Lecture 4：
Disputing the Methods of Justice:Hegemony, Technocracy or Meta-Democracy?
（此为南茜•弗雷泽09年3月19日下午在北京大学发表演讲的英文稿，也是北京系列讲座第三场。——《世界哲学》编辑部）
For the past In the previous chapters, I have been elaborating the problematic of abnormal justice. That is my term for the fractured character of political claimsmaking in the present era. In this era, those who argue about justice lack any shared understanding of its basic parameters. Too often, their disputes suppose divergent understandings of at least three things: the ontological substance in which justice consists; the subjects entitled to claim it; and the process for adjudicating their claims. The result of these abnormalities of the “what,” the “who,” and the “how” is a veritable cacophony of justice discourse, whose character is fundamentally ambivalent. On the one hand, abnormal justice has the positive effect of permitting an expansion of contestation; it affords the chance to challenge injustices that the previous hegemonic grammar cast in shadows. On the other hand, abnormal justice has the negative effect of reducing prospects for adjudicating claims; thus, it implies diminished capacities for redressing injustices.
In these preceding chapters, I have sought to develop some theoretical resources that could clarify problems of abnormal justice. In the second chapter, I proposed an account of the “what” of justice that combined ontological pluralism with normative monism. Thus, I sketched an account in which a three-dimensional conception of justice, encompassing redistribution, recognition, and representation, was overarched by the single normative principle of participatory parity. The result, I claimed was an approach that accommodated both the positive and negatives sides of abnormal justice, by providing both the opening needed to entertain ontologically novel claims and the closure needed effectively to redress them. Nevertheless, this argument was not entirely satisfactory. Having arrived, perhaps, at a promising approach to the “what” of justice, I found myself unable to do anything with it, given persisting abnormalities of the “who.” Who, I asked, was entitled to parity of participation with whom, in which social interactions? Absent a suitable way of addressing the “who” of justice, my account of the “what” seems destined to remain without fruit.
And so I turned in the third chapter to my second node of abnormality, concerning the “who.” There, I sketched a genre of theorizing that combined capacities for reflexivity and discrimination. The idea was to ensure both the capacity to problematize existing ways of framing first-order matters of justice and also the ability to distinguish better from worse proposals for reframing them. To enhance reflexivity, I defended the possibility of meta-political injustices of “misframing,” defined as the wrongful exclusion of some persons from the universe of those entitled to consideration in matters of distribution, recognition, and ordinary-political representation. To enhance the capacity to discriminate, meanwhile, I proposed to evaluate claims against misframing by means of the “all-subjected principle,” according to which those obligated to regard one another as subjects of justice in a given matter are precisely those who are jointly subject to the relevant structure(s) of governance. The result, in this case too, seemed initially promising, as the proposal appeared to strike an appropriate balance the positive and negatives sides of abnormal justice, providing both the opening needed to entertain postwestphalian views of the “who” and the provisional closure needed to evaluate them. Like the previous argument, however, this one also failed to satisfy fully. Having arrived, it seemed, at a promising approach to the “who” of justice, I found myself unable to make any use of it, given persisting abnormalities of the “how.” How, I asked, at the close of the previous chapter, ought we to implement the all-subjected principle? By way of what procedures and processes can that principle be applied to resolve disputes about who counts in abnormal times? Absent a suitable way of addressing the “how” of justice, all my reflections to this point are of no use.
In the present chapter, then, I have my work cut out for me. If I am to salvage the preceding work, I must find a way to address the third node of abnormality, which concerns the “how” of justice. What went for the previous two nodes goes for this one as well. Here, too, I seek to accommodate both the positive and negative sides of abnormal justice. Here, too, accordingly, I ask: What sort of justice theorizing can valorize expanded contestation, while also clarifying disputes in which there is no shared understanding of the “how” of justice? Here, too, I offer a two-pronged proposal, which can be stated briefly like this: theorizing suited to abnormal times should be simultaneously dialogical and institutional. Let me explain each part of this two-pronged proposal for addressing the “how” of justice.(点击此处阅读下一页)
For a dialogical approach to the “how”
In order to valorize expanded contestation, a theory of justice for abnormal times must avoid two approaches that have already surfaced in the previous lectures. First, it must suspend what I shall call the “hegemonic presumption.” This is the view that powerful states and private elites should determine the grammar of justice. Although it was not usually stated explicitly, this view effectively prevailed by default in the Cold-War era. In that period, when the Westphalian framing of justice tended to go without saying, disputes about the “who” were sufficiently rare and restricted to be settled in smoke-filled back rooms. Today, however, as social movements contest the Westphalian frame, they are challenging such prerogatives–by the mere fact of treating the question of the frame as a proper subject of broad public debate. Asserting their right to a say in determining the “who,” they are simultaneously problematizing the hegemonic “how.” Above and beyond their other demands, then, these movements are effectively demanding something more: the creation of new, non-hegemonic procedures for handling disputes about the framing of justice in abnormal times. This demand, too, deserves a fair hearing. In order to avoid foreclosing it in advance, a theory of justice for times such as these must entertain non-standard views of the “how.”
Second, a theory of justice for abnormal times must reject what I shall “the scientistic presumption.” We encountered a version of this presumption in the previous chapter, when considering the all-affected principle. Among the proponents of that approach, we noted empiricist-utilitarian philosophers, like Peter Singer, who hold that There we , this understanding of the “how” of justice holds that decisions about the frame should be determined by normal empirical social science, which is presumed to possess uncontroversial facts concerning who is affected by what, and thus who deserves consideration in respect of which issues.
In abnormal justice, however, disputes about the frame are not reducible to simple questions of empirical fact, as the historical interpretations, social theories, and normative assumptions that necessarily underlie factual claims are themselves in dispute.[i] Under conditions of injustice, moreover, what passes for social “science” in the mainstream may well reflect the perspectives, and entrench the blindspots, of the privileged. In these conditions, to adopt the scientistic presumption is to risk foreclosing the claims of the disadvantaged. Thus, a theory committed to expanded contestation must reject this presumption. Without disputing the undeniable relevance of social knowledge, it must refuse any and every suggestion that disputes about the “who” should be settled by “justice technocrats.”[ii]
What other possibilities remain? Despite the differences between them, the hegemonic presumption and the scientistic presumption share a common premise. Both propose to settle framing disputes monologically, by appeal to an authority (in one case power, in the other case science) that is not accountable to the give-and-take of political debate. A theory of justice for abnormal times must reject this monological premise. To validate contestation, it must treat framing disputes dialogically, as political conflicts whose legitimate resolution requires unconstrained, inclusive public discussion. Rejecting appeals to authority, abnormal justice theorizing must envision a dialogical process for applying the all-subjected principle to disputes about the “who.”
Thus, a theory of justice for abnormal times must be dialogical. By itself, however, dialogue is not a solution. As soon as we accept that conflicts concerning the frame must be handled discursively, we need to envision a way in which public debates concerning the “who” could eventuate in binding resolutions. Absent an account of the relation between contestation and legitimate decision-making, we have no way to implement the all-subjected principle, hence no way to process disputes in abnormal justice.
For an institutional approach to the “how”
How should one conceive this relation? One approach, call it “populism,” would situate the nexus of contest and decision in civil society. Thus, this approach would assign the task of applying the all-subjected principle to social movements or discursive arenas like the World Social Forum.[iii] Although it appears to fulfill the dialogism requirement, populism is nevertheless unsatisfactory for at least two reasons. First, even the best civil society formations are neither sufficiently representative nor sufficiently democratic to legitimate their proposals to reframe justice. Second, these formations lack the capacity to convert their proposals into binding political decisions. Put differently, although they can introduce novel claims into public debate, by themselves civil society actors can neither warrant claims nor make binding decisions.(点击此处阅读下一页)
These limitations suggest the need for a second track of the dialogical process, a formal institutional track. This second track should stand in a dynamic interactive relation to the first track. Conceived as one pole of a two-way communicative process, the formal institutional track must be responsive to the civil-society track.[iv] But it should differ from the latter in three respects. First, the institutional track requires fair procedures and a representative structure to ensure the democratic legitimacy of its deliberations. Second, the representatives must be held accountable to civil society via publicity and election. Third, they must have the capacity to take binding decisions about the “who” that reflect their communicatively generated judgment as to who is in fact subjected to a given structure of governance.
What is needed, therefore, are new institutions for democratically mooting, and resolving, arguments about the “who.” Such institutions would be discursive spaces for hearing and evaluating the claims of those who contend that existing territorially based frames unjustly exclude them. But where exactly should such arenas be situated? And who exactly is entitled to be represented in them?
Without pretending to offer full answers, I want simply to underline one crucial point. The institutions envisioned here would exercise the function of meta-political review concerning the boundaries and limits of first-order political institutions. By definition, therefore, they must be situated at a higher, more encompassing level. What is ultimately at stake, moreover, is noting less than the design of the broader, meta-political space within which all bounded political units are necessarily situated. It seems, therefore, that such institutions would assume a sort of meta-responsibility, akin perhaps to judicial review, for the ground rules that govern first-order contests over justice. In principle, therefore, everyone would be subject to them. Thus, if we apply the all-subjected principle to these meta-political institutions, we obtain a clear result. There is no basis for excluding anyone from the circle of those entitled to representation in them. Everyone deserves to be represented by some means or another in the institutions of meta-political review.
The upshot is that abnormal justice requires the invention of new global democratic institutions where disputes about the frame can be aired and resolved. Assuming that such disputes will not go away anytime soon, and may not be susceptible of any definitive, final resolution, the approach I propose views them as an enduring feature of political life in a globalizing world. Thus, it advocates new institutions for staging and provisionally resolving such disputes democratically, in permanent dialogue with transnational civil society.
In general, then, I am proposing a democratic approach to the “how.” This approach promises to remedy the shortcomings of the other approaches I have discussed here. Unlike scientistism, which treats framing questions as technical issues to be decided by experts, the democratic approach understands them as political issues, which can only be justly resolved by a political process. And unlike hegemonism, which conceives the political monologically, as the prerogative of the powerful states, the democratic approach insists that the process of frame-setting be opened to inclusive dialogue. Then too, unlike populism, which neglects the importance of institutions, the democratic approach aims to ensure that the dialogue is both legitimate and efficacious by linking contestation in civil society to accountable and binding decision-making in institutions.
All these considerations speak in favor of the democratic approach to the “how” of justice as a general idea. Yet I would be the first to admit that many unanswered questions remain about this approach. Some such questions are institutional. One of these is how to ensure adequate representation and equal voice for those who claim standing vis-à-vis a given issue but who are excluded by existing territorially based frames. Another issue is how to envision an appropriate division of labor between weak publics, which merely debate alternative frames, and strong publics, which provisionally resolve such debates by taking binding decisions.[v] Yet another issue concerns the relative merits of judicial and legislative institutions for hearing and resolving disputes about the frame; are these better envisioned as “framing courts” or as “framing meta-parliaments”?[vi] A further issue is how to deal with knee-jerk, ideological nationalism, which refuses to enter into good-faith dialogue with those who plead for a postwestphalian “who.” To handle these and related issues requires institutional imagination in the spirit of realistic utopianism.
In addition, the democratic approach to the “how” faces three strong conceptual challenges. One such challenge is the specter of an infinite regress.(点击此处阅读下一页)
After all, this approach introduces a new, meta-meta-level question: namely, who should participate in the democratic process of determining the frame. Insofar as the democratic approach requires a second-order democratic “who” or meta-demos, it seems to court a version of “the democratic paradox,” which holds that the boundaries and frames required by democracy cannot themselves be determined democratically, as the demos cannot determine the demos.[vii] Although it is sometimes considered a knockdown argument, I do not find this objection convincing. Whatever force it may have had in the previous era, when the need for a non-democratically determined (Westphalian) “who” was widely accepted, seems to me to have dissipated today, when democratic expectations are higher, territorially bounded “who’s” are contested, and many are demanding a say in the reframing of questions of justice. Because disputes about the frame are unlikely to go away any time soon, we should treat them not only as a challenge but also as an opportunity–a spur to creative institutional thinking. Thus, instead of throwing up our hands in the face of a logical paradox, we should try to envision ways to finesse it, by imagining institutional arrangements for resolving such arguments democratically.[viii]
[Add discussion of Pogge, “How to Create Supranational Institutions Democratically”]
A second conceptual challenge to the democratic approach to the “how” arises from the circularity of the relations between justice and democracy. Insofar as this approach seeks to resolve arguments about the frame democratically, it seems to presuppose as a prior background condition the very outcome it seeks to promote: namely, social arrangements that are sufficiently just to permit all to participate as peers in democratic discussion and decision-making. This objection rightly notes the internal conceptual links between democracy and justice, not to mention the real-world disparities in resources and status that taint existing deliberations that are claimed to be democratic. Nevertheless, the objection applies quite generally, to all democratic processes, including those at the level of territorial states. Just as democrats do not cravenly bow down before this objection at that level, so, too, we should not do so here. Rather, we should try to envision ways to transform what looks like a vicious circle into a virtuous spiral. The idea is to begin by establishing what could be called, with apologies to D. W. Winnicott, “good-enough deliberation.”[ix] Although such deliberation would fall considerably short of participatory parity, it would be good enough to legitimate some social reforms, however modest, which would, when institutionalized, ensure that the next round of deliberation would come closer to participatory parity, thereby improving its quality. This next round, accordingly, would be good enough to legitimate additional, slightly less modest reforms that would in turn improve the quality of the following round–and so on.[x] In the case of this challenge, then, as for one just discussed, the solution is to draw on democracy’s reflexive capacity: its ability to problematize and revise previously taken for granted aspects of its own procedures and frames.
A third conceptual challenge concerns the distinction between the moral and the political. That distinction assumes a sharp guise within the Westphalian frame, which contrasts political obligations, owed to fellow citizens, with moral obligations, owed to human beings as such. The approach proposed here, in contrast, might appear to collapse the distinction, and thus to threaten to moralize politics, by suggesting that all questions of justice should become political in a globalizing world. Or so the argument goes. In fact, however, the objection is misplaced. Granted, the democratic approach entails building new political institutions for handling trans-territorial problems of justice, which appeared to be “merely” moral from the older perspective. But it doesn’t entail that every question of justice becomes political in exactly the same sense. A more likely outcome is that the sharp Westphalian contrast between the moral and the political will give way to a continuum encompassing “thicker,” territorially framed political questions, at one end, and “thinner,” non-territorially framed political questions, at the other. In that case, the result will not be to moralize politics, but rather to nuance it, disclosing a range of different forms of the political. From this perspective, moreover, the sharp distinction between the political and the moral is revealed to be an artifact of the Westphalian frame, which wrongly denied the possibility of transnational political institutions. But it does not on that account follow that that distinction can no longer be drawn. What does follow is that the distinction must henceforth be drawn in a different way. Treated as contestable and subject to revision,(点击此处阅读下一页)
it, too, must be adjudicated dialogically. Thus, the question of where and when to distinguish the political from the moral now appears as a political question, subject to democratic debate.[xi]
In general, then, efforts to develop the democratic approach need not in principle be stymied by conceptual objections. I would like to conclude my discussion of the “how” of justice, accordingly, by suggesting that it is well worth the effort to develop this approach in a form that can satisfactorily resolve the outstanding institutional and conceptual problems. Three considerations in particular are worth stressing.
First, by developing the democratic approach we can make significant strides in overcoming the defects of other approaches, as I just explained. Second, by developing this approach we can deepen the connections between justice and democracy. At present our most robust egalitarian theories of postwestphalian justice proceed largely in isolation from democratic theory, while our most ambitious theories of postwestphalian democracy have yet to develop the strongly egalitarian conceptions of social justice that they require as a necessary complement. The democratic approach to the “how” promises to connect these two bodies of political-theoretical reflection, while opposing the current de facto alliance of egalitarianism with technocracy, on the one hand, and that of democracy with nationalism, on the other.
Finally, and most importantly, unless we develop a defensible democratic approach to the “how,” we will never be able to deal satisfactorily with “what” and the “who.” In that case, we will remain mired in apparently intractable meta-disputes that currently prevent us from moving swiftly to redress first-order injustices.
Certainly, much more needs to be said about the design and workings of the arrangements I have sketched here. But in this case, too, the details are less important than the overall conceptual structure of the proposal. What is paramount here is that this view of the “how” of justice combines dialogical and institutional features. As a result, it accommodates both the positive and negative sides of abnormal justice. Thanks to its dialogism, it validates contestation of previously taken-for-granted parameters of justice. Rejecting monologism, it seeks a fair hearing for claims that hegemonism and scientism foreclose. At the same time, thanks to its two-track character, it overcomes the legitimacy and decisional deficits of populism. Submitting meta-claims for the reframing of justice to a process of two-way communication between civil society and new global representative institutions, it envisions procedures for implementing the all-subjected principle in contexts of disagreement about the “who.” Thus, this approach holds out the prospect of provisionally resolving conflicts over the frame in abnormal justice.
But that is not all. By providing a means to sort out meta-problems, this proposal clears a path to the pressing first-order problems with which we began. Coming to terms with injustices of misframing, it simultaneously opens the way to tackling injustices of maldistribution, misrecognition, and misrepresentation. Thus, this approach enables us to envision political scenarios for overcoming or reducing injustice in abnormal times.
Conclusion
It is with the aim of fostering that end that I devised the overall plan of these lectures. So let me conclude by reflecting back on that plan in two final steps. First, I want to summarize my overall argument briefly here. Then, I want to inquire about its deeper political and conceptual implications.
Summary of the argument:
In the course of this book, I have argued that a theory of justice suited to conditions of abnormal discourse should combine three features. First, such a theory should encompass an account of the “what” of justice that is multidimensional in social ontology and normatively monist–for example, an account that submits claims for redistribution, recognition, and ordinary-political representation to the principle of participatory parity. Second, such a theory should encompass a view of the “who” that is simultaneously reflexive and substantive– for example, a view that submits claims against injustices of misframing to the all-subjected principle. Finally, a theory of justice for abnormal times should encompass a view of the “how” that is simultaneously dialogical and institutional– for example, a view that envisions new global representative institutions where meta-political claims can be submitted to deliberative-democratic decision-procedures.
More important than these specifics, however, is the general problem I have outlined here. Under conditions of abnormal justice, previously taken-for-granted assumptions about the “what,” the “who,” and the “how” no longer go without saying. Thus, these assumptions must themselves be subject to critical discussion and re-evaluation.(点击此处阅读下一页)
In such discussions, the trick is to avoid two things. On the one hand, one must resist the reactionary and ultimately futile temptation to cling to assumptions that are no longer appropriate to our globalizing world, such as reductive distributivism and passé Westphalianism. On the other hand, one should avoid celebrating abnormality for its own sake, as if contestation were itself liberation. In these lectures, I have tried to model an alternative stance, which acknowledges abnormal justice as the horizon within which all struggles against injustice must currently proceed. Only by appreciating both the perils and prospects of this condition can we hope to reduce the vast injustices that now pervade our world.
Conceptual and political implications
Having summarized my overall argument, let me consider some of its deeper conceptual and political implications. It may have already struck you that my argument combined two different types of inquiry, one diagnostic, the other reconstructive. My first chapter was chiefly diagnostic. There, I characterized the present as an era of abnormal justice, in which the basic parameters of political contestation are up for grabs; identifying three distinct nodes of abnormality, I mapped the contours of a (Westphalian-distributivist) discursive formation in the throes of de-normalization. In contrast, my subsequent chapters were largely reconstructive. In them, I proposed three corresponding strategies for reflecting on justice in abnormal times; noting that our familiar theories of justice presuppose conditions of normal discourse, I sought to develop alternative models of theorizing better suited to contexts in which there is no agreement as to the “what,” the “who,” and the “how” of justice. Given the difference between these two parts of my argument, a question arises as to the relation between them. What conceptual logic and political aspiration links my Zeitdiagnose of the present conjuncture with my attempts at theoretical reconstruction?[xii]
Two possibilities suggest themselves. On one reading, the negative features of abnormal justice are sufficiently disabling of struggles against injustice to warrant efforts at re-normalization. This view stresses the impossibility of emancipatory change in the absence of a relatively stable framework for vetting and redressing claims. Given that premise, the goal should be to reconstruct such a framework for the current conjuncture. The result, were things to go well, would be a new paradigm of normal discourse about justice, premised on new interpretations of the “what,” the “who,” and the “how,” more appropriate to a globalizing world. On this reading, therefore, my specific proposals would be aimed at constructing such a paradigm. The point of the overall exercise would be to develop “a new normal.”
Certainly, one could do a lot worse than devising a new normal able to reframe justice conflicts in forms suited to a globalizing world. Yet there are reasons to doubt that such an approach would be fully satisfying. For one thing, re-normalization risks instating a new, restrictive predefinition of what counts as an intelligible claim for justice, thereby entrenching new exclusions. As a result, it risks closing down prematurely new avenues of contestation, before they have had a fair shot at establishing their plausibility. Finally, the proposal to establish a new normal risks enshrining a fixed set of justice assumptions at a historical juncture when the circumstances of justice are in flux and demand flexibility. For all these reasons, it is worth considering another reading of the overall argument presented here.
The second reading I have in mind envisions an outcome that unsettles the distinction between normal and abnormal justice. Underlining the respective shortcomings of each of those genres of discourse, this reading seeks an alternative model that avoids their defects, while incorporating the best features of each. Unlike abnormal discourse, the desired model would have sufficient structuring capacities to stage today’s justice struggles as arguments, in which the parties confront one another, compelling the attention and judgment of those looking on. Unlike normal discourse, however, the hoped-for model would have sufficient self-problematizing capacities to entertain novel claims about the “what,” the “who,” and the “how.” Combining features of normal and abnormal discourse, the result would be a grammar of justice that incorporates an orientation to closure, needed for political argument, but that treats every closure as provisional–subject to question, possible suspension, and thus to re-opening. Cultivating responsiveness to emergent exclusions, such a model would feature concepts, such as misframing, that invite reflexive self-problematization, with the aim of disclosing injustices that were previously occluded. On this reading, the point of the overall exercise would be neither to revel in abnormality nor to rush to instate a new normal.(点击此处阅读下一页)