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| Author(s): |
Gustavo Hessmann Dalaqua
Total Authors: 1
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| Document type: | Doctoral Thesis |
| Press: | São Paulo. |
| Institution: | Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD) |
| Defense date: | 2019-09-27 |
| Examining board members: |
Sergio Cardoso;
Cicero Romao Resende de Araujo;
Silvana de Souza Ramos;
Nadia Urbinati
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| Advisor: | Alberto Ribeiro Gonçalves de Barros; Maria Isabel de Magalhães Papaterra Limongi |
| Abstract | |
This thesis examines the relationship between representative democracy, conflict, and consensus in John Stuart Mills philosophy in order to appease a hermeneutical quandary that has divided Mill scholars for decades. While some scholars claim to find in Mill a radical agonistic democrat a political thinker who understood democracy to be the regime of conflict, not consensus other scholars accuse Mills democratic theory of privileging consensus over conflict. Contra the idea that there are two contradictory Mills one that values conflict and denies any role whatsoever to consensus and another that preaches a consensualist politics whose main goal would be to eliminate conflict this thesis shows how Mills emphases on consensus and on conflict reconcile within his political thought. Taking a different stand than the one offered by Mill scholars thus far, the interpretation I put forward is that for Mill representative democracy requires both conflict and consensus. By juxtaposing the textual passages of the consensualist Mill to those of the agonistic Mill, I argue that a complete understanding of Mills philosophy rules out the conflict vs. consensus dichotomy that lurks behind the idea of the two contradictory Mills. It is precisely because he deems conflict to be an inevitable byproduct of democratic freedom that Mill values consensus a consensus that establishes how citizens conflicts can unfold ad infinitum without disintegrating the body politic. A democracy that dispensed with such consensus would be acting suicidally, for it would undermine the very structure by which political conflicts can manifest themselves without bloodshed or civil war. An analysis of the passages of the consensualist Mill allows one to affirm that liberty and equality are the two principles that Mill identifies as the boundaries for democratic agonism. Boundaries here means these principles constitute a common grammar that every citizen participating in the agonistic debate must respect when she formulates her political proposals. According to Mill, democracy cannot survive without sustaining a consensus around the two principles that, since democracys inception, are considered constitutive of any democratic order. The basic principles of liberty and equality are inherent in the democratic procedure, to the extent that in their absence democracy falls apart. Together, they form a juridical and constitutional consensus that grounds democracy. The construction of a demos requires the public recognition of a minimum juridical consensus that regulates the multifarious conflicts which will emerge among citizens. Without such consensus, the body politic will either disintegrate into different demoi or generate a set of dispersed individuals incapable of seeing themselves as fellow members of a single political community. The first chapter addresses Mills theory of representative democracy. The second, his understanding of consensus, and the third, his conception of conflict. (AU) | |
| FAPESP's process: | 15/22251-0 - Representative democracy and conflict in J. S. Mill |
| Grantee: | Gustavo Hessmann Dalaqua |
| Support Opportunities: | Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate |