Deliberative Democracy
Ideal Speech Situation and Discourse
The origins and foundations of deliberative
democracy
The theory of deliberative democracy was introduced by
the German philosopher Jurgen Habermas and is based, on
the one hand, on the critical theory of the Frankfurt School
(Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse) and on the other hand on
the transcendental-pragmatic neo-Kantian thesis of
Karl-Otto Apel and the Anglo-American philosophy of language.
The main difference between liberal justification and the
theory of deliberative democracy à la Habermas is that
latter gives the priority to the procedure rather than
justice.
Liberalism and deliberative democracy
The liberal justification depends upon the moral acceptability of substantive principles of justice. Habermas wants to take seriously the public reasoning among citizens. The core of his theory is an ideal speech situation where the claims of individuals with
conflicting interests meet within the dialogic horizon of the public sphere that is characterized by freedom and equality.
Liberalism avoids excessively public discourse and tends to anticipate too much the results. Liberalism is too remote from
democratic deliberation and in this sense is inherently monological and oriented towards the a priori. According to the democratic
Objections to deliberative democracy
Habermas tends to have an idealized conception of
democratic processes: Habermas's conception is based on
the ideal speech situation which is a legal prerequisite of
democracy. Deliberative democracy is different from
democracy understood in terms of mere majority rule. It is
conceived in ideal terms oriented towards discourse ethics.
However, what are the sources of the moral constraints that
idealize the deliberative model of politics. But a normative
conception is based on a justification that puts constraints
on the deliberative process that are of substantial moral
nature, just as in liberalism.
Rights and democracy
Habermas conceives fundamental rights (liberal) and popular
sovereignty (democratic) to have the same origin. In his Between Facts
and Norms, democratic sovereignty isn’t any longer the exclusive
foundation of democracy.
The Rawls/Habermas debate: Rawls argues that in Habermas the conquest of normativity results in the lack of pluralism.
Habermas criticizes Rawls in three points: (1) the original positions does not provide an adequate basis for impartial judgments that correspond to ethical principles of justice. (2) Rawls does not distinguish sufficiently with regard to the overlapping consensus between issues of acceptability and acceptance. (3) Rawls does not combine the freedom of the ancients (participation) and liberty of the moderns (rights).
