Philosophy, Politics, Democracy: Selected Essays

409 Pages·2009·3.842 MB·English

by  Joshua Cohen

PHILOSOPHY, POLITICS, DEMOCRACY

P H I L O S O P H Y ,
P O L I T I C S ,
D E M O C R A C Y
Selected Essays
JOSHUA COHEN
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge,Massachusetts,andLondon,England
2009
Copyright©2009bythePresidentandFellowsofHarvardCollege
all rights reserved
PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Cohen,Joshua,1951–
Philosophy,politics,democracy : selectedessays / JoshuaCohen.
p. cm.
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN978-0-674-03448-8(alk.paper)
1.Socialsciences—Philosophy. 2.Politicalscience—Philosophy. 3.Democracy. I.Title.
H61.15.C642009
321.8—dc22 2008052224
ForEllen

CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1 Deliberation and Democratic Legitimacy 16
2 Moral Pluralism and Political Consensus 38
3 Associations and Democracy 61
with Joel Rogers
4 Freedom of Expression 98
5 Procedure and Substance in Deliberative Democracy 154
6 Directly Deliberative Polyarchy 181
with Charles Sabel
7 Democracy and Liberty 223
8 Money, Politics, Political Equality 268
9 Privacy, Pluralism, and Democracy 303
10 Reflections on Deliberative Democracy 326
11 Truth and Public Reason 348
Index 387

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The essays collected here were written over a period of twenty-two
years,between1986and2008.Theirfootnotesunderscorethemany
debts I have accumulated in writing them. I wish here to add a few ac-
knowledgmentsthatapplytothecollectionitself.
Some of these essays existed in usable electronic form thanks only to
opticalscanning.IamverygratefultoPaulGowderandMarilieCoetsee
(along with Christine Kim) for their generous assistance in getting the
papers in shape. Lindsay Waters, my editor at Harvard University Press,
urgedmetobringthisvolumetogether.Lindsayhasmadealargecontri-
bution—aseditorandauthor—tofosteringamoredemocraticsociety,so
I am very pleased that the book appears on his watch. Tim Scanlon’s
name appears in many footnotes, because of both the influence of his
work and his incisive comments on many of the papers. I taught at MIT
for twenty-nine years, and all the papers in this collection were written
whileIwasthere(eventhefinalpaperwasfirstdraftedin2005).AtMIT,
I was privileged to have a wonderful group of colleagues and to teach a
remarkable bunch of undergraduates and graduate students. I single out
ArchonFung,whoseimprintappearsdirectlyonthework,asresearchas-
sistantonessay4,andascoauthoronsomeoftheworkthatshapesessay
10.IamespeciallygratefultoJoelRogersandChuckSabel,eachacoau-
thor,friend,andinspiringexample.
JohnRawls’sinfluenceisevidentthroughout.Theessaysoftendrawdi-
rectly on his views, and many ideas presented in them struck me first
when I was engaging with his work. More than that, Rawls conveyed, in
his writing, his teaching, and his bearing, a sense of the importance of
philosophicalthought.Ihavetriedtodosomejusticetothatimportance.
Theessaysarepresentedintheorderinwhichtheywerewritten,andI
havemadeonlyveryslighteditorialchanges:thereissomeoverlap,andI
ix