Can we have democratic equal liberty without an idea of reason?

If social authority is democratized in the American way, then there will be either more bosses whose major difference is their social identity or background, or everyone will be equal in being able to assert what they believe or want, and to be right on their own terms, to have the right to consider oneself right.

This could be contrasted to a society in which authority is democratized by way of an idea of reason. In that case, people would be expected to make the case for why they are right in wanting what they want, and everyone would have the opportunity to do this, with the outcome depending on some kind of agreement. This may seem very curious and obviously impossible, but there is much in the history of societies like ours to recommend this and suggest that this is the path to a broad justice based on equality and liberty.

An example of this belief in the world of theory is the philosophy of Jürgen Habermas. Something similar can be found in the work of American analytical Hegelians, particularly those who are followers of Wilfrid Sellars, like Robert Brandom.

A practical example is in all kinds of participatory democracy that take the form of deliberating councils to which in principal everyone who is involved in the relevant enterprise or political community is welcome and expected to participate: the kibbutz or worker's cooperative, the collective farm, the factory council or "Soviet," etc. Think of a parliament -- or, and perhaps more to the point, a corporate board of directors -- except that it is not a representative body whose members are elected (or selected somehow), but one in which everyone who lives, works, or is involved in the business place has a seat at the table and takes part in the discussions making decisions about what is to be done by the organization. For a long time, this was the democratic ideal.

It is easy to see that this idea of (participatory) democracy incarnates an idea of equality and liberty (and fraternity) that go together, and that come together, through deliberation. And this deliberation is in turn based on an idea of reason. Without the idea of reason, of coming to a decision, not merely by a vote, in which the will of the majority rules, this idea of democracy makes little sense. It takes on a degenerated or weaker form when there is such a governing council or set of meetings, and at them, people merely express their opinion, or what they want, without any real discussion aimed at thinking through the possibilities, and then people simply vote, and the majority vote decides. Such a democracy does not depend on an idea of reason, but only on one of sovereignty, where the people or the majority are sovereign and decide; the principle on which sovereignty rests is will.

In America, left-liberal or "progressive" politics for 50 years now has taken the form of elevating to participation in social authority of formerly excluded groups: particularly the blacks, women, and gays.

This social equality has come with no ideas of governance. This has meant that the prevailing model is the one that applies. This model is one that must be called not democratic but liberal. In the liberal model, people who have power over their own lives or some authority over others are empowered to do as they please for no reason but that it is their will, and liberty consists in the freedom to exercise authority and power in this way without being trammeled by some other power that would limit it or subject persons to it.

Nothing in feminism or the politics of other identities (by race or ethnicity, religion, or sexuality) necessarily destines a society that is more egalitarian by virtue of including and empowering those formerly excluded or marginalized, or subordinated and oppressed or subject to the power of members of other social classes or groups, - nothing in this requires the development of democracy in the stronger sense.

Reason then winds up playing an even smaller and more endangered role in social life.

The objection that most of us don't want to spend much of our time engaged in deliberative discussions is not only a valid one; it constitutes a good basis for preferring some kind of anarchism to most forms of democracy. The hope needs to be for some form of incorporation of discursive rationality into the social norms whereby decisions are made, including between individuals. If you look at poor people in America and how they tend much more than people in the middle class to argue with each other -- and usually in confrontations that do not involve nor end in any kind of violence -- you could easily get the idea that something like this must be possible, and that it would help constitute a happier polity in some ways, and one in which many people would feel less oppressed, and indeed less excluded.

But reason was part of the ideology of the old systems that have widely been rejected as oppressive. And it was often misused. From political absolutism and religious persecutions (of heretics, Jews, rebellious women, and others) to Stalinist bureaucracy, rule by reason has a bad rap sheet.

American culture is liberal (its central idea is liberty) and the political "progressives" or left-liberals would make it more so in certain ways. They would give the liberty of the entrepreneur, and the boss or master, to everyone. They would do this through the market. The liberty thus achieved involves taking from some other people power over the people now exercising their liberty, which they do by exercising power themselves. This power is justified through assertions of will. The ideal of sovereignty of a subject and that of liberty converge upon this. The result is not less social authority, but a wider distribution of it. The principle of sovereignty makes the will of the sovereign subject or master authoritative with no need for further justification. Such justification can only be found through an idea of reason, but hardly anyone seems to want it. Will is the principle of rule, and reason is the principle of justification, because statements and thus also actions are justified by giving reasons for them, and finding that, upon being challenged or questioned, those reasons stand as good enough or sufficient in the instance. So in the end there is either a liberty and authority both based on will, or a democracy based on reason. Failures of the latter can alone, strictly speaking, be called injustice.

The logic of liberalism and its democracy of sovereign majority of will are capitalist. The social movements aimed at liberating and empowering particular social groups have succeeded within this logic.