Truth and Power in Modern Politics

It cannot be denied that there are still in existence today important currents of thought—such as “deconstruction” — that shy away from the idea of a politics of reason. These approaches suspect the latter to be biased in various ways, toward both the dominant culture and prevailing social groups. Nonetheless, on the whole it can still be said that the mainstream of political philosophy is and wants to be rationalist and democratic. Most contemporary philosophers are committed to the idea that democracy is the best or even the only conceivable regime for our times, and that it requires not only majority rule but also the prevalence of rational argumentation over mere decision or compromise. The comparison of two eminent authors, Ronald Dworkin and Jürgen Habermas, demonstrates that this tendency is visible in continental thought as well as in the English-speaking world. The former thinker is a legal philosopher whose central purpose is to go beyond legal positivism and to show that democracy requires the institutionalised superiority of principles over rules (Dworkin 1977, pp. 22–28, 71–80). This, he holds, gives the courts the power to interpret the law, and assumes that, even in “hard” legal cases, there can be only one “right answer” (Dworkin 1985, pp. 119–145). The latter thinker begins his reflections with a radical critique first of Max Weber (cf. Habermas 1973, Chap. 8), and then of the ‘decisionist’ legacy of Carl Schmitt. From this starting-point, he develops a rich work, which follows an evolution from Marxism to left-wing liberalism, all the while holding to the central thesis that true modernity has always implied superiority of truth over will or authority (cf. Habermas 1989, p. 82).

This position, held in common by Dworkin and Habermas, can be contrasted not only with contemporary legal positivism but also with the philosophy of one the founders of modern political philosophy, Thomas Hobbes. Hobbes is actually the best counter-example of what Dworkin and Habermas want to promote. A radical sceptic in morals and seemingly dogmatic in theoretical philosophy, Hobbes's aim is to found the authority of the absolutist State by denying the claims of alleged truth-holders that they define the principles or rules of the political and legal order. However, among the heirs of Hobbes and the advocates of legal positivism one can also find many true supporters of democracy. These, as much as him, are sceptics in moral philosophy and suspicious about the idea of truth-based politics; they can nevertheless be considered good interpreters of some aspects of the democratic spirit.