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admittedly, usually rather dangerous). I only want to say here that more needs to be said to make Skerker’s position on revolutionaries more than question begging. As it stands, I think his account only works if we presuppose that the liberal, democratic state is the only state worth having. While I like this conclusion a good deal, I’d like it more if Skerker had provided some new arguments in its favor. Despite what seems to me an underlying conservative theme that gives me a great deal of pause (and which I concede others may find appealing), Skerker’s book is well crafted and well executed. He has provided us with a systematic investigation of interrogation in both domestic and international spheres. To my knowledge, there is nothing else like it. Much of what Skerker says, moreover, is just plain smart. While I have spent some time criticizing some of Skerker’s views, An Ethics of Interrogation is nevertheless an important contribution to our ongoing investigation of the scope and limits of governmental power. J. Jeremy Wisnewski Hartwick College
Talisse, Robert B. Democracy and Moral Conflict. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Pp. 205. Robert Talisse’s Democracy and Moral Conflict presents a remarkably ambitious philosophical proposal. In essence, democracy should be defended on fundamentally epistemic grounds. The norms that underpin democratic politics are ones that individuals are committed to as rational believers rather than as moral agents. Much of the discussion echoes Talisse’s earlier Democracy after Liberalism (New York: Routledge, 2005). However, whereas that book defends a pragmatist conception of deliberative democracy in preference to liberal theories, the new work presents a sharper statement of the epistemic foundations of democracy. In chapter 1, Talisse introduces two problems motivating the argument of the book. The first problem—the paradox of democratic justification—is grounded in two claims. First, the legitimacy of a democratic order rests on the consent of the citizenry, where this means that political arrangements must be justifiable to all. Second, the citizens of any democratic society will inevitably disagree about fundamental moral questions, including whether a successful moral justification of the political order can be advanced. The paradox of democratic justification, then, is the difficulty of seeing how a democratic society could satisfy its own conception of legitimacy (15). On Talisse’s view, this is not a purely academic problem with little relevance for actual political practice. Moral disagreement extends to the proper scope and limits of toleration. Citizens disagree, not just about moral truth but also about which manifestations of moral error are tolerable. Moreover, many issues of public policy can only be resolved in ways that some will find intolerable. The second problem—that of deep politics—is to find some reason for citizens whose fundamental values are threatened by decisions they judge intolerable to adopt only democratic forms of response (37). Talisse here draws on Albert Hirschman’s Exit, Voice, and Loyalty
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(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970). Without some solution to the problem of deep politics, democracies should expect increasing instances of violent exit—rioting, rebellion, terrorism, and so on—to replace the vocal dissent of a loyal opposition (41). In chapter 2, Talisse rejects one kind of approach to moral disagreement between citizens. Proponents of the politics of omission aim to justify political arrangements by appeal to shared moral premises and accordingly believe that deeply controversial moral beliefs should be omitted from public justification. The main example of this approach, and the primary target of the chapter, is John Rawls’s political liberalism ( John Rawls, Political Liberalism, expanded ed. [New York: Columbia University Press, 2005]). On Rawls’s view, citizens have a moral duty to support only those basic political arrangements that can be justified by the political values of public reason, since only then can the liberal principle of legitimacy be satisfied. Although citizens may appeal to their comprehensive moral and religious doctrines in public deliberation, these doctrines have no independent justificatory weight. Talisse rehearses the familiar criticism that Rawlsian public reason is exclusionary in that it precludes arguments that some conscientious citizens will regard as rationally decisive, such as Thomist objections to the permissibility of abortion. Citizens who feel that the prevailing norms of public deliberation are stacked against their beliefs may retreat into insular epistemic enclaves or ideological echo chambers, with the likely effect that their views will become more extreme and, hence, more hazardous to democracy. Talisse uses the provocative example of the exclusion of white nationalist groups from mainstream public discourse to illustrate this tendency. The point here is not that a democratic order is legitimate only if it can be made consistent with the tenets of white nationalism; no political liberal would accept that legitimacy can be held hostage to racism. Instead, Talisse’s point is that a solution to the paradox of democratic justification should not, if instantiated as a norm governing political participation, induce group polarization, foster extremism, and, hence, exacerbate the problem of deep politics (62, 69). Thus, the Thomist opponent of abortion, and other “unreasonable” citizens who reject the constraints of public reason, cannot be sidelined if a democracy is to avoid fragmenting into mutually suspicious and epistemically disconnected groups. Talisse sees signs of this discursive balkanization in contemporary American politics, with liberal and conservative pundits lambasting each other as ignorant, stupid, and dishonest, and, hence, as unworthy participants in political discussion (64– 68, 111–13). Talisse believes that the difficulties encountered by the political liberal politics of omission are indicative of an insurmountable problem facing any moral approach to the justification of democracy. Democrats must be able to provide citizens with some reason to accept the terms of democratic politics, but there is no moral principle that is sufficient to justify these terms to all (60). Thus, they appear to have nothing to say to those who reject the basic premises of a moral approach. This threatens both the legitimacy and ultimately the stability of the democratic order. Talisse believes, however, that his alternative epistemic approach can avoid this problem. The key move is to stop looking for shared moral beliefs and, instead, focus on the epistemic commitments that are common to all individuals.
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In chapter 3, Talisse lays the foundation for his defense of democracy by setting out five principles of folk epistemology: 1. To believe some proposition, p, is to hold that p is true. 2. To hold that p is true is generally to hold that the best reasons support p. 3. To hold that p is supported by the best reasons is to hold that p is assertable. 4. To assert that p is to enter into a social process of reason exchange. 5. To engage in social processes of reason exchange is to at least implicitly adopt certain cognitive and dispositional norms related to one’s epistemic character. (87–88) Talisse argues that this conception of folk epistemology is relatively uncontroversial. The principles do not presuppose any deep metaphysical or epistemological position nor are they simply ethnocentric predilections or the stubborn vestiges of objectionable Enlightenment aspirations (114–19). Instead, they are implicit in the ordinary human activity of determining what to believe: whether the grocery store is still open, whether dolphins are smarter than orangutans, whether the president deserves a second term, and so on. The last two principles are the most substantively interesting. Talisse asserts that a person who refuses to entertain any criticism of her beliefs commits an act of epistemic bad faith (105). In principle, at least, other people are potential sources of countervailing considerations that tell against one’s beliefs. To engage in the process of reason exchange with them requires that one cultivate suitable epistemic skills and dispositions (106). For instance, a good interlocutor does not expect others to believe his assertions solely because of his ability to shout very loudly or hold his breath for a long time. Thus, individual believers are implicitly committed to nonmoral social norms that structure the activity of reasoning with others. These norms constitute a kind of discursive etiquette, which Talisse is careful to distinguish from a conformist civility that inhibits the critical evaluation of beliefs and reasons (106–7). In chapter 4, Talisse presents his core claim: “Only in a democracy can an individual practice proper epistemic agency” (121). If so, the principles of folk epistemology justify democracy independently of any controversial moral premise. Since individual believers are committed to epistemic social norms that can only be fully realized in a democratic society, they are implicitly committed to accepting the constraints of democratic politics. Talisse presents two main reasons for his core claim. First, the proper exchange of reasons requires familiar liberal rights of free thought and expression. Even the most self-assured authoritarians or fundamentalists must recognize their overwhelming epistemic dependence on the reliability of information they glean from others (141–43). A society in which people must hold their tongue for fear of the security branch or the morality police has a corrupt and untrustworthy epistemic system. Second, epistemic social norms require an acknowledgment of others as equal participants in the pursuit of justified belief. Although some may be better informed than others, every claim to expert authority must be tested against challenges that all persons are equally entitled to raise. If some citizens are not able to participate in decision making on equal terms, or if the government is not properly
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responsive to their criticisms, the reliability of the social epistemic system will be undermined in a way that only open democratic dialogue can rectify (124–25). In the fifth chapter, Talisse claims that his defense of democracy supports a form of epistemic perfectionism. He argues that evidence of massive voter ignorance does not indicate any inherent shortcoming to democratic dialogue. A key source of the problem is the pseudo-deliberative commentary on television and radio that mimics fair and balanced reasoning but instead just aggravates public ignorance (163–65, 169). The best response is to cultivate citizens’ epistemic capabilities (173–77). This involves a form of perfectionism, since the state must engage in a project of shaping sound character traits. Nevertheless, epistemic perfectionism is consistent with most articulations of liberal neutrality and antipaternalism insofar as the state does not endorse or impose any controversial moral conception (172–73). As with any ambitious philosophical work, there are various points where the argument is not entirely compelling. I focus here on two points of criticism. First, Talisse’s claim that his epistemic approach resolves the problem of deep politics can be contested (149–50). Recall that the problem is to provide some reason for citizens to confine their opposition to laws to nonviolent forms of dissent and not to exit the broad parameters of the democratic rule of law. Consider a militant group of animal liberation activists who bomb abattoirs and assassinate scientists who practice vivisection, believing this to be a morally justified tactic in the struggle to end the immense suffering inflicted on millions of sentient beings. There are at least two reasons why the militants might believe their campaign to be an effective tactic. First, as a form of terrorism, the violence may directly dissuade people from participating in institutionalized cruelty against animals. Second, as a dramatic spectacle, the violence might be the most efficient way to draw the attention of the public to the plight of animals and, hence, indirectly facilitate the long-term protection of their rights through the legislative process. This second reason is consistent, I believe, with the nonmoral epistemic norms that Talisse invokes. To commit an act of violence is obviously not in itself to deliberate rationally, but democratic politics encompasses many nondeliberative activities, from launching fireworks at campaign rallies to singing the “Internationale” outside the bankers’ club. Nonviolent civil disobedience —which Talisse includes within the frame of democratic politics—conveys a political message but often through some attention-grabbing publicity stunt. This nondeliberative dimension to political activism does sometimes obscure a proposal’s lack of substantive merits, but it can also serve an important epistemic purpose: citizens may be exposed to ideas they would otherwise have ignored and may start to reflect more critically on their opinions in dialogue with others. Since spectacular acts can grease the wheels of the social epistemic system, political violence is not inconsistent with epistemic norms simply in virtue of not itself being a reasoned contribution to public deliberation. There are clearly a great many moral distinctions to be drawn between shooting paintballs at people in fur coats and shooting bullets at people who harvest that fur, but it is unlikely that there must be some essential epistemic difference. First, the militants’ extremism does not imply a failure to recognize reasonable disagreement about the conditions for moral status. The violence is justified, on their view, simply because animals do have the right not to be
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butchered and not because this moral fact should be obvious to all conscientious people. Second, the militants do not target any citizens on the basis of their moral or political views and, hence, do not attempt to intimidate their philosophical opponents in public dialogue or expect others to accept their views through force alone. Third, the militants can acknowledge a general tendency for insular groups to adopt increasingly extreme positions, but they cannot regard their own beliefs as unwarranted as long as they hold them. Fourth, it may be that the social epistemic system would be undermined if political groups commonly used violent tactics as a supplement to public deliberation. But this appeal to universalization turns on a particular way of describing the militants’ campaign. The epistemic system would not be so obviously undermined if normal people commonly stood up against oppression or fought back against the ruthless slaughter of innocents. Fifth, a campaign of violence is an epistemic gamble since it may simply have the effect of prejudicing the public against animal rights. But a refusal to use violence is also an epistemic gamble. Many members of the public may be irrationally dismissive of the idea of animal liberation if they believe its proponents are unwilling to follow the logic of their argument to its apparent conclusion: how important could these so-called animal rights really be if no one bothers to protect them with force? Thus, even if Talisse is right that individual believers are committed to norms of reason exchange that are best instantiated in a democratic society, it does not follow that they are thereby implicitly committed to respecting the constraints of nonviolent democratic politics. At some point, the indictment of violent extremism must surely appeal to moral premises, ones that the militants presumably reject, and not just to their discursive commitments as epistemic agents. My second point of criticism turns to the conception of legitimacy underpinning the paradox of democratic justification. If a democratic state can successfully thwart violent extremism through police action, why should its inability to demonstrate that the militants’ actions are at odds with their own moral or epistemic commitments be a problem? Although Talisse’s presentation of the problem of deep politics may suggest an impending crisis of stability for the rule of law (36–43), he concedes the sociological point that citizens are generally willing to accept the shortcomings of the democratic process. “But the question that is central to our concern is this: why should they? What reasons can be offered for upholding democratic commitments at the expense of other, perhaps more important values?” (21–22). His argument therefore rests on the need to justify democratic forbearance without begging the question against those whose fundamental moral values lose out in the political process. Talisse’s interpretation of the claim that the political order must be justifiable to all citizens is very demanding. He endorses Thomas Nagel’s statement that “we should not impose arrangements, institutions, or requirements on other people on grounds that they could reasonably reject” as “surely correct” (69– 70, quoting Thomas Nagel, “Moral Conflict and Political Legitimacy,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 16 [1987]: 215–40, 229). Nevertheless, he criticizes alternative conceptions of democracy for assuming this principle of legitimacy within the scope of the justifications they offer to citizens. For instance, David Estlund’s epistemic proceduralism defends democracy as the epistemically best decisionmaking procedure acceptable to all qualified points of view (David Estlund,
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Democratic Authority [Princeton, NJ: Princeton University, 2008]). Estlund rejects the epistocratic rule of the most educated insofar as it relies on invidious comparisons between citizens that some qualified points of view would reasonably reject (Estlund, 209–19). Talisse objects that epistemic elitists would, in turn, reject the principle of legitimacy that both he and Estlund presuppose (136– 37). There is nothing inconsistent in Talisse’s argument here. A self-effacing conception of legitimacy might require that the justifications offered to citizens not assume the conception itself as a premise. But other versions of the justifiability requirement are much less demanding. A self-affirming conception of legitimacy would allow that the justifications offered to citizens assume a commitment to that conception as axiomatic. On this latter approach, the animal liberation militants raise no problem of legitimacy, since they are willing to commit acts of violence on the basis of reasons and decisions that can be reasonably rejected—to understate—by those they kill. But the same approach also implies that liberal democratic arrangements do not need to be justifiable on terms acceptable to citizens who wish to enact epistocratic (or Thomist) public policies. Talisse’s argument thus requires an account of why his version of the justifiability requirement should be preferred to the alternative. It is unlikely that any such moral conception of political legitimacy can be supported by epistemic norms against question-begging arguments alone. Democracy and Moral Conflict is a highly accessible work, written in a wonderfully lucid manner with lively examples drawn from contemporary American politics. Despite the inevitable gaps in the argument, it is an engaging and provocative contribution to an important body of literature on the epistemic merits of democracy. Simon Ca˘bulea May Virginia Tech
