Overview

Political decisions have the potential to greatly impact our lives. Think of decisions in relation to abortion or climate change, for example. This makes political legitimacy an important normative concern. But what makes political decisions legitimate? Are they legitimate in virtue of having support from the citizens? Democratic conceptions of political legitimacy answer in the affirmative. Such conceptions rightly highlight that legitimate political decision-making must be sensitive to disagreements among the citizens. But what if democratic decisions fail to track what there is most reason to do? What if a democratically elected government fails to take measures necessary to protect its population from threats related to climate change? Peter argues that the legitimacy of political decisions doesn't just depend on respect for the citizens' will; and defends a novel hybrid conception of political legitimacy, called the Epistemic Accountability conception. According to this conception, political legitimacy also depends on how political decision-making responds to evidence for what there is most reason to do. The Grounds of Political Legitimacy starts with an overview of the main ways in which philosophers have thought about political legitimacy, and identifies the epistemic accountability conception as an overlooked alternative. It then develops the epistemic accountability conception of political legitimacy and discusses its implications for legitimate political decision-making. Considering the norms that should govern political debate, it examines the role of experts in politics, and probes the responsibilities of democratically elected political leaders and as well as of citizens.

Full Product Details

Author:   Fabienne Peter (Professor of Philosophy, Professor of Philosophy, University of Warwick)
Publisher:   Oxford University Press
Imprint:   Oxford University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 16.30cm , Height: 24.00cm , Length: 2.10cm
Weight:   0.538kg
ISBN:  

9780198872382

ISBN 10:   0198872380
Pages:   256
Publication Date:   09 May 2023
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   To order  
Stock availability from the supplier is unknown. We will order it for you and ship this item to you once it is received by us.

Table of Contents

1. Political Legitimacy 1.1: What makes political decisions legitimate? 1.2: The normative concern with political legitimacy 1.3: The meta-normative perspective 2. The Political Will 2.1: Will-based conceptions of political legitimacy 2.2: Equal political authoritativeness 2.3: The arbitrariness objection 3. Political Factualism 3.1: Fact-based conceptions of political legitimacy 3.2: Making the right decisions 3.3: The accessibility objection 4. Political Cognitivism 4.1: Belief-based conceptions of political legitimacy 4.2: Cognitive political authority 4.3: The epistemic underdetermination objection 5. A Hybrid Account of the Grounds of Legitimacy 5.1: Going hybrid 5.2: Epistemic constraints on the political will 5.3: Responding to epistemic underdetermination 6. Political Deliberation 6.1: Justificationism about political legitimacy 6.2: Political justification and political deliberation 6.3: Well-ordered political deliberation 7. Epistemic Norms of Political Deliberation 7.1: Epistemic accountability in political deliberation 7.2: The justified belief norm 7.3: The responsiveness norm 8. Political Deference 8.1: What is political deference? 8.2: When is political deference required? 8.3: The limits of political deference 9. Responding to Political Disagreements 9.1: Political disagreements 9.2: Political disagreements and political justification 9.3: Why democracy? Epilogue Bibliography

Reviews

The book does an excellent job of inspiring exploration into the epistemic dimensions of political legitimacy. * Dorota Mokrosinska, Ethics * Any serious account or work on the normative grounds of political legitimacy, or of the application of accounts of political legitimacy in real-world contexts would be enhanced by interrogating this volume. * Thomas Godfrey, Res Publica * The book does an excellent job of inspiring exploration into the epistemic dimensions of political legitimacy. The questions it triggers regarding the possibility of a purely cognitive authority and the lacuna it leaves in dealing with citizens' obligations open up new avenues for further investigation. * Dorota Mokrosinska, Ethics *

The book does an excellent job of inspiring exploration into the epistemic dimensions of political legitimacy. * Dorota Mokrosinska, Ethics * Any serious account or work on the normative grounds of political legitimacy, or of the application of accounts of political legitimacy in real-world contexts would be enhanced by interrogating this volume. * Thomas Godfrey, Res Publica *

Author Information

Fabienne Peter is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Warwick, specialising in moral and political philosophy and social epistemology. She has previously held positions at Harvard University and at the University of Basel, and she has held visiting positions at the Research School of Social Sciences at ANU and the Murphy Institute at Tulane University. She is the author of Democratic Legitimacy and a co-editor of Rationality and Commitment (OUP, with Hans Bernhard Schmid), and Public Health, Ethics, and Equity (OUP, with Sudhir Anand and Amartya Sen).

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