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By Corey Brettschneider
When the superb court docket in 2003 struck down a Texas legislation prohibiting gay sodomy, it pointed out the suitable to privateness in response to the warrantly of "substantive due technique" embodied via the structure. yet did the courtroom act undemocratically by way of overriding the rights of nearly all of electorate in Texas? students usually aspect to such instances as exposing a primary pressure among the democratic precept of majority rule and the liberal situation to guard person rights. Democratic Rights demanding situations this view through displaying that, in truth, democracy calls for lots of those rights.
Corey Brettschneider argues that excellent democracy is made from 3 middle values--political autonomy, equality of pursuits, and reciprocity--with either procedural and noticeable implications. those values entitle electorate not just to procedural rights of participation (e.g., electing representatives) but additionally to significant rights "pure procedural" democracy would possibly not safeguard. What are usually obvious as relatively liberal sizeable rights to privateness, estate, and welfare can, then, be understood inside of what Brettschneider phrases a "value thought of democracy." Drawing at the paintings of John Rawls and deliberative democrats comparable to Jürgen Habermas, he demonstrates that such rights are crucial parts of--rather than constraints on--an excellent democracy. hence, whereas defenders of the democratic perfect rightly search the facility of all to take part, they need to additionally call for the rights which are the substance of self-government.
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Additional info for Democratic Rights: The Substance of Self-Government
Sample text
To highlight the contrast between the value theory and a proceduralist approach to theorizing democracy, consider two instances in which an aggregate of persons is not a democratic people. As a preliminary definition, I use the phrase “democratic people” to mean that those within a polity are treated in the manner required by democratic legitimacy. Our first instance is rule by an unelected colonial power. This is obviously undemocratic because it involves government not “by the people” but by a potentially hostile external force.
Similarly, for certain citizens to purchase the votes of other citizens would rightly be regarded as a violation of democratic values. Such procedures would be undemocratic because they would not allow individuals to make their own autonomous decisions about politics. Just as democratic equality should be understood as a value based on rule both by and for the people, so, too, the democratic meaning of political autonomy does not merely protect individual rights to participate in collective decision making.
They judge a particular procedure based on whether it tends to produce outcomes that are just, true, or good, thus assigning democracy a subordinate, instrumental role within a specific theory of truth or justice. 23 According to these theorists, democracy itself is only justifiable because it promotes substantive outcomes that are closer to an ideal of justice than any other alternative. In the absence of any one expert authorized to decide what constitutes the truth, epistemic theories suggest that majorities offer the best means of advancing policies that are likely to be close to the truth.