Brettschneider develops a theory of rights grounded in democratic values: "equality of interests, political autonomy, and reciprocity" (28).
My question mainly focuses on reciprocity and the standard of reasonableness on which this relies. Brettschneider describes the principle of reciprocity as "a commitment to reason giving as a central obligation and entitlement of citizens in a legitimate democracy. Reciprocity is the notion that policies governing citizens' treatment must be defensible by appeal to arguments that reasonable citizens can accept" (25). This stands on principles of autonomy and equality to justify any coercive action taken by the government.
As Brettschneider later describes, "the values are of a people rather than imposed upon them, because they are a way of respecting the common ruling status of all people subject to coercion" (26). This is consistent with his idea that democratic values can defend rights. The problem of constraint is not an external problem imposed on democracy, but an embedded set of values in democracies. But Brettschneider seems to (at times) presuppose that all people in a democratic society will have these values -- and he doesn't seem to give a philosophical solution as to how to treat them when they do not.
"The best defense for thinking of these values as as democratic is that they are founded upon respect for the self-ruling status of the citizens who compose a democratic people" (27). But he doesn't really mean respect for the self-ruling status of the citizens... he means respect for the self-ruling status of reasonable citizens. He contends that "democratic reciprocity as requiring reasonable treatment justifies our intuition..." for things like free speech and rule of law.
How does he define reasonable? He uses Rawls's "principle of reciprocity," which states that, "citizens are reasonable when, viewing one another as free and equal in a system of social cooperation over generations, they are prepare to offer one another fair terms of social cooperation (defined by principles and ideas) and they agree to act on those terms, even at the cost of their own interests..." (35).
So since this reasonableness underlies the principle of reciprocity, and the principle of reciprocity justifies our intuition for certain rights, what do we do with the unreasonable people? Do they not get to be citizens? We don't seem to have to listen to them, since they are unreasonable, which would mean we weren't treating them as political equals. This would undermine their ability to self-rule, which is "the most fundamental basis for their protection from illegitimate coercion" (30).
If we accept that the unreasonable do not get to participate in democratic society, and we don't have any metaphysical justification for their status as equal persons (which Brettschneider does not presuppose) then can we subjugate unreasonable people? Maybe I'm taking this too far, and maybe I'm misunderstanding his logic -- but I think Brettschneider does not give a sufficient solution as to how a democratic society should handle unreasonable people.
Melissa, I'm so glad you brought this up because this was my similar concern with Brettschneider's argument: it presupposes reasonableness outside of a metaphysical standard of inquiry. He says, "the value of theory of democracy focuses on what it means to be a democratic citizen instead of engaging in metaphysical arguments about what it means to be a person" (10). While I was reading the paper, I kept coming back to the idea that he tries to not rely on the metaphysical idea of what it means to be a person, but then relies on "reasonableness" so heavily in the end of the paper, claiming reason as a standard of inquiry for assessing a democratic citizen's pursuits, but not any person's rights. If being a person doesn't seem to be his standard for assessing if someone can have self-rule, then as Melissa points to, what does he do with citizens, who he says have self-rule, but aren't reasonable? Are these citizens then not citizens at all, simply metaphysical persons without the most fundamental, natural right of self-rule? He is less than clear here.
ReplyDeleteAwesome. This is the issue I was concerned with in my post, although I focused more on setting up the discussion of epistemic theory more generally. However I think this is closely connected to notions of personhood vis a vis reasonableness, and I'm excited to talk about this in class today
ReplyDeleteMelissa, I think that this is an extremely interesting post! I too do not believe that Brettscheider provides an adequate explanation as to how to deal with "unreasonable" people, especially unreasonable citizens, precisely because of the weight he places on the fact that "citizens' status as rulers is the most fundamental basis for their protection from illegitimate coercion" (30). Yet what should the state do in cases in which people who do not hold "reasonable" values are effectively blocked from participating in democratic society and policy making due to the fact that their views or values may undermine or endanger the rights of others? It seems that the state would have no choice but to be coercive towards these people. The problem, then, is not only that these people would not be able to participate in democratic society, but they would be coerced into following “reasonable” laws and principles that they may not agree with. The only defense I can think of is that Brettschneider may appeal to unreasonable people's rights to be morally treated as democratic citizens because of their status as addressees of the law, just as he does when explaining where minors and resident aliens would fit into his theory. But even this seems problematic because holding democratic rights as an addressee also seems to pivot on Brettschneider's belief in his three core democratic values. Brettschneider writes, “the core values suggest a guiding principle for policy that impacts any addressee: laws must be constructed such that citizens who choose to obey them do so not merely because of the threat of sanction, but because the laws treat them in a way consistent with their status a free and equal rulers” (32). But Brettschneider does not seem to consider unreasonable people free and equal rulers. And thus, the laws that bind them would have to be coercive because they would not be consistent with these people’s “status[es] as free and equal rulers” (32).
ReplyDeleteRebecca and Mo, I think you are exactly right to bring up notions of personhood here. It seems that Brettschneider suggests a justification for treating those who do not hold core democratic values coercively. Is this okay? Could a democratic society function if we allow "unreasonable" people to fully participate as self-ruling citizens? Would this allowance undermine the rights of others, inhibit the functionality of government, or would it just be considered speech? I am very interesting in talking about this soon!
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