Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.26362/20220102
Considerations on democracy in Rawls’s A Theory of Justice
Ivan Mladenović
orcid.org/0000-0001-6443-0884
; Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade, Čika Ljubina 18-20, 11000 Belgrade
Abstract
According to some influential interpretations, Rawls’s later turn to political liberalism contributed significantly to the reorientation of contemporary normative political theory from justice to legitimacy – democratic legitimacy in particular. In this paper, I will not delve into whether these assumptions are correct. My main aim here is to show that we can already find the seeds of a later discussion concerning democratic legitimacy and democratic authority in A Theory of Justice. I will also defend the even stronger claim that Rawls’s considerations on democracy in A Theory of Justice are still relevant, both to justify democracy and democratic authority, and for normatively justifying certain democratic decisionmaking procedures. Moreover, I argue that his discussion of the epistemic dimension of majority voting and public deliberation points in the direction of later theories of deliberative democracy and epistemic democracy.
Keywords
Democracy; legitimacy; justice; majority rule; public deliberation
Hrčak ID:
279139
URI
Publication date:
14.6.2022.
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