Circumstances in which Restrictions on Citizens’ Liberty can be Reasonably Justified
Rawls accepts that in a politically liberal society there will be circumstances where certain liberties conflict; indeed, he expects this to be the case, since it is entailed by the fact of reasonable pluralism of comprehensive doctrines that political liberalism assumes . However, Rawls is clear that infringements of basic liberties cannot be reasonably justified, or compensated for, by greater social and economic advantages .
The basic liberties can only be compromised when they conflict with other basic liberties . That such a compromise may be permissible means that it is not necessarily illiberal for a state to enforce CV; the restriction on liberties …show more content…
Jason Brennan cites a paper from Martin Gilens which provides evidence to show that the political preferences of the disadvantaged do not receive equal consideration from politicians and claims that this is not because of their low turnout rates . This suggests that enforcing CV will not necessarily succeed in giving all citizens equal political status even if their interests are supposedly better represented due to higher voter …show more content…
He argues that in reality many citizens are badly informed about which policies they should support in order to see their political aims achieved .
As for the arguments concerning citizens moral power to form and pursue a conception of the good, perhaps they do provide good reasons for why every citizen should have the right to vote, however, these arguments are unable to go as far as to claim that CV must be enforced because it is crucial to every citizens’ conception of the good. Presumably there are many conceptions of the good for which political engagement is not crucial, there are also likely to be conceptions whose major features are not the sort of thing that can be affirmed by voting e.g. those based on certain spiritual ideals.
Regarding CV’s importance for developing the capacity of moral persons to understand and apply principles of justice, evidence is required to support the claim that this only happens as a result of CV. According to Annabelle Lever, there is no evidence to support the claim that CV increases voters’ political knowledge which suggests it may be unlikely to lead to a development of this capacity
Rawls accepts that in a politically liberal society there will be circumstances where certain liberties conflict; indeed, he expects this to be the case, since it is entailed by the fact of reasonable pluralism of comprehensive doctrines that political liberalism assumes . However, Rawls is clear that infringements of basic liberties cannot be reasonably justified, or compensated for, by greater social and economic advantages .
The basic liberties can only be compromised when they conflict with other basic liberties . That such a compromise may be permissible means that it is not necessarily illiberal for a state to enforce CV; the restriction on liberties …show more content…
Jason Brennan cites a paper from Martin Gilens which provides evidence to show that the political preferences of the disadvantaged do not receive equal consideration from politicians and claims that this is not because of their low turnout rates . This suggests that enforcing CV will not necessarily succeed in giving all citizens equal political status even if their interests are supposedly better represented due to higher voter …show more content…
He argues that in reality many citizens are badly informed about which policies they should support in order to see their political aims achieved .
As for the arguments concerning citizens moral power to form and pursue a conception of the good, perhaps they do provide good reasons for why every citizen should have the right to vote, however, these arguments are unable to go as far as to claim that CV must be enforced because it is crucial to every citizens’ conception of the good. Presumably there are many conceptions of the good for which political engagement is not crucial, there are also likely to be conceptions whose major features are not the sort of thing that can be affirmed by voting e.g. those based on certain spiritual ideals.
Regarding CV’s importance for developing the capacity of moral persons to understand and apply principles of justice, evidence is required to support the claim that this only happens as a result of CV. According to Annabelle Lever, there is no evidence to support the claim that CV increases voters’ political knowledge which suggests it may be unlikely to lead to a development of this capacity