Image by Simon Musgrave

Dean J. Machin

Pluralism about the good life raises many interesting philosophical questions but one of the most difficult relates to the justification of political authority.

On many controversial issues people can agree to differ but not on political issues; this is because political authority is coercive. Political decisions are enforced on all citizens within a territory or jurisdiction whether they agree with those decisions or not.

This is problematic because it seems wrong to coerce people to adhere to laws and practices with which they may have deep and perhaps fundamental disagreements. After all, in a pluralist society a necessary element of respecting others is accepting that what is a reason for you may not be for them. Catholics must accept the permissibility of abortion because non-Catholics hold different views on the issue, and socialists must accept more material inequality than they think justice permits because non-socialists attach less value to equality.

The problem is that most conceptions of the good life include ideas about justice and fairness; these will be different ideas about what equal treatment is, about what people can demand from others as a right, about what they can obtain from others only with their agreement, and what they can obtain only through their own effort. In a pluralist society, then, there will be fundamental and permanent disagreements about political justice.

In post-war Britain one of the continuing disagreements concerns the purpose of the welfare state. Should it aim only to ensure that people do not become destitute, or should it aim to iron out the inequities of birth? What policies follow from answers to this question?

These are fundamental questions about justice and while they may not admit of a unique ‘right answer’ there are certainly better or worse answers. But in whatever way these questions are addressed some citizens will argue that the decisions are unfair and/or wrong. More importantly, there will usually be good reasons on both sides of any argument. But the citizens who lose the argument will, nevertheless, have to pay their taxes to contribute to whatever benefits the welfare state provides – such as funding an education system which they may think represses talent or which, in their view, inculcates false beliefs.

In such circumstances what reasons can be given to justify coercing the dissenters? Are such citizens simply oppressed for the benefit of others or are they legitimately coerced? These are difficult and very important questions.

To sum up,

1. The coercion of citizens by political power requires justification, but,
2. What counts as a reason for one citizen is not a reason for another citizen, and,
3. On political questions people cannot agree to differ. So,
4. Whatever decisions are made, some citizens will disagree that the correct decisions have been made – and they may have fundamental moral disagreements with some decisions.

Given 1-4, how can we morally justify political authority and the coercion of citizens that it involves? One compelling answers focuses on the procedure through which decisions are made; it offers a case for democratic legitimacy. Democracy offers a way of legitimizing political decisions whatever those decisions are.

Let’s say that citizens vote in a referendum (or their representatives vote in parliament) to forbid the recycling of rubbish. Some citizens will disagree with this decision. But one can justify the decision to them in the following terms: ‘We had to make a decision about recycling (even deciding not to make a decision is a decision), all citizens had an equal vote in the process and this is what was decided. We decided in the most intrinsically fair way possible.’

The two important points here are, first, that this same argument could equally justify the decision to require everyone to recycle and, second, that this justification can only be made where decisions are made democratically. Decisions made by civil servants, businessmen, or the great and the good are always open to the rejoinder ‘why should you decide, and not us?’ Uniquely, democracy avoids this question.

Despite its force, the argument for democratic legitimacy has its sceptics. Why should we care about the intrinsic fairness of deciding an issue one way rather than another when we think that there are better or worse outcomes? Climate change is a good example: it is a complex phenomenon and one about which it is possible to have greater or lesser expertise. Furthermore, if the wrong decisions are made – if too many trees are cut down and fossil fuels burnt – the effects could be catastrophic. Getting the right answers seems to be the most important thing, so why not let the experts decide?

One can bolster the argument for democracy by claiming that democracy is intrinsically fair and that it reliably leads to good decisions and there is certainly plenty of empirical support for this claim. Non-democracies are usually pretty unpleasant places to live. The problem here, though, is that as soon as one justifies democracy by appealing to the content of its decisions, one is forced back on to the problem identified above. In particular, one seems to be ignoring point 2: that what counts as a reason for one citizen may not for another.

Pluralism about the good life is the problem here. If reasons were the same for all people – if we all cared about and valued the same things – then there would be no problem in justifying political decisions by appealing to their content. The tension, then, is that given pluralism about the good life we want to justify political authority without appealing to the content of any decisions, but given the importance of political decisions it seems that we cannot justify political authority without appealing to the content of any decisions. A serious problem indeed.

Dean Machin is a philosophy postgraduate at the University of Bristol.