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Full Idea
For liberals the basis of state legitimacy is a shared sense of justice, not a shared conception of the good.
Gist of Idea
Liberal state legitimacy is based on a belief in justice, not in some conception of the good life
Source
Will Kymlicka (Community [1993], 'legitimacy')
Book Ref
'A Companion to Contemporary Political Phil', ed/tr. Goodin,R.E/Pettit,Philip [Blackwell 1995], p.375
A Reaction
For a liberal state to work, the citizens have to roughly believe in the core values of liberalism, which are primarily freedom and equality (and hence justice).
| 20566 | Hobbes says the people voluntarily give up their sovereignty, in a contract with a ruler [Hobbes, by Oksala] |
| 19930 | Sovereignty must include the power to make people submit to it [Spinoza] |
| 19787 | People accept the right to be commanded, because they themselves wish to command [Rousseau] |
| 20567 | Rousseau insists that popular sovereignty needs a means of expressing consent [Rousseau, by Oksala] |
| 19801 | Sovereignty is the exercise of the general will, which can never be delegated [Rousseau] |
| 19805 | Just as people control their limbs, the general-will state has total control of its members [Rousseau] |
| 19818 | Political laws are fundamental, as they firmly organise the state - but they could still be changed [Rousseau] |
| 19848 | The sovereignty does not appoint the leaders [Rousseau] |
| 23046 | States only have full authority if they heed the claims of human fellowship [Green,TH] |
| 23418 | Liberal state legitimacy is based on a belief in justice, not in some conception of the good life [Kymlicka] |
| 20086 | Nowadays sovereignty (once the basis of a state) has become relative [Reybrouck] |
| 20608 | Unjust institutions may be seen as just; are they legitimate if just but seen as unjust? [Tuckness/Wolf] |