ireminder:nvitation Beyond Legitimacy. Can Proceduralism Say Anything Relevant about Justice?12 October

The CEU Department of Philosophy cordially invites you to a talk (as part of its Departmental Colloquium series) By Emanuela Ceva (University of Pavia) on Beyond Legitimacy. Can Proceduralism Say Anything Relevant about Justice? Tuesday, 12 October, 2010, 4.30 PM, Zrinyi 14, Room 412 ABSTRACT This paper challenges the claim that proceduralism can say something relevant about the legitimacy, but not the justice of a polity. It is often argued that whilst legitimacy has to do with the mechanisms through which political coercive decisions are made (who exercises authority and how it is exercised), justice is more a substantial matter concerning the terms of social cooperation, against which the qualities of the decisions made by those who are entitled to make them are to be evaluated. Accordingly, the argument goes, an approach focusing on the qualities of procedures seems to be more appropriate for legitimacy than for justice. I contend that this characterization is inaccurate for it mixes three different issues which require, instead, separate theorizing: (i) who is entitled to make politically binding decisions? (ii) How should political decision making processes be structured? And (iii) how should political decisions be evaluated? I argue that considerations of legitimacy apply to level (i), whereas considerations of justice apply to levels (ii) and (iii). Although the appropriateness of a procedural approach to the justice-related question in (iii) is debatable, proceduralism seems well-equipped to provide a sound answer to the, equally justice-related, question in (ii). It does so by focusing on the way in which persons should be treated by the procedures through which they interact, once all issues of entitlement are set (i) and independently of the outcomes of the interaction (iii). Kriszta Biber Department Coordinator Philosophy Department Tel: 36-1-327-3806 Fax: 36-1-327-3072 E-mail: biberk(a)ceu.hu