LEGAL THEORY WORKSHOP
presents
Alon Harel
Hebrew University Faculty of Law
Vox Populi Vox Dei: Populism, Elitism and Private Reason
Friday, September 21, 2018
12:30 - 2:00
Solarium (room FA2), Falconer Hall
84 Queen's Park
Populists often claim that representatives represent the people by complying with their preferences and judgments. As Donald Trump argued in the National Republican Convention, he represents 'the voice of the people'. Elitists, by contrast, argue that representatives are bound to decide wisely or correctly rather than conform blindly to popular sentiments.
This Article argues that the populist and elitist view of representation are both false. It argues that representation indeed requires the representative to endorse the perspective and worldview of the represented. But, often endorsing the perspective of the represented requires the representative to act against the actual convictions of the represented. More specifically, to look at the world 'from the perspective of the represented' the representative’s decisions ought to satisfy the condition of justifiability-to the represented, namely, they must rest on reasoning that is accessible to the represented.
This understanding of representation has broader implications for political theory. It implies that private reason has important role to play in democratic politics: the constituency’s basic convictions should be taken into account in the reasoning of the representatives. Yet the duty of representation, that requires that the representatives' reasons be accessible to the represented, is only a pro tanto duty that can be overridden by conflicting normative considerations.
Professor Alon Harel is the Mizock professor of law at the Hebrew University and a member of the Center of Rationality, Hebrew University.
His areas of research include moral and political philosophy, legal theory, constitutional law, criminal law and law and economics. Most recently he published Why Law Matters (OUP, 2014) where he argued that legal institutions and procedures have intrinsic rather than merely instrumental value. He is currently working on a book on the morality of privatization.
Professor Harel was a visiting professor at Columbia Law School, University of Chicago Law School, Texas Law School, Boston University law School and a fellow at the Kennedy School (the program on Ethics and the Professions) and at the University of Toronto Ethics Centre. Professor Harel will be a fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin in 2019-20.
To be added to the paper distribution list, please send an email to events.law@utoronto.ca. For further information, please contact Professor Larissa Katz (larissa.katz@utoronto.ca) and Professor Sophia Moreau (sr.moreau@utoronto.ca).
