Democratic Theory and Critical Ethical Reflection.

This paper proposes 'critical ethical reflection' as an alternative to the standard mode of normative democratic theory. It suggests that normative democratic theory has the potential to become self-undermining and ideological. Critical ethical reflection starts not from the question of ideal conditions for the expression of public autonomy, but from the non-ideal conditions within which a collective will must be formed. This organizes democratic theory around the question of praxis, and in turn suggests that collective freedom can be expressed in the negative, as the determinate negation of specific forms of unfreedom, rather than just in the positive, as discussion oriented towards agreement. From this standpoint, the reconstructive tasks of democratic theory are not to develop procedures of rational justification, but to articulate concrete situations of wrong and unfreedom. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]