POL 46X Democracy and Difference Spring 2010

Transcription

1 Lahore University of Management Sciences POL 46X Democracy and Difference Spring 2010 Instructor: Dr. Richard Ganis Office: TBA Office Hours: TBA Format for Lectures: 2 x 100 minutes sessions Prerequisites: Any prior course in Western political philosophy Course Level: 400 COURSE DESCRIPTION In recent years, the project of liberal democracy has come under increasing criticism for being insufficiently sensitive to differences amongst human subjects. In this course, we will consider the merits and shortcomings of various arguments that have been advanced along these lines. We will also examine a number of texts that endeavour to strike a balance between democratic universalism and a politics attuned to the unique desires, beliefs, and ways of life of particular individuals and groups. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: Democracy and Difference aims to: (i) (ii) (iii) (iv) encourage students from a variety of academic backgrounds to engage successfully with the course material, working both independently and collaboratively promote critical-thinking skills prepare students for future careers or further study by emphasising the academic and practical applicability of the course material achieve the above within a friendly and supportive environment Upon successful completion of the course, students are expected to have acquired: (i) (ii) (iii) knowledge of key ideas and concepts that underlie contemporary debates on the problem of democracy and difference an ability to assess and critically evaluate competing theoretical paradigms an ability to draw upon the theoretical frameworks discussed in the course to critically assess political questions and problems in the world today

2 ASSESSMENT Attendance: 10% Quiz: 20% Midterm examination: 30% Final take-home paper: 40% COURSE OUTLINE Week 1 Session 1: Introduction and Course Overview There are no required readings for this session. Session 2: Democracy, Liberty, and Equality Bentham, Jeremy. The Greatest Good for the Greatest Number, in The Classical Utilitarians. John Troyer (ed.) (Hackett Publishing Company, 2003). Mill, John Stuart. Chapters 1 and 2 of On Liberty, in The Classical Utilitarians. John Troyer (ed.) (Hackett Publishing Company, 2003). Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. A Discourse on the Origin and Foundation of Inequality Among Mankind, in Discourse on the Origin of Inequality. Franklin Philip (trans.) (Oxford University Press, 1994). Introduction, in The Classical Utilitarians. John Troyer (ed.) (Hackett Publishing Company, 2003). Introduction, in Discourse on the Origin of Inequality. Franklin Philip (trans.) (Oxford University Press, 1994). What are some of the similarities and differences between Rousseau s perspective and the utilitarian theories of Bentham and Mill? What is the relationship (if any) between the concepts of democracy and equality in the respective arguments of Bentham, Mill, and Rousseau? Week 2 Sessions 3 and 4: Kant and the Question of Toleration Required reading Kant, Immanuel. Perpetual Peace. Mary Campbell Smith (trans.) (Cosimo, 2005). 1

3 Scruton, Roger. Kant: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2001). What obligations does Kant believe that sovereign nation-states have to foreign nationals seeking to enter their borders? What conditions must the nation-state impose on these would-be entrants? What obligations do arrivals from other countries have vis-à-vis the host nation? For Kant, why is the nation-state at risk if it imposes no conditions on those attempting to enter their borders? Week 3 Sessions 5 and 6: Democracy and Toleration Required reading Habermas, Jürgen. Three Normative Models of Democracy, in Democracy and Difference: Contesting the Boundaries of the Political. Seyla Benhabib (ed.). (Princeton University Press, 1996). Young, Iris Marion. Communication and the Other: Beyond Deliberative Democracy, in Democracy and Difference: Contesting the Boundaries of the Political. Seyla Benhabib (ed.). (Princeton University Press, 1996). Benhabib, Seyla. Toward a Deliberative Democracy of Democratic Legitimacy, in Democracy and Difference: Contesting the Boundaries of the Political. Seyla Benhabib (ed.). (Princeton University Press, 1996). Honig, Bonnie. Difference, Dilemmas, and the Politics of Home, in Democracy and Difference: Contesting the Boundaries of the Political. Seyla Benhabib (ed.). (Princeton University Press, 1996). What are the three normative models of democracy identified by Habermas? In what sense can Habermas s idea of deliberative democracy be read as a both a defence and extension of the Kantian ideal of toleration? What is Iris Marion Young s basic objection to the standpoint of moral universalism upheld by Habermas? How does Young endeavour to redress the toleration principle s difference deficit? 2

4 Week 4 Sessions 7 and 8: Democracy and Toleration (continued) Derrida, Jacques. Hospitality, Justice and Responsibility: A Dialogue with Jacques Derrida, in Questioning Ethics: Contemporary Debates in Philosophy. Richard Kearny and Mark Dooley (eds.) (Routledge, 1999). Rosenfeld, Michel. Derrida s Ethical Turn and America: Looking Back from the Crossroads of Global Terrorism and the Enlightenment, in Cardozo Law Review, 27, 2006, pp Available at: Mahmood, Saba. The Subject of Freedom, in Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject (Princeton University Press, 2005). Derrida, Jacques. Oligarchies: Naming, Enumerating and Counting, in The Politics of Friendship. George Collins (trans.) (Verso, 1997). Habermas, Jürgen. Religious Tolerance The Pacemaker of Cultural Rights, in The Derrida-Habermas Reader. Lasse Thomassen (ed.) (The University of Chicago Press, 2006). How and why does Derrida attempt to destabilise the Kantian ideal of conditional hospitality? How does Rosenfeld endeavour to strike a balance between Derrida s ethics of radical singularity and Habermas s defence of communicative democracy? Why does Mahmood counsel Western thinkers to parochialise their assumptions about matters such as piety, resistance, agency, self, and authority prior to forming judgments about nonliberal traditions such as Islamism? Week 5 Sessions 9 and 10: Democracy, Difference, and the Postmodern Turn Flax, Jane. Transitional Thinking: Psychoanalytic, Feminist, and Postmodern Theories, in Thinking Fragments: Psychoanalysis, Feminism, and Postmodernism in the Contemporary West (The University of California Press, 1990) Hassan, Ihab. Toward a Concept of Postmodernism, in The Postmodern Turn (Ohio State University Press, 1987). Available at: Wellmer, Albrecht. On the Dialectic of Modernism and Postmodernism, in Praxis International 4 (4), 1985, pp

5 Based on your readings, how does the perspective of postmodernism encourage us to view the self s relationship s to the other? From a postmodern standpoint, what is a basic danger posed by universalistic frameworks such liberal democracy? In what terms does postmodernism challenge us to contest received notions of rights, justice, tolerance, and reciprocal respect? Week 6 Sessions 11 and 12: Democracy and the Communitarian Challenge Bell, Daniel. Introduction, in Communitarianism and Its Critics (Oxford University Press), Sandel, Michael. The Public Philosophy of Contemporary Liberalism, in Democracy s Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy (Harvard University Press, 1996). Kymlicka, Will. Appendix I: Some Questions about Justice and Community, in Daniel Bell, Communitarianism and Its Critics (Oxford University Press, 1993). As outlined by Bell and Sandel, what are some of the key terms of the communitarian critique of the enlightenment ideal of liberal democracy? Whatever its objections, the communitarian perspective does not break fundamentally with the philosophical foundations of democratic liberalism. Do you agree or disagree with this claim? Why or why not? Week 7 Sessions 13 and 14: Multiculturalism and Minority Rights Kymlicka, Will. Toleration and Its Limits, in Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights (Oxford University Press, 1996). Matuštík, Martin. Derrida and Habermas on the Aporia of the Politics of Identity and Difference: Towards Radical Democratic Multiculturalism, in Constellations, 1995, 1 (3): Gutman, Amy (ed.). Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition (Princeton University Press, 1994). 4

6 Dallmayr, Fred. Democracy and Multiculturalism, in Democracy and Difference: Contesting the Boundaries of the Political. Seyla Benhabib (ed.) (Princeton University Press, 1996). What is Kymlicka s theory of minority rights? How do Kymlicka s arguments differ from Habermas s and Derrida s? Like Michel Rosenfeld, Matuštík attempts to strike a balance between the standpoint of communicative democracy and the deconstructive ethics of radical difference. What are the basic terms of his argument? MIDTERM BREAK Week 8 Sessions 15 and 16: Democracy and Difference: Two Feminist Perspectives Cohen, Jean. Democracy, Difference, and the Right of Privacy, in Democracy and Difference: Contesting the Boundaries of the Political. Seyla Benhabib (ed.) (Princeton University Press, 1996). Fraser, Nancy. Gender Equity and the Welfare State: A Postindustrial Thought Experiment, in Democracy and Difference: Contesting the Boundaries of the Political. Seyla Benhabib (ed.) (Princeton University Press, 1996). Butler, Judith. False Antitheses, in Feminist Contentions. Seyla Benhabib et al. (eds.) (Routledge, 1995). Fraser, Nancy. False Antitheses: A Response to Seyla Benhabib and Judith Butler, in Feminist Contentions: A Philosophical Exchange (Routledge, 1995) Cohen, Jean L. Critical Social Theory and Feminist Critiques: The Debate with Jürgen Habermas, in Feminists Read Habermas: Gendering the Subject of Discourse. Johanna Meehan (ed.) (Routledge, 1995). How do Cohen and Fraser attempt to criticise and redress the disgendered standpoint of both classical liberal democracy and Habermasian discourse ethics? How are their objections similar? How are they different? What are the motivations behind Cohen s and Fraser s respective critiques of efforts to draw a sharp distinction between the public and the private spheres? 5

7 Week 9 Sessions 17 and 18: Seyla Benhabib on Democracy, Cosmopolitanism, and the Rights of Others Benhabib, Seyla. On Hospitality: Rereading Kant s Cosmopolitan Right, in The Rights of Others: Aliens, Residents, and Citizens (Cambridge University Press, 2004). Benhabib, Seyla. Democratic Iterations: The Local, the National, and the Global, in The Rights of Others: Aliens, Residents, and Citizens (Cambridge University Press, 2004). Benhabib, Seyla. The Philosophical Foundations of Cosmopolitan Norms, in Another Cosmopolitanism. Robert Post (ed.) (Oxford University Press, 2006). Benhabib, Seyla. Hospitality, Sovereignty, and Democratic Iterations, in Another Cosmopolitanism. Robert Post (ed.) (Oxford University Press, 2006). In what sense does Benhabib both embrace and move beyond the Kantian ideal of cosmopolitan right? Why is the l affaire du foulard (the scarf affair) of concern to Benhabib? How does she address this problem? Benhabib has argued that there ought to exist an unbridgeable gap between the order of the ethical and that of the political. How does she justify this claim? To Benhabib, what are the philosophical bases of a pluralist, tolerant, and democratic-liberal polity? Week 10 Sessions 19 and 20: Axel Honneth and the Case for Recognition Honneth, Axel. Redistribution as Recognition: A Response to Nancy Fraser, in Nancy Fraser and Axel Honneth. Redistribution or Recognition? A Political- Philosophical Exchange (Verso, 2003). Honneth, Axel. The Point of Recognition: A Rejoinder to the Rejoinder, in Nancy Fraser and Axel Honneth. Redistribution or Recognition? A Political-Philosophical Exchange (Verso, 2003). Fraser, Nancy. Social Justice in the Age of Identity Politics: Redistribution, Recognition, and Participation, in Nancy Fraser and Axel Honneth. Redistribution or Recognition? A Political-Philosophical Exchange (Verso, 2003). 6

8 N.B.: Although I have not made it a requirement, I would strongly urge students to read Fraser s essay in order to better understand Honneth s counterargument. Why does Honneth argue that the moral grammar of contemporary social struggles is rooted in the standpoint of recognition, rather than the perspective of redistribution, as Fraser claims? What are the implications of Honneth s recognition perspective for the theory of democracy? How does Honneth handle the problem of difference? Week 11 Sessions 21 and 22: Dialectic of Enlightenment and the Limits of Democracy Required reading Horkheimer, Max, and Theodor W. Adorno. The Concept of Enlightenment and The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception, in Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments. Edmund Jephcott (trans.) (Stanford University Press, 2002). There are no supplementary readings for this week. Horkheimer and Adorno argue that as the agency of calculating thought, scientific reason has today turned out to be the interest of industrial society.... Everything... becomes a repeatable, replaceable process, a mere example of the conceptual models of the system. If accurate, what are the implications of this claim for liberal democracy as a political project? It appears, from Horkheimer and Adorno s standpoint, that modern identifying thought is poised to annihilate the plurality of differences between human subjects. What hopes do the two authors have for the space beyond identity? Week 12 Sessions 23 and 24: Democracy and Difference in Postcolonial Perspective Required reading Bhabha, Homi. Chapters 1, 3, and 9, in The Location of Culture (Routledge, 1994). Bhabha, Homi. Introduction, in The Location of Culture (Routledge, 1994). 7

9 In Bhabha s view, why must the foundational binaries of occidental-colonial discourse (inside/outside, space/time, subject/object, true/false) be radically disarticulated? Bhabha sees the project of enlightenment universalism as oriented towards annihilating the incommensurable differences between human worlds. Discuss. Into what kinds of spaces does Bhabha reinscribe the location of culture? Week 13 Sessions 25 and 26: Democracy and Difference in Postcolonial Perspective (continued) Required reading Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. Chapters 7, 10, and 12, in In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics (Routledge, 1988). Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. Foreword, in In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics (Routledge, 1988). Spivak charges the Western tradition of metaphysics, history, and foundationalist epistemology with foreclosing rather than authorising the unanticipated and unanticipatable narratives of the gendered other. Unpack and discuss her claim. Spivak criticises Marx s perspective for occluding a more complex, fragmentary, and polyphonic understanding of positionalities such as gender and race. What is the basis for her argument? With Bhabha, Spivak argues for the adoption of counterhegemonic strategies aimed at contesting the universalistic precepts of enlightenment humanism and reconstituting the discourse of cultural difference. Discuss. Week 14 Sessions 27 and 28: Democracy and the Politics of Agonistic Pluralism Mouffe, Chantal. Democracy, Power, and the Political, in Democracy and Difference: Contesting the Boundaries of the Political. Seyla Benhabib (ed.) (Princeton University Press, 1996). Honig, Bonnie. Dead Rights, Live Futures: On Habermas s Attempt to Reconcile Constitutionalism and Democracy, in The Derrida-Habermas Reader. Lasse Thomassen (ed.) (The University of Chicago Press, 2006). 8

10 What are the key terms of Mouffe s agonistic rethinking of the liberal-democratic conception of the political? In what ways does Mouffe s perspective resonate with that of Honig? How might Habermas respond to Honig s claim that his co-originality thesis on constitutionalism and democracy is oriented towards a realm of ideal finality, and is thereby incapable of accounting for the wild, dangerously unscripted futures of political actors? Connelly, William. The Ethos of Pluralization (University of Minnesota Press, 1995). 9