Democracy, legitimacy and reconciliation.

This thesis aims to recover the central importance of the deliberative aspect of
democracy which recent liberal theorising has neglected, and to capture common
intuitions about the foundational nature of democratic institutions. The fundamental
problem of political philosophy is that of justifying principles or institutions which can
reconcile individuals and the political community on a moral basis. The use of political
authority is morally legitimate when it is grounded upon such a reconciliation. Attempts
to justify as legitimate a liberal constitutional framework are shown to fail, whether carried
out on the basis of membership of a community, or as given by principles of justice, or on
the grounds of utilitarianism or a perfectionist ideal. All these approaches must rely
ultimately on a claim that there is or can be a consensus around some conception of
morality or the good. However, none of them is entitled to claim that such a consensus
can be reached without there already being in place a political process through which we
can discover or construct a consensus, or find a way to go on when disagreement
persists.
The question then arises of how such a ground-level political framework can be
justified and precisely what form it takes. The starting point is a notion of agents each
with their own views about social and political issues. An argument is constructed from
the logic of having such views to the conclusion that each agent has obligations to be
prepared to participate in public discussion, and to accept democratic political decisions
which are based upon such discussions. Failure to do so is self-undermining. Political
legitimacy resides in the achievement of reconciling individuals to collective decisions.
The practical implications of this notion of deliberative democracy for institutions and for
individuals are drawn out.