens can reason across religious difference.

* Understanding Deliberative Systems in Practice: The Crucial Role for Interpretive Research
by Carolyn M. Hendriks (Australian National University), Selen Ayirtman Ercan (University of Canberra) & John Boswell (University of Southampton)

Abstract:      
Research on deliberative democracy has taken an empirical turn. There is a now an expanding literature that seeks to explore deliberative practice as it occurs in contemporary political practice. Much of this empirical scholarship has been situated within what Bevir and Ansari (2012) label a ‘modernist’ tradition of social inquiry, where hypotheses are tested, causal relationships identified and explanatory models developed. Under this mode of research, scholars have focused much attention on studying deliberative forums; offering insights into the nature and quality of deliberation and the effect of deliberation on individual preferences. But, these discrete face-to-face interactions represent only a small portion of the diversity of what constitutes public deliberation. The recent shift towards a deliberative systems approach emphasizes precisely this point and suggests understanding deliberation as a communicative activity occurring in a diversity of spaces. Notwithstanding its conceptual appeal, the systemic approach raises several questions, particularly when it comes to its empirical investigation and invites us to think harder about how we might study broader understandings of public deliberation. This paper argues that interpretive approaches, with their emphasis on understanding phenomena through experiences, perspectives, artifacts and actions, offer valuable tools for studying how deliberative systems are enacted in modern polities, and the possibilities and limitations for improving them. Drawing on recent empirical studies, the paper demonstrates how interpretive approaches can shed light on how deliberation occurs within, and across, a range of modes and settings in a deliberative system.

* Ten Issues for a Deliberative System
by Stephen Elstub (University of the West of Scotland) & Peter McLaverty (Robert Gordon University) 

Abstract:      
As the focus on institutionalising deliberative democracy is moving to a focus on achieving deliberative political systems (Chambers 2009; Thompson 2008; Dryzek 2010; Parkinson & Mansbridge 2012), this paper addresses ten crucial issues (Elstub and McLaverty 2014) that plague its study, and are hindering the further development of deliberative democracy and its ability to progress to a systemic level. A number of these issues perennially affect democracy per se, not just the deliberative variant. However, the unique focus on public debate that is found in deliberative theory accentuates many of these problems, and, or provides distinct interpretations of the issues. Moreover, the welcome and necessary attention given to a systemic analysis of deliberative democracy further creates distinct interpretations of these ten problems, but also generates new potential solutions. The paper will therefore describe the ten issues, locating them within a deliberative system demonstrating that with some of the issues it makes it easier for deliberative democracy to overcome them, or at least changes the nature of the problem. In particular, we address five pathologies that inhibit political institutional arrangements in reaching the deliberative ideal in the system as a whole: tight-coupling, de-coupling, institutional domination, social domination, and entrenched partisanship and analyse how they relate to each of the ten issues and lacunae identified. 

* The Pragmatic Turn of Democracy in Latin America
by Thamy Pogrebinschi (Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung)

Abstract:      
In recent years, participatory and deliberative experiments have increasingly become an integral part of the process of democratic consolidation in Latin America. Given the speed with which they have been multiplied and institutionalized, a reassessment of democratization in Latin America seems necessary. This paper argues that a number of countries on the continent have taken a pragmatic turn, which can be read also as a detour from the democratic consolidation expected by third-wave scholars. Such pragmatic turn of democracy in Latin America does not imply substituting representative institutions for alternative, participatory or deliberative innovations, but rather using the latters as means to correct some of the alleged failures of the formers, as well as to attain social ends that they seem unable to achieve. The new, experimental pragmatic democracies of Latin America would then gradually displace the defective, delegative or pseudo ones, as the paper further claims.