The Stability of a Pluralist Society: On Public Reason, Deliberative Democracy, and Civic Virtues

The purpose of this dissertation is to formulate and present a proper solution to the problem of the stability of a pluralist society. Given the fact of the plurality of reasonable comprehensive doctrines in a liberal democratic society, citizens frequently disagree about various social institutions and public policies. The problem of stability we are faced with, then, is how citizens can be motivated so that they will accept and comply with these institutions and policies voluntarily, even if they affirm different conceptions of morality, good, and justice. The stability with which this dissertation is concerned is not based on a modus vivendi, but “stability for the right reasons”. In order to secure this kind of stability, the proper solution must respond appropriately to various sources of political disagreement and provide mechanisms for settling disputes or making policy decisions.
In this dissertation, I will begin by examining three arguments of stability proposed by John Rawls in A Theory of Justice and Political Liberalism. Then I will explain why Rawls’s solutions, which are located at the level of principles of social justice, cannot resolve the problem of stability successfully. Next, I will propose a framework of stability that includes three essential elements. The first element is Rawls’s wide view of public reason. His view can be used to guide citizens’ thinking and reasoning about fundamental political questions. The second element is the conception of deliberative democracy from Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson. Various effects of public deliberation can broaden the information and perspectives of citizens, transform individuals’ preferences from private interests to public interests, and promote good collective decisions. Voting that follows deliberation can confer legitimacy on the ultimate results such that people will be more willing to support or comply with the results of policy-making. The third element is the education of deliberative citizens. Only if we can cultivate citizens with certain capabilities and virtues relevant to deliberation can we realize the ideals of public reason and deliberative democracy. I will argue that this framework is both defensible in theory and feasible in practice; hence, it can provide a proper solution to the problem of the stability of a pluralist society.