1st Edition

The Democratic Spirit of Law

Edited By Dominique Schnapper Copyright 2016

    In this major new work, Dominique Schnapper continues her investigation into changes in contemporary democracy. Although she concentrates on the French example, The Democratic Spirit of Law concerns all democratic societies.

    Schnapper warns against the danger of corrupting the "principles," as defined by Montesquieu, on which democracy is based. If democracy becomes "extreme," all its founding principles risk being corrupted. Respect for institutions is necessary for freedom to be effective. Furthermore, if democrats cease to distinguish between facts and values, religion and politics, politics and the judiciary, knowledge and opinion, and knowledge and intuition, they will sink into absolute relativism or a nihilism that threatens the very values on which democratic society is based.

    By pointing out the danger of corruption inherent in the democratic promise of freedom, equality, and happiness, the author provides intellectual weapons not only to understand, but also to defend democracy, the only system in history, despite its limits and failures, that has humanely organized human societies. Democracy's future depends on citizens' preservation of the founding spirit of the democratic order: recognition of others, and free, reasonable, and controlled criticism of legitimate institutions.

    Acknowledgments

    Preface by Mark Lilla

    Introduction
    "Well-Regulated" Democracy versus "Extreme"
    Democracy
    The Two Critiques
    A Sociological Project
    Risks of Deviation and "Corruption"

    1 The Temptation of the Unlimited
    From Autonomy to the Rejection of All Dependence
    Autonomy and Independence
    Autonomy and Collective Constraints
    From Citizenship to Democracy of the Intimate
    The Extension
    Internalization
    From Scientific Progress to the World Without Limits
    The Illusion of Omnipotence
    Time's Discordance

    2 From Liberty to License
    The Critical Relationship Toward Institutions
    Contestation
    From Marriage to PACS and Back Again
    "Free" Choices
    Difficult Transmission
    The Child and the School: Between the Republic and Business
    The Museum as a Cultural Enterprise
    Representation in Crisis?
    To Bypass or To Complement?
    The Dream of Ultra-Democracy
    Disintegration of Republican Transcendence
    Return through Technology?

    3 From Equality to Indistinction
    Indistinction of Orders
    Separation of the Political and of the Ethno-Religious
    From Autonomy to Confusion?
    The Rejection of Boundaries
    Indistinction of Persons
    The Utopia of Generalized Exchanges
    The Pure and the Impure
    Animal and Human
    Indistinction of Values
    From Relative Relativism to Absolute Relativism
    Democratic Tolerance

    4 Criticism of Criticism
    The Achievements of the Republican Promise
    More Freedom
    More Tolerance
    Richer and Less Unequal
    Society of Humiliation
    Integration through Individualism?
    Face Up to Failure
    Less Poor and More Humiliated

    Conclusion
    Historic Destinies
    Its Own Worst Enemy?

    Bibliography

    Index

    Biography

    Dominique Schnapper