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Full-Text Articles in Other Political Science
Agreeing To Disagree: Diversity, Political Contractualism, And The Open Society, John Thrasher
Agreeing To Disagree: Diversity, Political Contractualism, And The Open Society, John Thrasher
Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research
Political contractualism is important in societies characterized by substantial moral and political disagreement and diversity. The very disagreement that makes the social contract necessary, however, also makes agreement difficult. Call this the paradox of diversity, which is the result of a tension between two necessary conditions of political contractualism: existence and stability. The first involves showing the possibility of some agreement, while the second involves showing that the agreement can persist. To solve both of these problems, I develop a multilevel contract theory that I call the “open society” model of political contractualism that incorporates diversity into the contractual model …
18th And 19th Century European Philosophy And The Justification Of Colonial And Economic Exploits, Danielle Platt, Ian Nell
18th And 19th Century European Philosophy And The Justification Of Colonial And Economic Exploits, Danielle Platt, Ian Nell
Honors Papers and Posters
The theories and philosophies that have evolved over the course of human history have each influenced and affected the politics and the behaviors of the societies where they are popularized. We wish to study the sorts of relationships that may exist between popular European philosophies of the 18th and 19th centuries, and the political ideologies of the time, and why they still bear relevance in global politics today’s globalized international community.
The Fragility Of Consensus: Public Reason, Diversity And Stability, John Thrasher, Kevin Vallier
The Fragility Of Consensus: Public Reason, Diversity And Stability, John Thrasher, Kevin Vallier
Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research
John Rawls's transition from A Theory of Justice to Political Liberalism was driven by his rejection of Theory's account of stability. The key to his later account of stability is the idea of public reason. We see Rawls's account of stability as an attempt to solve a mutual assurance problem. We maintain that Rawls's solution fails because his primary assurance mechanism, in the form of public reason, is fragile. His conception of public reason relies on a condition of consensus that we argue is unrealistic in modern, pluralistic democracies. After rejecting Rawls's conception of public reason, we offer an ‘indirect …
Uniqueness And Symmetry In Bargaining Theories Of Justice, John Thrasher
Uniqueness And Symmetry In Bargaining Theories Of Justice, John Thrasher
Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research
For contractarians, justice is the result of a rational bargain. The goal is to show that the rules of justice are consistent with rationality. The two most important bargaining theories of justice are David Gauthier’s and those that use the Nash’s bargaining solution. I argue that both of these approaches are fatally undermined by their reliance on a symmetry condition. Symmetry is a substantive constraint, not an implication of rationality. I argue that using symmetry to generate uniqueness undermines the goal of bargaining theories of justice.