Academic
Understanding Legitimacy : Political Theory and Neo-Calvinist Social Thought
Outline : The question of political legitimacy asks: Even if laws are imperfect, what makes them legitimate? According to the regnant theory of justificatory liberalism, legitimate laws are based on reasons everyone can accept. But Philip D. Shadd argues that this view effectively delegitimizes all laws, undercuts basic rights, and treats citizens paternalistically. Where should we turn instead? Shadd proposes we turn to neo-Calvinism, a variant of Christian social thought founded by Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920). On Shadd's neo-Calvinist account, legitimacy is a function of preventing basic wrongs. These wrongs are violations of individual and institutional natural rights, are tied to basic human flourishing, and are not socially constructed but objective. While based in a religious tradition of thought, only by theorizing legitimacy along the lines Shadd suggests can we avoid the mistakes of justificatory liberalism and better understand legitimacy. Understanding Legitimacy: Political Theory and Neo-Calvinist Social Thought will be of particular interest to both nonreligious and religious theorists who focus on political legitimacy, political theology, public reason, and justificatory liberalism and those who study the work of John Rawls as well as those concerned with church-state separation, religious freedom, and religious diversity,
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