Psychology Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
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| Justification, philosophy: justification is a condition for knowledge which a) is fulfilled or not fulfilled by the explanation of the origin of the information or b) by a logical examination of the argument. For a), theories such as the causal theory of knowledge or reliability theories have been developed. See also verification, examination, verification, proofs, externalism. Justification in a broader sense is a statement about the occurrence of an action or a choice. See also explanations, ultimate justification, reasons._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
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Bruce Ackerman on Justification - Dictionary of Arguments
Gaus I 93 Justification/Ackerman/Waldron: Bruce Ackerman (1980)(1) developed a theory of justice in the form of a contractarian dialogue, for which it was laid down as a ground rule that no reason (adduced in conversation to justify any particular distribution of power) ‘is a good reason if it requires the power holder to assert … that his conception of the good is better than that asserted by any of his fellow citizens’ (1980(1): 11). >Neutrality/Waldron. Waldron: Now, why should this be the ground rule? Ackerman said that there were several ways to justify the neutrality principle: it could be justified by reference to the epistemic value of experiments in ethics, or the intrinsic importance of autonomy, or scepticism about ethics, or about the ability of power-holders to reach accurate conclusions about the good (1980(1): 11–12). The liberal state need not side with any of these justifications in particular. It only needs an assurance that everyone can reach neutrality by at least one of these routes. WaldronVsAckerman:Could this strategy work? It might, but only if we were certain that the different paths to neutrality did not make a difference to the meaning or character of the destination. But this seems unlikely. Moral principles are characteristically dependent for their interpretation on some understanding of the point or purpose for which they are imposed. Change the purpose and you provide a different basis for interpreting the principle. So far as neutrality is concerned, one of the main interpretive difficulties concerns the issue of intention: does neutrality forbid only political action motivated by a non-neutral intention or does it forbid also action, however motivated, which is non-neutral in its effects? It turns out that some of Ackerman’s paths to neutrality favour the intentionalist interpretation while one, at least, favours the consequentialist interpretation: scepticism about a power-holder’s ethical abilities should inhibit only his deliberate attempts to favour one conception of the good. The value of ethical diversity, on the other hand, should make us pause whenever state action actually has a detrimental impact on some conceptions of the good, whether this is intended or not. Ackerman’s ‘overlapping consensus’ is really a recipe for a disordered society, as citizens follow their different paths to an interpretive quarrel and find no common basis to resolve it (see Waldron, 1993(2): 151–3). 1. Ackerman, Bruce (1980) Social Justice in the Liberal State. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. 2. Waldron, Jeremy (1993) Liberal Rights: Collected Papers 1981–1991. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Waldron, Jeremy 2004. „Liberalism, Political and Comprehensive“. In: Gaus, Gerald F. & Kukathas, Chandran 2004. Handbook of Political Theory. SAGE Publications._____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Ackerman, Bruce Gaus I Gerald F. Gaus Chandran Kukathas Handbook of Political Theory London 2004 |
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