Justice and the Priority of Politics to Morality*

Sangiovanni, Andrea

doi:10.1111/j.1467-9760.2007.00291.x

Cited by 228 publications

(191 citation statements)

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“…This rules out the whole spectrum of democratic voluntarist positions that inform the standard EU legitimacy deficit debate: actual (Simmons 1999), normative (Estlund 2009) or hypothetical consent, as well as deliberative (Gutmann and Thompson 2004) and aggregative (Pennington 2010) proceduralism (Rossi 2009). Once the ideal of voluntary rule is set aside, legitimacy can be established in a more realistic manner, namely through a practice-dependent approach (Sangiovanni 2008): legitimation becomes a matter of interpreting and critiquing the point and purpose of existing the legitimation stories and the actual coercive practices that they sustain (Rossi 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

EU Legitimacy in a Realist Key

Beetz¹,

Rossi

2015

SSRN Journal

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Discussion papers of the WZB serve to disseminate the research results of work in progress prior to publication to encourage the exchange of ideas and academic debate. Inclusion of a paper in the discussion paper series does not constitute publication and should not limit publication in any other venue. The discussion papers published by the WZB represent the views of the respective author(s) and not of the institute as a whole. Terms of use: Documents in Copyright remains with the author(s). Abstract EU Legitimacy in a Realist Key by Jan Pieter Beetz and Enzo RossiThis paper provides a conceptual analysis of the EU's legitimation status through the lens of a realist account of legitimacy. We propose a modification of Bernard Williams' theory of liberal legitimacy, and use it to make sense of the widely perceived legitimation crisis of the EU. In Williams' well-known formula, "Basic Legitimation Demand + Modernity = Liberalism". Drawing on that model, we put forward three main claims. (i) The right side of the equation is insufficiently sensitive to the importance of popular sovereignty in Western constitutional traditions; (ii) The left side of the equation is best thought of as a 'legitimation story': an account of what plausibly sustains belief in legitimacy. This is, however, not a purely descriptive notion: attending to the meaning of politics in the relevant context rules out both violent domination and ideologically distorted legitimation stories, thus providing a non-moralised normative component for the position. (iii) While most EU member states ostensibly support the Union, the legitimation story offered by the member states to its citizens draws upon a tradition of popular sovereignty that sit badly with the supranational pooling and delegation of sovereign powers that characterises the EU rule. That, we maintain, explains the current legitimation crisis of the EU. Further, we argue that the realist framework requires a solution to the legitimation problem before any advances can be made on the front of social justice.This discussion paper is part of a series of contributions to the conference "Towards a Grammar of Justice in EU Law', which took place on 6-7 November 2014 at VU University Amsterdam, sponsored by ACCESS EUROPE Amsterdam, VU Centre for European Legal Studies and the Dutch Research Council VENI grant.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

EU Legitimacy in a Realist Key

Beetz¹,

Rossi

2015

SSRN Journal

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“…That response elicits at least two separate rejoinders. On the one hand, some realists (Sangiovanni 2008, Sleat 2010 have put forward an interpretation of Rawls' later work that highlights its more context-and practice-sensitive aspects; but it also seems fair to say that much of mainstream political philosophy has not followed in the footsteps of what some have seen as Rawls' departure from moralism (in fact that aspect has attracted much criticism from Rawls' own followers -cf., for example, Scheffler 1994). On the other hand, the political-comprehensive distinction has been subjected to a number of powerful criticisms (e.g.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Since the 1980's Rawls has progressively been introducing contextual elements in his account of justice (on this point see Sangiovanni 2008), so his position has become increasingly less moralistic. However for our present purposes it will be necessary to focus on clear-cut cases of moralist approaches to justice.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…4 This paper's main focus is simply the realist critique of mainstream political philosophy, rather than the formulation of an alternative first-order realist theory of justice. For a sense of what the latter might look like, Sangiovanni (2008) provides examples of how a broadly realist approach can help us making progress on a number of familiar questions such as the right to free speech and the justification of human rights in a global context. 5…”

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confidence: 99%

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Justice, legitimacy and (normative) authority for political realists

Rossi

2012

Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosoph

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One of the main challenges faced by realists in political philosophy is that of offering an account of authority that is genuinely normative and yet does not consist of a moralistic application of general, abstract ethical principles to the practice of politics. Political moralists typically start by devising a conception of justice based on their pre-political moral commitments; authority would then be legitimate only if political power is exercised in accordance with justice. As an alternative to that dominant approach I put forward the idea that upturning the relationship between justice and legitimacy affords a normative notion of authority that does not depend on a pre-political account of morality, and thus avoids some serious problems faced by mainstream theories of justice. I then argue that the appropriate purpose of justice is simply to specify the implementation of an independently-grounded conception of legitimacy, which in turn rests on a context-and practice-sensitive understanding of the purpose of political power.

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“…Arguably moral values play less of a foundational role in Rawls' theory of legitimacy (1993), as opposed to his theory of justice (1971). For a realist--friendly reading of Political Liberalism see Sangiovanni (2008), Gledhill (2012), and Jubb (forthcoming).…”

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confidence: 99%