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Rule Over None II: Social Equality and the Justification of Democracy
Author(s) -
KOLODNY NIKO
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
philosophy and public affairs
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.388
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1088-4963
pISSN - 0048-3915
DOI - 10.1111/papa.12037
Subject(s) - politics , democracy , sociology , moral philosophy , political philosophy , classics , philosophy , art history , law , history , political science , epistemology
What is to be said for democracy? Not that it gives people what they want. Not that it realizes a kind of autonomy or self-government. Not that it provides people with the opportunity for valuable activities of civic engagement. Not, at least not in the first instance, that it avoids insulting them. Or so I argued in the companion to this article. At the end of that article, I suggested that the justification of democracy rests instead on the fact that democracy is a particularly important constituent of a society in which people are related to one another as social equals, as opposed to social inferiors or superiors. The concern for democracy is rooted in a concern not to have anyone else above—or, for