Cardozo Law Review
Abstract
In recent decades, categories like ,"human nature," "universal reason," and "rational autonomous subject" increasingly have been questioned. From different standpoints, a variety of thinkers have criticized the ideas of a universal human nature, of a universal canon of rationality through which that human nature could be known, as well as the possibility of an unconditional universal truth. Such a critique of Enlightenment's universalism and rationalism, which is sometimes referred to as "postmodernism," has been presented by some authors, for example, Jirgen Habermas, as constituting a threat to the modem democratic project. They consider that the link existing between the democratic ideal of the Enlightenment and its rationalistic and universalistic perspective is such that, rejecting the latter, necessarily jeopardizes the former.
In this Essay, I take issue with this view and defend the opposite thesis. Indeed, I argue that only in the context of a political theory that takes account of the critique of essentialism-the crucial contribution of the so-called postmodernist approach-is it possible to formulate the aims of a radical democratic politic in a way that makes room for the contemporary proliferation of political spaces and the multiplicity of democratic demands.
Keywords
Democracy, Political Systems and Governments, European Court of Human Rights, International Law, Human Rights Law
Disciplines
Human Rights Law | International Law | Law
Recommended Citation
Chantal Mouffe,
Democracy and Pluralism: A Critique of the Rationalist Approach,
16
Cardozo L. Rev.
1533
(1995).
Available at:
https://larc.cardozo.yu.edu/clr/vol16/iss5/4