Rubén Marciel

The idea that citizens have a right to receive information that is relevant for their suitable exercise of political rights and liberties is well established in democratic societies. However, this right has never been systematically analyzed, thus remaining a blurry concept. This article tackles this conceptual gap by conceptualizing citizens’ right to information. After reviewing previous approaches to this idea, I locate citizens’ right to information on the map of communication rights, and put forward a systematic framework for both justifying and analyzing it. This framework focuses on this right’s grounds, its function, its holders, its content, and its correlative duties. Although the conceptualization offered here will be incomplete, it will be enough to distinguish the general concept of citizens’ right to information from both its specific conceptions and from the other two best-known rights of the public: freedom of information and the public’s right to know.

The scope of public reason determines which political decisions should be taken according to its standards. In this paper, I defend a broad-scope view of public reason, according to which every single political decision should be justified by public reasons. In the first part, I argue that, despite the unclarity of Rawls’ position, it is compatible with the wide-scope view. In the three following parts, I refute the main arguments in favour of the narrow-scope view of public reason. Finally, I offer an argument for the wide-scope view and conclude that it is preferable from the point of view of political liberalism.

In this article I try to shed some light on the complex relation between democracy, political knowledge, and disinformation. To do so, I first define three related concepts which, once clarified, could facilitate our understanding of the problems digital democracies face. First, drawing from the general notion of competence, I define civic competence. Then, drawing from the general notion of knowledge, I define political knowledge. Finally, and drawing from the general notion of information, I define democratically relevant information. After clarifying these concepts, I will present three epistemic positions, to which I will refer to as knowledge, ignorance, and mistake. These three epistemic positions will be further connected with informative phenomena such as disinformation, fake news, and misinformation.

Happy cow messages are instances of commercial speech by the animal industry which, by action or by omission, mislead consumers about the harmful effects that the industry has for nonhuman animals, the environment, or human health. Despite their ubiquity, happy cow messages have received little philosophical scrutiny. This paper aims to call attention to this form of speech, and to make the case for its restriction. To do so we first conceptualize happy cow messages. Second, we argue that they encroach upon individual autonomy in two particularly objectionable ways: by impairing our ability to behave according to our moral convictions, and by thwarting our capacity to identify and reason about our moral duties. This, we hold, grounds a pro tanto case for stricter and more comprehensive regulations of commercial speech by the animal industry. Third, and against the objection that restricting happy cow messages would violate freedom of speech, we contend that none of the most influential arguments for free speech grants them protection. Indeed, we suggest, those rationales seem to call for their restriction. Fourth, and finally, we review some possible ways to defuse the misleading potential of happy cow messages through commercial speech regulations.

Este trabajo aborda la relación entre el populismo y los discursos del odio. Tomando como referencia la visión favorable del populismo teorizada por Laclau y Mouffe, desarrollaré un concepto de discurso populista formado por tres subtipos de discurso: el agonista, el solidario y el movilizador. Tras contrastar este concepto con el de discurso del odio, concluyo que ambos son independientes y que por tanto el populismo no necesita recurrir a discursos del odio, al menos en teoría. Sin embargo, advierto, la naturaleza del populismo le hace propenso a caer en ese tipo de discursos, lo cual sugiere que la praxis populista difícilmente podrá evitarlos. Dada la inmoralidad del discurso del odio, esta afinidad ofrece una razón _pro tanto_ para abstenerse de prácticas populistas.