Daily Dialectic

Liberalism within democratic states requires that we demarcate certain rights and duties that are immune from the binding edicts of the state. In simplest terms, it requires us to delineate the private from the public. But as any democratic citizen is painfully aware of, exactly which rights and duties should be protected and thus restricted from public action is a deeply contested matter.

If we attempt to answer this question democratically however, we render the liberal constraints on democratic power vacuous. Specifying what is immune from collectively binding action with collectively binding action is self-defeating. Public reason liberalism though, offers us a potential solution but as I argue in this paper, liberalism and democracy are not compatible unless we can either reach unanimous overlapping consensus or prioritise a comprehensive liberal doctrine over democratic values.