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Political Legitimization without Morality?

  • Book
  • © 2008

Overview

Editors:
  1. Jörg Kühnelt

    1. 90425 Nürnberg, Germany

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  • Addresses the prominent problem of state legitimacy and unites contributions of sociologists, political scientists and philosophers
  • Provides an interdisciplinary perspective leading to a better understanding of the difficulties to legitimize a state especially in contemporary pluralistic societies
  • Presents and combine innovative ideas to improve both moral and rational accounts of state legitimacy as well as inventive alternatives to ensure the stability of states; hence, the volume brings together and shows the interconnections of three major aspects of state legitimacy normally discussed separately
  • The main contributions are followed by short commentaries, thus providing a critical appraisal perspective on the proposed ideas

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Table of contents (17 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages I-VIII
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  2. State Legitimacy and the Role of Morality

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1
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    2. State Legitimacy and the Role of Morality

      • Jörg Kühnelt
      Pages 1-12

  3. How Necessary is Morality to Legitimize a State?

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 13-13
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    2. State Legitimacy and Social Order

      • Christopher Morris
      Pages 15-32

    3. The Claims of States and the Claims of Morality

      • Neil Roughley
      Pages 33-38

    4. Legitimacy and Justice

      • Wilfried Hinsch
      Pages 39-52

    5. Political Legitimacy and Its Need for Public Justification

      • Michael Kühler
      Pages 53-58

    6. Consent, Obligation, and Legitimacy

      • Frank Dietrich
      Pages 59-70

  4. Which Role can Rationality Play for State Legitimacy?

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 71-71
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    2. On the Rationality and Stability of a Minimal Consensus

      • Reinhard Zintl
      Pages 73-90

    3. A Commentary on Zintl

      • Rafaela Hillerbrand
      Pages 91-97

    4. Rational Egoism, Morality and Human Rights

      • Matthias Kaufmann
      Pages 99-112

    5. A Commentary on Kaufmann

      • Stephan Schlothfeldt
      Pages 113-117

    6. Political Contractarianism and Equally Distributed Basic Rights

      • Jörg Kühnelt
      Pages 119-136

  5. How to Ensure the Stability of a Legitimate State?

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 137-137
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    2. Value-Mistaken and Virtue-Mistaken Norms

      • Philip Pettit
      Pages 139-156

    3. A Commentary on Pettit

      • Gottfried Seebaβ
      Pages 157-160

    4. Political Norms, Markets and Social Capital

      • Michael Baurmann
      Pages 161-180

    5. Do Multinationals Create Social Capital Just Like That?

      • Christoph Schmidt-Petri
      Pages 181-186
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Keywords

About this book

The initial idea for this anthology arose during my work at the interdisciplinary Collaborative Research Centre (SFB) 485 Norm and Symbol at the University of Konstanz. My research project on the potential of Hobbesian contract theory was in?uenced by the focus of the SFB on social phenomena such as pluralism and cultural change. In this context, I realized that the Hobbesian idea to refer only to instrumental rationality and basic egoistic interests to legitimize a state has, on one hand some advantages for pluralistic societies: All individuals are supposed to share these premises independent of the personal values they might hold. On the other hand, a rational legitimization must cope with the fundamental problem of explaining and legitimizing those tasks of legal states that go beyond the idea of a minimal state. Although my research was focused on the idea of solving this problem with a modi?cation of the Hobbesian argument, I became interested in the more general question of which role morality could or should play in legitimizing a state. Within the current discussion, not only rational but also political accounts of legitimacy can be attractive as soon as they try to avoid contentious normative premises. To analyse some of the core ideas within the current discussion, I - ganized an interdisciplinary workshop at the University of Konstanz in December 2004 in which different perspectives from sociology, politics and philosophy were compared and analysed.

Editors and Affiliations

  • 90425 Nürnberg, Germany

    Jörg Kühnelt

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Political Legitimization without Morality?

  • Editors: Jörg Kühnelt

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-8576-5

  • Publisher: Springer Dordrecht

  • eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and Law, Philosophy and Religion (R0)

  • Copyright Information: Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2008

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4020-8575-8Published: 08 August 2008

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-90-481-7917-6Published: 19 October 2010

  • eBook ISBN: 978-1-4020-8576-5Published: 08 July 2008

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: VIII, 208

  • Topics: Philosophy, general, Ethics, Political Philosophy

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