Talisse’s Epistemic Justification of Democracy Reconsidered

Contemporary Pragmatism Vol. 10, No. 1 (June 2013), 131–143

Editions Rodopi ©2013

Talisse’s Epistemic Justification of Democracy Reconsidered Andrew F. Smith

Paul Ott offers three related arguments that Robert Talisse’s epistemic conception of democracy fails. Together, they are intended to support the proposition that a Deweyan approach to democracy provides a better explanatory basis for how to facilitate democracy. I argue that each argument provided by Ott fails. As a result, they do not reflect a successful critique of the Talisse’s conception of democracy. Nor do they provide support for Ott’s defense of Dewey. I close by offering a more promising line of criticism against Talisse’s epistemic justification.

1. Introduction In a recent essay appearing in Contemporary Pragmatism, Paul Ott argues that Robert Talisse’s most recent iteration of his epistemic conception of democracy fails. He offers three related arguments to make his case: Argument 1 P1 Moral pluralism, as Talisse characterizes it, is a plurality of “fundamentally held doctrines.” (Ott 2011, 146) P2 A plurality of fundamentally held doctrines is democratically untenable. C1 Democracy cannot accommodate moral pluralism, as Talisse understands it. Argument 2 P1 Endorsement of Talisse’s epistemic justification is necessary for embracing Talisse’s conception of democracy. P2 One cannot endorse both a fundamentally held doctrine and also be persuaded by Talisse’s epistemic justification. C2 Talisse’s own conception of democracy is inconsistent with “fundamental value practice.” (ibid., 146)

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Argument 3 P1 Talisse’s claim that the epistemic justification is “sufficient to motivate” (2009, 7; original emphasis) a commitment to democracy is false. P2 The epistemic justification lacks persuasiveness for those not already morally committed to democracy. C3 Democracy requires moral justification and motivation. Taken together, Ott intends these arguments to support the proposition that a Deweyan approach to democracy, which, he states, “requires an affective and moral motivation” (ibid., 146), provides a better explanatory basis for how to facilitate democracy than does Talisse’s epistemic justification. I will not rehash whether we should accept or reject Deweyan democracy; Talisse’s (2007, 2011a) challenge to it strikes me as decisive.1 I will instead focus on the merits of Ott’s three arguments, arguing that each is invalid – or at least that Ott has failed to firmly establish the validity of each. As a result, they do not reflect a successful critique of the Talisse’s epistemic justification. Nor do they provide any support for Ott’s wider Deweyan proposition. This is not to say that Talisse’s epistemic justification should be endorsed, however. I close by offering what I take to be a more promising line of criticism against it. 2. Argument 1 Given the description provided in the first premise of Argument 1 (i.e., 1P1), Talisse characterizes moral pluralism as a plurality of fundamentally held doctrines. According to Ott, that a doctrine is held fundamentally – that one engages in fundamental value practice – says nothing about the content of that doctrine. This instead refers to “the way in which doctrines, or values, are practiced” (Ott 2011, 146). Namely, one engages in fundamental value practice, or fundamentalism (ibid., 149) for short, insofar as they “hold and practice values in ... extreme ways, most notably by holding values as non-negotiable, regardless of changing circumstances” (ibid., 148). Drawing on Dewey, Ott concludes that such a mode of practice reflects nothing less than “carelessness, conceit, irresponsibility, and rigidity – in short, absolutism” (ibid., 149). If it is the case that moral pluralism is a fact of social and political life, that there exists a plurality of doctrines whose adherents have fundamental commitments that they refuse in principle to abandon or revise no matter what the circumstances, Ott contends that said adherents cannot be expected to embrace democracy. Democracy requires – at a minimum – a commitment to mutual cooperation and reciprocal engagement among citizens regarded as free and equal.2 This commitment must not be easily overridden by doctrinal concerns (see Rawls 2001, 189). But we cannot expect the fundamentalist to maintain a stronger commitment to democracy than to their doctrinal concerns such that the former generally override the latter. This is what makes a plurality



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of fundamentally held doctrines democratically untenable (1P2). As a result, Ott remarks that “Moral pluralism assumes the inevitability of value conflicts over fundamentally practiced values. It resigns itself to a clash of fundamentalisms” (2011, 150). This clash is incompatible with democracy; it cannot be accommodated (C1). Problematically for Ott, 1P1 and 1P2 are both false. Pace 1P1, Talisse does not depict moral pluralism as, necessarily, a clash between competing fundamentalisms. Pace 1P2, even if he were to do so, Ott fails to demonstrate that a clash of fundamentalisms is democratically untenable, on Talisse’s account. Because 1P2 is presented in a more specific way in 2P2 I leave discussion of it until the next section. I focus on 1P1 in the remainder of this section. According to Talisse, moral pluralism entails that “We are divided over our most fundamental moral commitments. We disagree about moral basics, and accordingly disagree about the precise shape that politics should take” (2009, 3).3 Ott concedes (2011, 148) that it is unobjectionable and quite typical for citizens of democratic societies to hold conflicting beliefs and values. But this is not what Talisse is suggesting, on Ott’s account. Talisse is contending, more radically, that at the core of each moral or religious doctrine is a commitment to fundamentalism just insofar as adherents of each doctrine promote, in Talisse’s words, “values, aims, and ends that are fundamental to living a proper life” (2009, 12; quoted by Ott 2011, 148). Recall that fundamentalists engage in fundamental moral practice. They hold non-negotiable values, regardless of the circumstances. They are absolutists in the sense that they are unwavering in their commitment to certain values. So the label fundamentalist derives not from what they believe but from how they believe it. But when Talisse refers to fundamental moral commitments – as he does repeatedly throughout Democracy and Moral Conflict, the main text on which Ott draws – he is quite clearly not referring to how beliefs are held but to what is believed: to “judgments concerning what is really important, what is ultimately valuable, what makes life worth living” (2009, 2). As a result, Ott makes a critical category mistake in 1P1, confusing reference to content with reference to form. Ott could reply that the very fact that one holds values that they take to be ultimately valuable, of highest importance, and so forth commits them to fundamentalism after all. This is because they fail to practice their values “experimentally,” which essentially entails engaging all of one’s values critically and fallibilistically.4 Because fundamentalists eschew experimentalism, they cannot be expected to abandon their values even when clear deficiencies become evident that warrant adjustment. This makes cooperation and reciprocity impossible when these values come into play politically. Ott thus may maintain that on these grounds democracy is untenable with moral pluralism after all. But this is a dubious position to take. First, a commitment to experimentalism is itself a commitment that is of ultimate value and highest



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importance to the Deweyan, yet the Deweyan evidently can still be expected to embrace democracy. Second, people can undergo powerful transformations in their fundamental moral commitments. The practice of conversion would be impossible were this not so. So holding fundamental moral commitments does not necessarily preclude cooperation and compromise. Third, most of us have no-go zones, as it were. Gay rights activists will likely no more become raging homophobes than those who regard homosexuality as a sin will wait with baited breath to march in a pride parade. But this does not necessarily make gay rights activists and their political opponents fundamentalists, in Ott’s sense. Indeed, members of these constituencies have a history, rocky though it sometimes may be, of cooperating to combat the AIDS epidemic. This suggests that cooperation and compromise with respect to the application of one’s commitments to various causes is possible even if these commitments are not held in an experimental fashion (I take up this matter more fully when I address Argument 2). Democratic engagement is hereby possible even among those with profound moral disagreements over matters of the highest importance. Democracy can accommodate moral pluralism, as Talisse understands it. 3. Argument 2 Ott highlights what he takes to be a troubling paradox at the heart of Talisse’s position. Talisse calls on citizens to embrace certain key epistemic virtues, including open-mindedness, attentiveness, honesty, and charitableness with respect to the arguments and reasons offered by others. Ott notes that, on Talisse’s account, even those who hold avowedly non-negotiable and unwavering moral positions have reason to endorse these virtues because they have reason to endorse the epistemic justification. “This seems odd,” Ott asserts. How can one be both open-minded, for example, and closed-minded at the same time? “Of course, they cannot. Once moral fundamentalists accept democratic politics for their own fundamentally practiced value commitments, the latter cease to be practiced fundamentally” (2011, 152). Hence 2P2. While 2P1 is true, 2P2 is not. Or perhaps it is more appropriate to state that Ott has not offered a suitable justification for 2P 2; he does not put us in a position to judge whether it is true or false because he fails to explain Talisse’s position. This is not simply a matter of being uncharitable, mind you. Rather, Ott is utterly silent about the central tenets that support the epistemic justification. Specifically, he says nothing about Talisse’s reliance on a firstpersonal epistemology. Once we have a clearer sense of how a first-personal epistemology operates, we will see that Talisse is on firmer ground than Ott indicates. I emphasize that this does not entail the truth of Talisse’s epistemic justification. All I conclude at this point is that for Argument 2 to be judged valid, Ott must prove that 2P2 is true. To the extent that he does not, the argument is rendered questionable.



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Ott does note that, on Talisse’s account, anyone who maintains beliefs, any epistemic agent, is implicitly committed to democracy. Indeed, Talisse contends that “no matter what you believe about morality, you have overriding epistemological reasons – reasons concerning how, what, and when one ought to believe something – to endorse democratic politics” (2009, 4). To be clear, Talisse is not asserting that people do not endorse anti-democratic political positions. “Rather,” he remarks, “the view is that anti-democrats are not – and cannot be – proper believers” (ibid., 132). They can be considered self-deluded epistemic agents because they maintain beliefs that run counter to their epistemic self-understanding: their sense of themselves as committed to the truth of their beliefs or to the desire for access to accurate information and reliable evidence. This claim too may seem odd until we clarify the role played by the firstpersonal epistemology in Talisse’s epistemic justification. In contrast to a thirdpersonal epistemology, the standard epistemology employed by philosophers in that it is intended to establish the necessary and sufficient conditions for knowledge, the first-personal epistemology is designed to speak directly to Talisse’s readers. This is meant to facilitate our engagement in a process of selfscrutiny concerning the role played by such basic epistemic concepts as beliefs, truth, evidence, reason, and argument in our daily lives. In undertaking this process of self-scrutiny, we – you and I – come to see, states Talisse, that “when we believe, we take ourselves to be responding to reasons” (ibid., 94): to the best reasons, evidence, and arguments available. We cannot do otherwise and still regard ourselves as proper believers. This does not entail that no one maintains irrational beliefs or dogmatically holds on to beliefs for which they have no epistemic warrant. But the point Talisse is making is that we generally are loath to self-consciously embrace irrationality or dogmatism. We do not find ourselves saying “‘I believe that p, but I have resolutely avoided subjecting p to the scrutiny of intelligent critics’ or ‘I believe that p, but I have insulated p from criticism by insulating myself from potential critics’” (ibid., 105). To admit that we have done such things would be self-consciously to face up to the fact that we have been epistemically irresponsible because we would be confessing that we fear that our beliefs cannot square with the best reasons, evidence, and arguments. Once we follow through on the dictates of the first-personal epistemology, Talisse asserts that we – you and I – are bound to recognize that only life in a democratic polity offers us the possibility of access to reliable information and to the liberties associated with freedom of thought and expression, including the basic rights enumerated in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Democratic citizens may defer to the party line or to a specifiable authority figure, but this is because the authority’s decrees are regarded as true (Talisse 2009, 122). What is critical here is that the commitment to democracy is internal to our self-conscious vision of ourselves as responsible epistemic agents. The endorsement of democratic norms, including toleration, equality, liberty, and



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protected dissent – along with accountable social and political institutions that support them – follow directly from this vision. But, Ott may fairly ask, how does any of this justify Talisse’s apparent claim that the fundamentalist can embrace the epistemic justification? Specifically, how can the fundamentalist be open-minded and closed-minded at the same time? This is what creates the paradox at the heart of Talisse’s position that reveals the truth of 2P2. But I fear that Ott’s concern with this purported paradox reveals that he has fallen prey to an all-too-familiar trope commonly employed in particular against dialogical conceptions of democracy like Talisse’s. Fundamentalists become a foil for any attempt to propose that deliberative engagement between those with starkly different ideological commitments is possible. Worse still, fundamentalists may be treated as something of a bogeyman to highlight why certain citizens must either be compelled to accept a commitment to liberal values, broadly construed, or be excluded from political consideration. In the current case, fundamentalists can’t possibly be democrats because they engage in fundamental value practice, so they must either find a way to morally embrace (Deweyan) democracy, or they must be shunted aside and given no further consideration. They have shown themselves to be wicked, ignorant, dishonest, perverse, benighted, or foolish, hence unworthy of our countenance. It is precisely this trope that Talisse seeks to undermine with his appeal to the first-personal epistemology. By doing so, he shows quite clearly how one can be open-minded and closed-minded at the same time: how one can endorse both a fundamentally held doctrine and also be persuaded by Talisse’s epistemic justification (pace 2P2), hence how democracy is tenable for fundamentalists (pace 1P2). Consider, from the following example offered by Talisse, what is entailed by believing that euthanasia is morally abhorrent: My knowledge of the truth that euthanasia is always wrong does not by itself enable me to decide what cases count as cases of euthanasia. In order to know whether a particular case of killing is a case of euthanasia, I must assess a wide array of biological and neurological data. Furthermore, even if cases of euthanasia could be reliably detected, I must still confront the moral question of what is morally permissible in a wide array of cases involving patients in permanent vegetative states and various forms of untreatable chronic, debilitating illness. ... In other words, on any viable moral doctrine, even if one knows what is good and right, one must nevertheless deliberate about what action is morally required under a given set of circumstances. And this deliberation, if it is to be responsible, must be informed by accurate assessments of the relevant moral and non-moral facts of the given case. (2009, 140–141) Notice here that the believer in the truth of the statement, euthanasia is always wrong, can be utterly closed-minded with respect to this position. But, at the



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same time and by their own epistemic lights, they must be open-minded with respect to how this belief factors into actual political decisions. As a result, the purported paradox at the heart of Talisse’s epistemic justification evaporates. Or, at the very least, Ott’s claim that such a paradox exists becomes questionable, as does the truth of both 2P2 and 1P2. Again, the point is not that Talisse’s epistemic justification succeeds. What matters for current purposes is that the truth of both 2P2 and 1P2 is in doubt. A clearer sense of why we should accept this premise is required if we are to accept Argument 2. 4. Argument 3 My response to Ott’s third argument can be blessedly brief. Because Ott fails to undercut (let alone discuss) Talisse’s first-personal epistemology, he does not do enough to establish that either 3P1 or 3P2 is true. Talisse’s claim, highlighted in 3P1, that the epistemic justification is sufficient to motivate a commitment to democracy hinges on the viability of the first-personal epistemology. Ott must give us some reason to reject this epistemology; he does not. This in turn leaves us in too weak a position to affirm that Talisse has failed to establish, as highlighted in 3P2, that the epistemic justification is bound to lack persuasiveness for anyone not already morally committed to democracy. Both claims may be true; they do have intuitive appeal. But, philosophically speaking, this should hardly be regarded as a proper basis by which to judge the merits of an argument. Ott must provide us with an argument for why we should rely on our intuitions in this case. No such argument is provided. This being so, the conclusion that democracy requires moral justification and motivation is insufficiently supported. Ott may hope to fall back on the sociological observation that fewer and fewer citizens seem willing to embrace the sorts of epistemic virtues that facilitate the practice of democracy. As he states, it is “all too common” (2011, 148) these days for citizens to engage in fundamental value practice. For this reason, something more robust than a wishy-washy epistemic commitment to democracy is required. A full-throated and deeply Deweyan democracy is needed to reverse the current anti-democratic trend. But why should an epistemic commitment to democracy prove any less forceful than a moral commitment to democracy? Ott suggests (ibid., 155) that the former is motivationally weaker than the latter because, unlike Dewey, Talisse takes an approach that is analogical to Kant’s prohibition against relying on sentiment in the process of assessing moral claims. As such, he takes Talisse to deny that we need to have an affective commitment to democracy in order to be persuaded of its merits. But Talisse makes no such claim. Indeed, given his embrace of Peirce, who argues that doubt and belief can be distinguished in part by the emotional reactions they elicit, we have a compelling reason to believe that Talisse would deny the Kantian analogy. Indeed, psychologists and neuroscientists have established that epistemic commitments are just as affectively



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laden as are moral commitments.5 Ott sets up a false dichotomy if he takes the distinction between morality and epistemology to hinge in part on the assumption that the former is affective while the latter is not. Finally, perhaps, as Ott insinuates, Talisse’s argument should be cast aside as just another wistful “problem of philosophers” rather than a problem faced by real people (2011, 156). I must admit that this too strikes me as a false dichotomy. It would be better to say that some philosophers dabble in trivial concerns and others do not. Of course, what is trivial and what is not may be in the eye of the beholder, but this is neither here nor there. The point is that, if it is the case that a commitment to democracy and the epistemic virtues that it embodies is on the wane, Talisse’s attempt to show us why we already have a commitment to democracy and why we should uphold this commitment at the expense of other things we value is a worthy enterprise after all. 5. An Alternative Line of Criticism Among Ott’s central concerns is that Talisse’s conception of democracy is unworkable in practice. He may be right but not necessarily for the reasons that he cites. In order to see this, permit me briefly to discuss what Talisse calls the “paradox of democratic justification,” which differs from the purported paradox highlighted by Ott in Argument 2. Our moral commitments are essentially controversial, Talisse maintains. As things stand, we must conclude that fundamental moral divisions are bound to persist in perpetuity. 6 This should lead us to wonder if we face an acute legitimation crisis with respect to democracy. Consider the following, states Talisse: legitimacy requires that democratic decisions be justifiable to all citizens, but when citizens are deeply divided at the most basic moral levels, they are also divided over what constitutes a successful moral justification. And so it seems that democratic justification – and thus democratic legitimacy – is impossible when citizens are deeply divided at the level of basic moral commitments. (2009, 19) Deep moral divisions entail that “someone’s values must lose out” (ibid., 42). This suggests that the justifiability criterion cannot be met. Hence the legitimation crisis. It is with this concern in mind that Talisse develops his epistemic justification of democracy. He argues that as (proper) believers we are committed to a dialogical democracy, which “aims to make explicit the motivation each of us has to engage in dialogue across deep disagreements” (ibid., 139). He defends this proposition by making explicit a set of core epistemic principles to which, on his account, all believers are at least implicitly committed. He then draws on these principles to develop his defense of the epistemic justification. In the process of discussing these principles, I will



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identify two potential problems. First, it is not clear to me that Talisse has motivated the claim that citizens should tolerate losing out morally when deliberation ends and a political decision must be made. Second, at least one core epistemic principle appears to be contentious. Taken together, these problems do not undermine Talisse’s defense of democracy tout court, but they do call into question the viability of his defense specifically of dialogical democracy. Following from the first-personal epistemology, Talisse offers a “folk epistemology” – an epistemology that is meant to be “useable in a rough and ready, practical way” (ibid., 82) to motivate an overriding commitment to dialogical democracy. The following five core principles clarify how the folk epistemology is intended to work: Principle 1: To believe some proposition p is to hold that p is true. Principle 2: To hold that p is true is generally to hold that the best reasons support p. Principle 3: To hold that p is supported by the best reasons is to hold that p is assertable. Principle 4: To assert that p is to enter into a social process of reason exchange. Principle 5: To engage in social processes of reason exchange is to at least implicitly adopt certain cognitive and dispositional norms related to one’s epistemic character. (ibid., 87–88) Principle 1 is intended to state something of a truism, albeit an important truism that Talisse rightly makes explicit. Principle 2 is central to the firstpersonal epistemology. Focusing self-consciously on ourselves as epistemic agents, we take ourselves to be proper believers. This entails that we view our beliefs as reason-responsive in the sense that they cohere with the best reasons available. Given that our beliefs are so supported, we should have no fear of publicly supporting them. They are assertable, to use Talisse’s shorthand. This does not entail that we be avowed lovers of debate or that we happily embrace the prospect of being subject to withering criticism. Talisse instead seeks to highlight that our beliefs have a certain characteristic – assertability – that makes them the proper subject of reason exchange. We have every reason to assume that the character of our beliefs entails that they can hold up to the strongest of criticisms. If this turns out not to be so, then we are placed in a position in which we cannot self-consciously hold onto the belief(s) in question. Talisse thus seeks to highlight that proper believing requires a commitment, even if it is implicit, to the integrity of belief. What we believe is of



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second-order importance in comparison to our assurance that we believe in a reason-responsive way. This is what motivates Principle 5, capping off the underpinnings of Talisse’s defense of the epistemic justification. Once the epistemic justification is in place, it follows directly that citizens should support democratic social and political institutions, including outlets for democratic deliberation, since such institutions most readily support our capacity to uphold the integrity of our beliefs. I now turn to my first concern. Talisse intends the epistemic justification to be sufficient to motivate a willingness to lose out in terms of one’s moral commitments when they are overridden within legitimate democratic political processes. But I am not convinced that Talisse has made a case for this proposition. The core principles are not designed in such a way that they stipulate how citizens should adjudicate ongoing differences that may remain at the point that deliberation ends. So while Talisse may at least partially resolve the paradox of democratic justification by motivating a commitment to democratic deliberation, it is not clear that he has sufficiently motivated a commitment to democratic governance. To clarify the problem Talisse’s argument faces, let us consider an example that he offers about the manner in which racists become radicalized because their claims are not generally given deliberative countenance. It is easy to imagine a situation in which they are given a full and fair hearing but see none of the policies they favor enacted. The racists have duly engaged in democratic deliberation but have lost out morally. Why should they be committed to democratic governance, especially since they can expect regularly to lose out (assuming we do not live in a racist society, which I admit may not be a particularly compelling assumption)? I confess that I do not see why they should be committed to democratic governance even if they commit to democratic deliberation. Any epistemic agent may have reason to do the latter, but no clear avenue is open to Talisse to vindicate doing the former. If I am correct, his assertion that the epistemic justification can fully resolve the paradox of democratic justification does not succeed. This is part of what makes Talisse’s conception of democracy practically unworkable. My second concern focuses on the viability of Principle 4, which strikes at Talisse’s claim that the epistemic justification is sufficient to motivate a commitment even to democratic deliberation. Recall the proposition highlighted by Principle 4: the assertion of a belief p commits us to engaging in the social process of exchanging reasons. Now recall the extended quote by Talisse that I cited above regarding the believer of the claim that euthanasia is always wrong. I noted that the believer could self-consciously maintain that they already know that this belief is true yet still commit to deliberating about how this belief should influence political decisions. So proper belief entails that selfconsciously believing that we know that p is true nevertheless requires reason exchange when it comes to applying p to actual policies.



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But there is a problem here. Talisse maintains that deference to figures of authority who we regard as reliable sources of information and guidance is consistent with being a responsible epistemic agent (ibid., 122). But it would seem that deference can rather easily undermine the commitment to engage in reason exchange – to democratically deliberate – when it comes to the political application of one’s beliefs. We are free to leave it up to trusted authority figures to wade through the details about which cases constitute euthanasia and which do not. We are in a position self-consciously to believe that we know the truth of p and also that we know that the decrees of our trusted authority are correct. We can apply p without deliberating because we can defer without reservation. Talisse may wish to highlight that there are acute risks associated with refusing to independently verify the guidance our trusted authority figures provide. That is, we should make every attempt to ensure that our “social epistemic system” is reliable. Epistemic dependence is risky, so we should take the necessary steps to minimize these risks. But this line of argumentation is of no obvious help to Talisse. According to the first-personal epistemology, we can self-consciously believe that we know that it is true that our social epistemic system is reliable. The believer in the immorality of euthanasia may be wholly convinced that they are indeed “informed by accurate assessments of the relevant moral and non-moral facts of the given case” (ibid., 141). And the only way I see for Talisse to call into question the responsibility of the epistemic agent who defers in the manner that that I have described is to assume a thirdpersonal epistemology rather than a first-personal epistemology. Talisse must charge the believer with failing to meet standards external to their system of belief. This is antithetical to the epistemic justification, which relies solely on principles that we self-consciously endorse. To be sure, we may be utterly self-deluded. We may quite clearly lack the competence to effectively vet our authority figures (see Estlund 2007, 226). But this must be regarded as beside the point. From our perspective, which is what matters, we may see absolutely no worry about being at epistemic risk when we defer and thereby bypass deliberating when determining how politically to apply our beliefs. Hence this upshot: so long as the epistemic justification is reliant on a first-personal epistemology, it is unclear that there exists a necessary inference from assertion to reason exchange.7 This renders Principle 4 questionable. Where does this leave Talisse’s attempt to overcome the paradox of democratic justification? Assuming that Principles 1 through 3 hold up, epistemic agents do have reason to endorse democratic institutions that protect the rights and liberties associated with freedom of expression, conscience, and association. This leaves Talisse in a position to defend an assertional democracy, as it were. All citizens, as epistemic agents, may arguably implicitly endorse the proposition that we should be free to assert beliefs, whatever they may be. But insofar as Principle 4 fails, our status as responsible epistemic agents is not undermined if we refuse to be open to others’ criticisms in cases in which we self-consciously believe that we know the truth regarding the



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reliability of trusted authority figures and our social epistemic system as a whole. We may engage in democratic deliberation if we so choose, but we have no necessary commitment to do so – at least on the basis of the first-personal epistemology and the core principles Talisse defends. If I am right, then his defense specifically of dialogical democracy fails. It too turns out to be practically unworkable, in terms of Talisse’s avowed aims rather than for reasons identified by Ott. NOTES 1. Ott does offer cursory remarks that are intended to undercut Talisse’s challenge to Deweyan democracy. I leave it those who wish to read Ott’s piece alongside Talisse’s work to judge the merits of Ott’s remarks. It is worth noting, though, that even if Talisse’s epistemic justification fails, Ott is unwarranted to claiming that Deweyan democracy succeeds. Ott offers no clear reason to accept such an entailment. First, that one epistemic conception of democracy fails does not necessitate that all do. Second, the fact that Dewey focuses on moral motivation applies equally to a host of other conceptions of democracy. Ott does not make clear why Dewey’s approach is uniquely preferable. Indeed, no competing moral conceptions of democracy are canvassed. 2. Ott himself never explicitly states the conception of democracy with which he is working. If his minimum requirements are Deweyan, then his entire argument begs the question: only a Deweyan conception of democracy can possibly satisfy Deweyan requirements. As such, I attribute these minimum requirements to him simply as a placeholder to show that, on his account, anyone who engages in fundamental value practices cannot hold even these (philosophically) uncontroversial commitments. 3. All quotes with italics contain original emphasis. 4. As Ott states, “‘Fundamental’ and ‘comprehensive’ are words with extreme connotations” (2011, 148). This proposition may be supported in part by his reference to the work of Ulf Zackariasson (2009), who contends that Rawls’s conceptualization of comprehensive doctrines is ultimately foundationalist. But Ott does not explain how being a foundationalist makes one a fundamentalist, a claim that any Millian liberal, for example, would find shocking. 5. See, for example, Antonio Damasio’s (1995) discussion of the somatic marker hypothesis. 6. See Talisse’s (2011b) discussion of “weak epistemological pluralism” for a fuller discussion of this issue. 7. Principle 4 could perhaps be vindicated were Talisse to draw on what Robert Brandom (1994) calls “deontic scorekeeping.” According to Brandom, when we make a claim we assume a specific sort of “deontic attitude” – an attitude in which we recognize ourselves as being bound to fulfill the dictates of a specifiable norm. To make a claim is to stake a claim to the truth of a proposition. We commit to being liable to demands for justification of what we have asserted. We assume responsibility for the justification of our assertions, for revealing how we are entitled to regard these assertions as true. Yet I assume that Talisse would reject reliance on Brandom’s considerations since doing so would tie the epistemic justification to the reasonably rejectable theory of meaning on which deontic scorekeeping is premised.



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REFERENCES

Brandom, Robert. 1994. Making It Explicit. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Damasio, Antonio. 1995. Descartes’ Error. New York: HarperCollins. Estlund, David. 2007. Democratic Authority. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Ott, Paul. 2011. “Moral Pluralism, Moral Motivation, and Democracy: A Critique of Talisse’s Epistemic Justification of Democracy,” Contemporary Pragmatism 8.2: 145– 162. Rawls, John. 2001. Justice as Fairness: A Restatement. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Talisse, Robert B. 2007. A Pragmatist Philosophy of Democracy. London and New York: Routledge. Talisse, Robert B. 2009. Democracy and Moral Conflict. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Talisse, Robert B. 2011a. “A Farewell to Deweyan Democracy,” Political Studies 59: 509–526. Talisse, Robert B. 2011b. Pluralism and Liberal Politics. London and New York: Routledge. Zackariasson, Ulf. 2009. “A Critique of Foundationalist Conceptions of Comprehensive Doctrine in the Religion of Politics Debate,” International Journal of Philosophy of Religion 65: 11–28.

Andrew F. Smith Department of English and Philosophy Drexel University Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104 United States