The General Will, the Common Good, and a Democracy of Standards
31 Pages Posted:
Date Written: January 01, 2019
Abstract
The chapter explores this approach to democratic theory. In the first
section, I outline the core republican ideas, identify a problem that they
raise about the power of the state, and explain why any plausible answer would direct us towards a regime in which the demos, or people, enjoy kratos, or power — a regime worthy of being described as a democracy. In the second, I present and critique an answer, associated in particular with Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1997a; 1997b), according to which a suitable democracy would allow for the formation of a general will and install this will in the operations of the state. In the third, I argue for a different model, in which democracy allows for the formation of a sense of the common good and constrains the state to be guided by this. While the notion of the common good is central to the republican tradition, it is interpreted here in a novel way and recruited in support of an ideal of the polity as a democracy of common standards, not as a democracy of common will.
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