CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2015
| Author | Hartas, Daniel Robert |
|---|---|
| Title | Moral Scepticism, Radical Pluralism, and Concepts of Legitimacy |
| Summary | The purposes of this thesis are to advance a sceptical argument about the possibility of a liberal concept of legitimacy under conditions of moral scepticism, and to present and defend a conservative concept of legitimacy which survives this sceptical argument. After describing the scope of morally sceptical views to which this argument applies, I will present arguments that on conceptual grounds alone, we have no reason to believe that human value judgements will converge sufficiently to establish a liberal concept of legitimacy, and that the breadth of divergent conceivable conceptions of the good places the burden of proof on the believer in value convergence to demonstrate that such convergence exists on social, biological, or historical grounds. Against this background, I will present arguments which challenge several prospects for such a demonstration. The sceptical argument will establish that we must embrace a ‘radical pluralism’ about conceptions of the good; that differences of value are both too broad and too deep to establish the overlapping consensus of value necessary for a liberal concept of legitimacy. The positive part of the thesis will first establish a set of core concepts of conservative ideology, and will argue that a theory which fits a definition of political anarchism may nonetheless be conservative in virtue of reflecting these core concepts. I will then set out a view in which there is no normative distinction between a legitimate and a justified authoritative directive, in which authorities are normatively unrestrained in their pursuit of a conception of the good, and in which prospective disobedience and traditional practice represent the major constraints on what states should do. |
| Supervisor | Kis, János |
| Department | Philosophy MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2015/hartas_daniel.pdf |
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