Beyond political principles

Political pluralization has the potential to disrupt societies: it creates or can create problems of coordination, efficiency, effectiveness and more generally legitimacy. In our search for answers we have focused, so far, on types of arguments in support of cooperation among individuals – only to find that, in most cases, the solution creates more problems than it solves. Up to this point, we have discussed eight such types of argument. Two

rational choice arguments were mentioned only in passing: (1) purely spontaneous, accidental cooperation without communication, and (2) reasoned but still uncoordinated cooperation – both are versions of the invisible hand explanation for cooperation, as in the case of the free market. Neither of these addresses the issue of legitimacy beyond the level of efficiency and effectiveness; both offer only contingent and unstable reasons for cooperation. We have also discussed: (3) ethical absolutism and (4) popularity as forms

of agreement on political principles in more detail. Both offer a more extensive account of legitimacy, even though popularity mimics the rational choice arguments, merely extending the range of goals on which agreement would be possible; yet both were also found wanting: they offered no reasons to believe in political principles. We therefore turned to three different formats for public deliberation: (5) non-dominated discourse, (6) modus vivendi and (7) overlapping consensus; again, each one had its disadvantages, most importantly in terms of limited applicability. Finally, in the previous chapter, we discussed (8) policy teloi as an addition to deliberative solutions: agreement below the level of principles, agreement on a common course of action inspired by different aims converging in the realization of a shared goal that spontaneously develops in the course of the cooperative process. None of these eight types of argument has provided us with universal

solutions for incompossibility, loss of polity and loss of identity or unequivocal support for one particular type of political institution that would create order and cohesion – neither the sovereign nation-state, nor anything else. Nor did our types of argument generate a complete and clear refutation of political pluralization; in fact, they actually lend support to the idea of

political pluralization – to varying degrees, but support nonetheless. They support cooperation where cooperation is possible or desirable – not ‘as a rule’, but more as exceptions to the rule; they also support cooperation between the individuals to whom, and on issues where, conditions for cooperation apply – not ‘as a rule’, i.e. not for all aspects of life for one clearly delimited, constant group of people like a society, nation or nation-state. In so far as they offer reasons for cooperation, the arguments depend for their validity (unsurprisingly) on shared premises – shared belief in (often moral) principles that we cannot expect humans to necessarily share. In this chapter, I add a ninth solution strategy to this list: agreement on

foundational principles. Where the previous chapter addressed options for cooperation below the level of the shared political principles defended by deliberationists, this one looks for sources of agreement at a higher level, that of the various ethical principles from which various political ones are (ideally) derived. One should not confuse agreement on foundational principles with ethical

absolutism, which has already been dealt with in Chapter 4. Rather than seeking grounds to impose pre-given principles, the search for agreement on foundational principles is a matter of bottom-up constructivism, of trying to assess if agreement on principles beyond political ones is possible. That – the possibility of supporting belief in higher principles – is something we have not discussed in Chapter 4 or anywhere else. In Chapter 4 we have asked ‘how to come to believe’ in principles, and then immediately focused on political principles. In other words, we followed the trodden path in political philosophy, the idea that there is naught but overlapping consensus (or modus vivendi), and simply assumed that agreement on higher principles is irrelevant, impossible or undesirable. One of the disadvantages of this assumption is that we found agreement on political principles to be necessarily limited to people already meeting questionable requirements, e.g. a shared faith in the liberal mission of emancipation. One reason, then, other than the sake of completeness, for looking into the possibility of agreement on foundational principles is to find out if wider, non-contingent support can be created for ideas like human rights or even for the liberal mission outlined in Chapter 4. In the next section (6.2), I shall present the elements of a hypothetical

‘impartial’ structure for deliberation on foundational principles, initially, but not ultimately, building on Rawls’ original position. I call this structure ‘archpoint’ – brief for ‘Archimedean point’. Section 6.3 discusses one example of a principle on which foundation-level agreement can be reached; Section 6.4 addresses the (hardly hidden) assumption behind the archpoint, that a degree of impartiality (and tolerance) is required. Section 6.5 concludes that all models for building agreement on cooperative structures are flawed in one important respect: they (still) fail to take politics seriously – a matter further addressed in the following chapter. So as not to get hopes up too high, a few words of caution must precede

these sections. It is already obvious that an agreement on foundational

principles does not have to help us deal with, let alone help us reject, political pluralization. Firstly, agreement on foundational principles does not imply agreement on their interpretation – i.e. it does not imply unity at the levels of political principles, policy teloi, goals, or even action. Secondly, some principles are logically incompatible; since we are trying to

establish grounds for belief in principles, not their truth, we may come to believe in two incompatibles, and be unable to find good reasons to refute either one. The atheist and the Christian zealot, for instance, will never agree on whether God exists or not, nor will they agree on the first and second commandment. A principle such as ‘no human life should be voluntarily taken that does not really deserve it’ conflicts with ‘no one should live a life not worth living if it cannot be helped’: the latter implies at least a certain level of material welfare, hence physical action (the use of instruments), hence risks, hence statistical deaths. Finally, there is no guarantee that a foundational agreement (if possible at

all) will be built on substantive principles. Unlike an overlapping consensus on a thin or thick theory of the good or the right, the result may be an agreement on mere procedures instead.