The trouble with being earnest: Deliberative democracy and the sincerity norm

Journal of Political Philosophy

Volumn 14, Issue 3, 2006, Pages 249-269

  Markovits, Elizabeth ^a  

^a SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 33746874773     PISSN: 09638016     EISSN: 14679760     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9760.2006.00240.x     Document Type: Article

References (82)

1. I am only familiar with this dynamic in the U.S. and therefore my examples of the phenomenon are limited to that context. I am very interested to know if what I describe here is present in other countries, especially given the reach of U.S. culture.
2. See http://www.fightthebull.com/index.asp (accessed Jan. 11, 2005).
3. The role of sincerity in personal relations is not my concern here; I am only offering a criticism of sincerity's value as a political ideal.
4. See Seyla Benhabib, ed., Democracy and Difference (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996);
5. James Bohman, "Deliberative toleration," Political Theory, 31 (2003), 757-79;
6. Bohman "The coming of age of deliberative democracy," Journal of Political Philosophy, 6 (1998), 399-423;
7. Bohman and William Rehg, eds, Deliberative Democracy (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1997);
8. Craig Calhoun, ed., Habermas and the Public Sphere (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1992);
9. Simone Chambers, Reasonable Democracy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996);
10. John Dryzek, Deliberative Democracy and Beyond (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000);
11. Jon Elster, ed., Deliberative Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998);
12. James Fishkin and Peter Laslett, eds, Debating Deliberative Democracy (Maiden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2003);
13. Amy Guttman and Dennis Thompson, Democracy and Disagreement (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996);
14. Jürgen Habermas, On the Pragmatics of Social Interaction, trans. B. Fultner (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2001);
15. Habermas, "Three normative models of democracy," Democracy and Difference, ed. Benhabib, pp. 21-30;
16. Habermas, Between Facts and Norms, trans. W. Rehg (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1996);
17. Habermas, Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action, trans. C. Lenhardt and S. W. Nicholsen (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1990);
18. Habermas, A Theory of Communicative Action, trans. T. McCarthy, 2 vols (Boston, Mass.: Beacon Press, 1984, 1987);
19. Stephen Macedo, ed., Deliberative Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999);
20. Bernard Manin, "On legitimacy and public deliberation," Political Theory, 15 (1987), 338-68;
21. Iris Marion Young, Inclusion and Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).
22. See, for examples, Marco R. Steenbergen, Andre Bächtiger, Markus Spörndli and Jürg Steiner, "Measuring political deliberation: a discourse quality index," Comparative European Politics, 1 (2003), 21-48
23. and Ethan J. Lieb, Deliberative Democracy in America (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004).
24. James Johnson, "Arguing for deliberation," Deliberative Democracy, ed. Elster, p. 162.
25. Seyla Benhabib, "Introduction," ed. Benhabib, p. 6.
26. Mark Warren, "Deliberative democracy," Democratic Theory Today, ed. A. Carter and G. Stokes (Cambridge: Polity, 2002), p. 176.
27. In addition to Habermas, a number of other theorists explicitly discuss the ethic of sincerity. See, for example: Robert E. Goodin, "Sequencing deliberative moments," Acta Politica, 40 (2005), 182-96;
28. Paul Grice, Studies in the Way of Words (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1989), p. 27;
29. Gerry Mackie, "All men are liars: is democracy meaningless?" Deliberative Democracy, ed. Elster, pp. 89-92;
30. Steenbergen et al., "Measuring political deliberation," p. 26;
31. Warren, "Deliberative democracy," p. 183.
32. Habermas, Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action, p. 136.
33. Habermas, A Theory of Communicative Action, vol. 2, p. 121.
34. Habermas, Between Facts and Norms, p. 340.
35. See Guttman and Thompson, Democracy and Disagreement;
36. Young, Inclusion and Democracy;
37. Bohman, "Deliberative toleration;"
38. Benhabib, "Introduction."
39. use "accountability" because it applies well to the expectations of government officials, as well as of citizens. Furthermore, "accountability" is etymologically related to an act of speech, highlighting the communicative aspects of this relationship.
40. Young, Inclusion and Democracy, p. 23.
41. Warren, "Deliberative democracy," p. 182.
42. A similar claim can also be made in regard to normative rightness. As Plato long ago pointed out in the Crito, just because almost everyone in a society agrees on something, it is not necessarily normatively right. So consensus can become a substitute for moral appropriateness. My thanks to Gerry Mara for pointing this out to me.
43. Habermas, A Theory of Communicative Action, vol. 2, p. 121.
44. Habermas, On the Pragmatics of Social Interaction, pp. 64, 90.
45. Habermas, On the Pragmatics of Social Interaction, pp. 155-70. Families with asymmetrical power relations provide an example of such distorted communication.
46. Jane J. Mansbridge, Beyond Adversary Democracy (New York: Basic, 1980), pp. 34, 273-274.
47. Pamela Johnston Conover, Donald D. Searing and Ivor M. Crewe, "The deliberative potential of political discussion," British Journal of Political Science, 32 (2002), 21-62, esp. pp. 54-5.
48. Joan Scott, "Experience," Feminists Theorize the Political, ed. J. Butler and J. Scott (New York: Routledge, 1992), p. 25.
49. Elizabeth Loftus, Eyewitness Testimony (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996).
50. Robert Hariman, Political Style: The Artistry of Power (Chicago; University of Chicago Press, 1995), p. 42.
51. For a good example, see the letters posted to the website authors at www.blackpeopleloveus.com (accessed July 28, 2004).
52. For examples of the alternative views on irony see: Jonathan Lear, Therapeutic Action: An Earnest Plea for Irony (New York: Other Press, 2003);
53. Gregory Vlastos, Socrates, Ironist and Moral Philosopher (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1991).
54. For more on the difficulties of defining irony, see: D. J. Enright, The Alluring Problem: An Essay on Irony (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986)
55. and Zoe Williams, "The end of irony?" The Guardian, June 28, 2003.
56. Alexander Nehamas, Virtues of Authenticity: Essays on Plato and Socrates (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999), pp. 71-2.
57. Wayne Booth, A Rhetoric of Irony (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1974), p. 275.
58. Iris Marion Young, "Communication and the Other: Beyond Deliberative Democracy," Democracy and Difference, ed. Benhabib, pp. 120-135;
59. Inclusion and Democracy.
60. Dryzek, Deliberative Democracy and Beyond, pp. 1-2.
61. Benhabib, Democracy and Difference, pp. 82-3.
62. Benhabib, Democracy and Difference, Ibid., 73-4.
63. See, for example, the 2001 USA PATRIOT ACT (HR 3162); or Texas V. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397 (1989), in which Chief Justice Rehnquist's dissenting opinion abounds with narrative and rhetorical language.
64. John Haiman, Talk Is Cheap: Sarcasm, Alienation, and the Evolution of Language (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 110.
65. See the work of D. N. McCloskey for more on the rhetoric of seemingly abstract and scientific statements: D. N. McCloskey and Robert M. Solow, eds, The Consequences of Economic Rhetoric (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988)
66. and The Vices of Economists, The Virtues of the Bourgeoisie (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1996).
67. Habermas, On the Pragmatics of Social Interaction, p. 13.
68. Haiman, Talk Is Cheap, pp. 102-106, 107.
69. See, for example, Geoffrey Nunberg's analysis of G. W. Bush's pronunciation of "nuclear" as "nucular." Nunberg argues that this particular pronunciation is a "folk etymology," an affected and intentional rhetorical choice. Going Nucular: Language, Politics, and Culture in Confrontational Times (New York: Public Affairs, 2004).
70. Hariman, Political Style, pp. 17, 19.
71. Hariman, Political Style, Ibid., 13.
72. James Arnt Aune, Selling the Free Market: The Rhetoric of Economic Correctness (New York: Guilford Press, 2001), p. 40.
73. Elizabeth Markovits, "Economizing debate: rhetoric, citizenship, and the World Bank," Poroi: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Rhetorical Analysis and Invention, 3 (#1) (2004).
74. Machiavelli, "Letter to Vettori," Selected Political Writings, ed. and trans. D. Wooton (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994), pp. 5-6
75. Hariman, Political Style, p. 32.
76. See also Victoria Kahn, "Virtu and the example of Agathocles in Machiavelli's Prince," Representations, 13 (1986), 68-83;
77. and Eugene Garver, "After Virtu: rhetoric, prudence, and moral pluralism in Machiavelli," Prudence, ed. R. Hariman (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003), pp. 67-97.
78. Machiavelli, "Letter to Vettori," p. 3.
79. Mary G. Dietz, "Trapping the Prince: Machiavelli and the politics of deception," American Political Science Review, 80 (1986), 777-99.
80. Steenbergen et al., "Measuring political deliberation," p. 26.
81. Hannah Arendt, On Revolution (New York: Penguin, 1977), pp. 96-8.
82. Hannah Arendt, On Revolution, Ibid., pp. 98, 103.