Modern society involves diverse ways of life which embody different perceptions and understandings of human subject. People have different incompatible ideas and interests, and plural identities. There are no moral consensus on the meaning and impor ...
Modern society involves diverse ways of life which embody different perceptions and understandings of human subject. People have different incompatible ideas and interests, and plural identities. There are no moral consensus on the meaning and importance of human behaviors or relations, good life, and morality of society and individual. On the other side, with the spread of ideas of liberal democracy individual freedom and autonomous choice are thought more valued. Individuals and groups demand equal opportunities to participate in the collective life of the whole society and to form such a life, as well as equality of status, right and power. If the existence of individuals and groups with various outlooks and attachments is a necessary condition of liberal democracy, it is a natural phenomenon to articulate different interests and ideals over the social, political, and moral issues. The politics of rights takes its place in this center of the resulting conflicts modern liberal pluralist societies reveal. Therefore, one of the critical tasks which modern pluralist societies are confronted with is how to achieve integration within diversity by coordinating conflicting beliefs, values, and interests of their members.
The aim of this research is to point out some theoretical difficulties with the concept of right, from the viewpoint of citizenship, which weaken its practical effectiveness in liberal pluralist society. Moreover, based on this, this research argues that more persuasive theorization of the concept of rights are required in order to establish the concept of the more democratic citizenship, and that in this theorization it is necessary to recognize the importance of political or institutional rights as well as the communitarian characteristics of the liberal concept of rights.
The fundamental strategy of this research depends on the tradition of civic republicanism. Republicans regard rights as an outcome, not a precondition, of political processes. They believe that moral frame of reference of politics should be defined by duty to participate in the collective decision-making and take into serious consideration other fellow citizens’ views, rather than by the right of participation. Viewed from this standpoint, the rights resulting from political deliberation are not human rights, but rather institutional rights. This kind of institutional rights does not stand on an idealized type of human being and a mode of community thought of as universal. Thus, institutional rights, rather than human rights, seem to be much more pertinent to the heterogeneity of modern society. With this idea in mind this research evaluates the typical liberal responses to the challenge of pluralism and seeks the possibility of a democratic liberal politics of compromise as an alternative.
Liberalism has traditionally offered itself as the best solution to the challenge of pluralism. However, liberalism also is founded on a comprehensive conception of the good tied to a particular view of the good society. In the modern circumstances of complexity and pluralism no single ethical code can integrate without remainder the diverse dimensions of human life. Thus, liberal society and politics need an alternative basis to the ethical liberalism of old, and contemporary liberal philosophy has sought to rethink liberalism in appropriate ways.
Instead of confronting the political choices and conflicts associated with pluralism, contemporary liberal theorists seek to avoid them by pursuing an elusive apolitical consensus grounded in the invisible hand of the market, community traditions or a neutral constitution. But all are found wanting. Pluralism consists in the recognition that conflicts among diverse values and interests are permanent and essential constituents of society.
Resolving these disputes between contesting rights claims is a distinctively political matter, calling for a duty-based conception of participatory citizenship. This approach involves a shift from assertions of human rights to the formulation of institutional rights, based on a procedural view of rights as the outcome of a democratic process. In practice competing ideals and interests need to be accommodated by a compromise resulting from negotiations in the political processes of deliberation. As a result, it is the argument of this paper that a democratic liberal politics of compromise might be a more realistic alternative as a political strategy for peaceful coexistence.