Conversability and Deliberation

Conversability and Deliberation

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Description

Suppose that Congress is to decide whether to enact a statutory scheme, such as, for example, establishing a cabinet department for Homeland Security. Presumably the reasons in favor of the statute would be more or less directed to considerations of welfare or public safety. But the new department may be authorized to behave in ways that may sometimes infringe some people’s rights. Whether or not such an agency should be set up and authorized to suspend rights would seem to be a matter of balancing the advancement of a shared interest in public safety against the particular rights violations that such advancement may entail. And, presumably, the appropriate balance should somehow be responsive to arguments, both on behalf of those whose rights are likely to be suspended as well as from those who think that public safety may be inadequately protected.

Source Publication

Common Minds: Themes from the Philosophy of Philip Pettit

Source Editors/Authors

Geoffrey Brennan, Robert Goodin, Frank Jackson, Michael Smith

Publication Date

2007

Conversability and Deliberation

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