Sylvie Bláhová

What justifies the demand for public justification? Recent critics – Anthony Taylor and Collis Tahzib – read Gerald Gaus as grounding public justification in Strawsonian reactive attitudes, and they argue this reading renders Gaus’s sufficient reason test either replaceable or counterintuitive. I offer a charitable, reconstructive reading that draws a different conclusion. On my interpretation, reactive attitudes supply the descriptive context of interpersonal moral life, but the normative warrant for converting affect into second-personal demands rests on a proto-Kantian principle of moral autonomy in Gaus’s account. I show how this bridge justifies Gaus’s sufficient reason condition, explain why Wallace/Taylor’s susceptibility to reason alternative either conflicts with moral autonomy or collapses into Gaus’s test under a moderate reading, and answer Tahzib’s “rationalized evil” charge (Goebbels’s case) by showing the example fails Gaus’s capacity requirements. This paper thus clarifies and salvages the normative core of Gaus’s public justification project.

This chapter highlights problems related to the contemporary world’s pluralistic nature, which has led to the rise of populist politics striving for unity. Although the fear of losing unity is not odd and unity in a pluralistic world is important, these populist attempts are dangerous. In the pursuit of unity, neglecting the implications of pluralism pointed out by multiculturalists is also inappropriate. It is therefore suggested that the most appropriate way to address the fact of pluralism is against the backdrop of political liberalism, which understands pluralism as a fact, not an inherent value. Despite political liberalism being the starting point, the weaknesses related to how it deals with pluralism are mentioned—specifically, the overly reductionist conception of the political community in which political power is exercised, which overlooks the character of the community’s structural arrangement.

The last chapter discusses what motivates people to commit to and value the political community of which they are members and what exactly makes people consider relationships within the political community valuable. The concept of moral emotions as described by Jonathan Haidt is examined and is subsequently applied to the political sphere. It is assumed that for people to find a relationship valuable, they must feel positive emotions about it; at the same time, negative emotions within the common relationship must be eliminated. However, this is, it is argued, only possible if respect is ensured at both levels of the political community. It is therefore the principle of respect that enables positive emotions to be built and makes people consider a common relationship valuable.

This chapter discusses the default moral principle within a liberal political community defined by the fact of pluralism. It distinguishes between the essentially political and structural levels of the liberal political community, and the default moral principle at both levels forming the liberal political community is analyzed. Although it is suggested that the principle of respect is the default moral principle at both levels, ensuring respect at the essentially political level does not imply respect at the structural level as well. The explanation is that while respect at the essentially political level takes the third-person form, respect at the structural level takes the second-person form. This substantiates how it is possible for many people to remain disrespected in the liberal political community despite political power being justified to them.

This chapter substantiates the theoretical claims with a concrete example. Here the disrespect and misrecognition faced by French citizens of immigrant origin are discussed to explain why these citizens do not feel commitment to France and French values. Mainly structural predispositions—within the socioeconomic and psychocultural spheres—make it impossible for French citizens of immigrant origin to become fully-fledged French citizens. It is suggested that for currently misrecognized citizens to feel a commitment to and value the political community of which they are members, they must be fully respected not only at the essentially political, but also at the structural level. This is the only way they can build a relationship with their fellow citizens.

This chapter elaborates on the criticism of the standard—respect-based—interpretation of the criterion of reciprocity as the basis of political legitimacy and the principle underlying the whole project of political liberalism. The consequences associated with the requirement of abstracting away from people’s particularities during public deliberation are discussed. Accordingly, it is explained why the convergence approach to public justification is a sufficient solution to the implications of such a requirement. Then the dual interpretation of the criterion of reciprocity is explored; it emphasizes not only the role of the imperative of respect but also the value of civic friendship. The dual interpretation of the criterion of reciprocity, as suggested, leads to the second-person form of respect required at the structural level of the political community.

This chapter is devoted to pluralism from a more general perspective. It discusses pluralism in religious belief and demonstrates how it gave birth to the concept of toleration. Subsequently, it describes how the object of toleration evolved from the right of the magistrate to freedom of conscience as a universal human right and how it is related to the concept of autonomy. With autonomy, pluralism was no longer considered a reality to be reflected in an attempt to cooperate, but rather as a precondition that allows us to be autonomous. This shift in the understanding of pluralism has influenced contemporary currents in liberal political theory. While perfectionist liberalism understands pluralism as a value in itself, political liberalism conceives of pluralism as a fact to be taken into account as part of cooperative efforts.

This book examines what the justification of political power and the character of a liberal political community in the conditions of pluralism should look like, with the aim of equal respect for all. Sylvie Bláhová argues that if those who understand the principle of respect as the basis of political liberalism are to fulfill all the prerequisites of this principle, they must ensure respect within the liberal political community as a whole. The classic interpretation of political liberalism ensures respect during the process of justification of political power, yet many individuals in the liberal political community remain disrespected, mainly due to their group membership. Accordingly, Bláhová looks for a more complex interpretation of the principle of respect within political liberalism, one that ensures respect beyond the justification of political power. The author argues that the way to achieve respect in the liberal political community is tointerpret the criterion of reciprocity in a dual way. Specifically, Bláhová claims that respect can be ensured only only in conjunction with the principle of civic friendship, which makes respect more comprehensive. This novel interpretation can ensure unity of the liberal political community and make it stable, which is crucial in conditions of pluralism.

The paper critically discusses the dualism in the interpretation of the moral basis of public reason. We argue that in order to maintain the complementarity of both liberal and democratic values within the debate on public reason, the arguments from liberty and from civic friendship cannot be considered in isolation. With regard to the argument from liberty, we contend that because the idea of natural liberty is an indispensable starting point of liberal theory, no explanation of the justification of political power can do without it. In particular, we focus on the requirement of reasonableness and show that we should retain the epistemic aspect of the reasonableness of persons. The main reason for this is to be found in the criterion of reciprocity which provides the deepest justification of the respect for people’s liberty – that is, the liberal aspect of liberal democracy. At the same time, however, we argue that reciprocity also provides the grounds for responding to the criticism that the essentially liberal approach fails to adequately take into consideration the role of political community. Because reciprocity may also be interpreted as being based on civic friendship, it provides the resources to respond to such criticism. It thus supplies the normative background also for the second, democratic pillar of public reason. We then critically examine the newly emerging approach built predominantly on the argument from civic friendship, arguing that by prioritising the civic friendship interpretation and, at times, tending to completely abandon the liberty-based one, it overlooks the indispensability of liberty-based considerations for the criterion of reciprocity. We conclude that in order to adequately capture the common liberal-democratic basis of public reason, both interpretations of reciprocity must be linked within a comprehensive account.

In this article we address the question of individual identity and its place – or rather omission – in contemporary discussions about the cosmopolitan extension of liberalism as the dominant political theory. The article is divided into two parts. In the first part we show that if we consistently emphasise the complementarity of the “inner” and “outer” identity of a person, which is essential to liberalism from its very beginnings, then a fundamental flaw in the liberal cosmopolitan project becomes apparent. This is the underestimation of the indispensability of an unambiguously determined public framework which will fix and enforce liberal principles and values in a comprehensible way. Such a framework for liberalism was always the political community and then, above all, the modern state, in which the liberal identity could then be realised. The discussion in this part of the article prepares the ground for an examination, in the second part, of a dilemma which cosmopolitan liberalism must face. In the second part we argue that the attempt to tackle the given problem presents liberals with the following dilemma: either it is necessary to plead for the institution of a global political authority (a “world state”), or to give up the belief that fundamental liberal principles and values can be realised to a global extent. We show, at the same time, that because of the character and ambitions of the cosmopolitan project, the promise of plural identities and multi­centred law cannot be relied upon. By way of conclusion we then ask what is the price of the realisation of cosmopolitan liberal ideals. NOTE: This is a two-part article (in Czech). For download here is the first part; please see the link below for the second part as well.

The internet is a major part of our lives today. This applies to politics as well, and accordingly, the question of whether it is possible to realize democracy on the internet has arisen. Using the arguments of Hannah Arendt, the paper aims to determine what online democracy should look like. It is argued that the internet's decentralized structure is advantageous because it facilitates the implementation of the Arendtian system of political councils. Due to the character of online political platforms – mainly social media – these political councils should ideally revolve around shared issues that simultaneously create the common world on the internet. At the same time, clear rules need to be laid down for the functioning of these online political councils. Based on Arendt's arguments, it is claimed in the paper that these rules include the principles of mutual promises and covenants on the issues themselves. It is also argued that because Arendt emphasizes the role of appearing in the public sphere, the process of authentication – that is, verifying that there is a concrete person with a physical body behind each online account that wants to actively participate in a particular online political council – is required.