In the context of a global illiberal resurgence and a national-conservative backlash, celebrated even by some scholars as heralding the coming age of post-liberalism, two political philosophers from the University of York, Gabriele Badano and Alasia Nuti, have constructed a “manual” for those seeking to politically defend the still-existing liberal democratic order against its challengers. They do not do so, however, by producing a political manifesto accessible to a wider audience. Instead, they offer a sophisticated philosophical explanation of how to contain unreasonable views in liberal democratic societies, thus helping them in their self-defence. The book is primarily aimed at scholars in the fields of political theory and philosophy, while firmly grounded in John Rawls’s political liberalism which they consider “a transparently sectarian framework in the sense that it explicitly abandons the undesirable and impossible project of justifying fundamental political decisions to all” (p. 69).
Badano and Nuti argue that political liberalism can still be appealing because it is founded on two key principles: the idea of society as a mutually acceptable system of cooperation among free and equal persons, and the acknowledgment of the fact of reasonable pluralism. Although this type of liberalism typically speaks the language of (human) rights and (civil) liberties, the authors remind us that it also encompasses some important duties. To make this framework more robust – and simultaneously quite demanding – they propose several new types of duties, addressing both individuals and communities. But let us consider this in more detail later.
The authors argue that a reformulation of political liberalism is necessary due to the global rise of illiberal and right-wing populist forces that are hostile to it. According to Badano and Nuti, a genuine threat to liberal democracy emerges when three conditions are cumulatively met. First, there must be a sizable minority in society that has completely lost faith in liberal democratic values. Second, this minority must be drawn to authoritarian alternatives, such as a strong leader who disregards the authority of parliament. And third, political parties and movements representing this alternative must gain real power (pp. 126 and 138).
When contemplating the foundational principles of their project of the reformulation of political liberalism, Badano and Nuti presuppose the existence of non-ideal societies, which they term “minimally liberal societies.” These are societies where civil and political liberties are protected for a prolonged period of time but fall short of Rawlsian well-ordered societies; i.e. they fail to provide full protection of these liberties on a universal basis. In such societies, a reasonable disagreement among inhabitants about difficult matters can be consistently expected. However, unreasonable disagreement also exists alongside its reasonable counterpart, represented by “at least some unreasonable citizens” (p. 35). The authors subtly remind us that, despite being labelled non-ideal, these societies include certain real-world liberal democratic countries of the global West – in other words, the Euro-Atlantic area. By framing their discussion in this way, the authors engage with the ongoing scholarly debate on ideal and non-ideal theories.
As mentioned above, the main arguments of the book are drawn from the toolkit of Rawlsian political liberalism, including the idea of public reason. In relation to it, two categories of citizens are introduced; those in an unspecified privileged position and those suffering from serious injustice, i.e. the oppressed citizens. While the former group is expected to comply with public reason (the first duty indirectly ascribed to them), the latter may occasionally deviate from it in the forms of disruptive and violent behaviour, and thus is relieved of the Rawlsian duty of civility. Moreover, those in a privileged position are burdened by another moral duty: to join the less privileged (i.e. the victims of severe injustice) in their fights and protests, but only if duly authorized by them.
Another duty introduced by Badano and Nuti is what they call the duty of pressure, which falls on common citizens in non-public forums, such as families and work teams. This duty requires citizens to engage with their fellow citizens “attracted by unreasonable views in ways that are tailored to their specific features” (p. 104). These views may be represented by right-wing populism, understood as a form of anti-pluralism that denies the status of equal persons to many who should be regarded as equals. Individuals supporting this form of populism should be regarded as “morally blameworthy” (p. 134). The duty of pressure is considered an imperfect moral duty, meaning that citizens “can never be coerced into complying with it” (p. 129).
The rationale for this duty is based on the presupposition that if ordinary citizens sufficiently confront their unreasonable peers (particularly those leaning towards or openly supporting right-wing populism) and both urge and push them to reconsider their views, an overall societal reasonableness can be achieved, thereby making liberal democracy safer. Put differently, this duty relies on the idea that unreasonable citizens will be consistently and continuously exposed to the attitudes and reasoning of their reasonable counterparts, which could prompt a re-examination of their unreasonable political views. This encompasses both a duty to talk to the unreasonable and a duty to listen to them. Nevertheless, Badano and Nuti appear overly optimistic in their proposal of the duty of pressure, noting that “there is room for a reasonable hope” (p. 122) that the spread of unreasonable ideas like right-wing populism could somehow be reversed.
Let us now proceed to another duty presented by Badano and Nuti, i.e. the duty to transform public reason, which should be applied “only in circumstances where reasonableness has been losing support” (p. 137). When formulating this duty, the authors display an unusually high level of scholarly self-confidence, labelling their argumentation as “completely original and theoretically interesting” (p. 140). The duty presupposes that reasonable partisans are creative when offering reasonable conceptions of justice that go beyond the scope of society at large. The aim appears to be the same as in the case of the aforementioned duty of pressure, i.e. to engage with those attracted by unreasonable views “by using their knowledge of the specific life history and belief system of each interlocutor to persuade them that those views are wrong” (p. 140). Consequently, the authors formulate three types of justification for employing the duty (p. 141).
The sixth chapter of the book goes beyond the rather narrowly defined collectives, such as families, groups of friends, or work teams. In it, Badano and Nuti present a peculiar case of subnational units, such as municipalities, provinces, and regions, in their role in containing unreasonable political views. This is part of their reformulation of Rawls’s philosophical project because – as they assume – his political liberalism disregards these kinds of units. They argue that the duty of containment is ascribable to these units “when liberal democracy is deconsolidating in their country” (p. 159).
This duty can take at least two forms. The first involves reacting against broadly defined illegitimate measures and laws adopted by the central government. This is referred to as the duty of reasonable non-cooperation. The second form, called the duty of political liberal prefiguration, “revolves around non-coercively moving unreasonable local inhabitants towards greater reasonableness by showcasing the possibility and desirability of a society working as a system of mutual cooperation between free and equal citizens” (p. 161). In both cases, the key term for understanding how these duties could work is decentralization. This means that a central state authority empowers local units sufficiently to contain unreasonable views of their citizens.
The former presupposes that central governments in illegitimate societies (!), that is “those that are not even reasonably just” (p. 170) provide sufficient autonomy to the nation’s local units, enabling them to act as independent and effective agents of containment. These units are permitted to act accordingly if the central government “is (at least partially) run by parties and leaders pursuing an unreasonable agenda” (p. 163). When applying the duty of reasonable non-cooperation, the units are expected to: (i) refuse to implement new directives imposed by the central government, (ii) pass policies that effectively reject centrally made decisions, (iii) use their discretion more subtly in the service of reasonableness without directly violating such decisions, or (iv) adopt policies that make it harder for the central government to achieve illegitimate goals. At this point, the issue of fundamental rights comes to the forefront. Badano and Nuti note that all this can be applied only when centrally made decisions, i.e. laws and policies, “infringe on persons’ basic rights and opportunities” (p. 168; see also p. 179), as protecting these rights is, quite unsurprisingly, of utmost importance for political liberals.
The latter appears to be a translation of the aforementioned duty to transform public reason from relatively narrow groups of people to larger units, such as municipalities. The main difference lies in the fact that, while families or groups of friends typically lack formal internal hierarchy and do not produce binding acts for their members, local units do so and are strictly governed by democratic principles. Furthermore, while the duty of pressure is, simply put, about pushing unreasonable citizens to re-examine their views within smaller, private forums consisting of acquaintances, the duty of political liberal prefiguration, on the other hand, focuses on “encouraging contacts and relations between members of different groups to dispel those biases, negative stereotypes, and feelings of hostility and distrust that fuel unreasonable views about certain social groups” (pp. 174–175) at the municipal level.
After introducing the main points of the authors’ argument, let us now focus on some of its shortcomings. However, pointing them out does not imply that the proposed theoretical framework is entirely unworkable. Badano and Nuti themselves provide numerous viable real-world political examples, particularly when describing the fundamentals of what they call the duty of reasonable non-cooperation and the duty of political liberal prefiguration at the municipal level.
When proposing an impressive list of novel duties, Badano and Nuti position their project somewhere between those who advocate stricter measures against illiberalism – primarily associated with proponents of militant democracy – and strict Rawlsians, who insist on an abstract conception of a well-ordered society. However, their project seems to lack a sound theory of persuasion, which appears to be a key concept for the entire framework of duties. In particular, the reasonable citizens expected to fulfil both the duty of pressure and the duty to transform public reason are unlikely to be sufficiently trained in the art of (political) persuasion. Therefore, at the very least, a brief outline of appropriate persuasive techniques applicable in minimally liberal societies would enrich this philosophical project.
Moreover, as noted in several places (e.g. on pp. 66, 68, and 69), the authors presuppose that political liberal theorists, rather than directly engaging in the task of assessing and selecting the most justified foundational principles, will pass this responsibility on to others – whether ordinary citizens, fellow philosophers, or those working within broader public philosophy. They should thus refrain from determining which justification is the most valid, instead leaving it to external deliberation to contrast different perspectives and establish which foundation, if any, should be regarded as true. In doing so, they shift the burden of identifying the best grounds for reasonableness onto those outside the domain of political theory itself.
However, the idea that political liberal theorists should delegate the task of evaluating foundational justifications could suggest an abdication of their own intellectual responsibility. If political theorists recognize multiple competing foundations, why should they refrain from assessing their relative merits? If anything, their expertise should make them particularly well-suited to undertake this task rather than offloading it to others. This move risks reducing political theory to a descriptive cataloguing of available justifications rather than an engaged practice of evaluating and refining them.
Furthermore, if theorists refuse to take a stance on the justification for liberalism, it may weaken liberalism’s ability to respond to its critics, especially those who argue that it is merely an arbitrary set of valueless opinions imposed by historical contingencies rather than a robust normative framework. If political theorists surrender this responsibility, the risk is that foundational debates will be dominated not by those best suited to engage in them, but by those with the loudest voices or the most institutional power. This risks making liberalism parasitic on whatever justifications happen to emerge in public discourse, potentially undermining its claims to stability and legitimacy.
Finally, the greatest contemporary challengers to the liberal democratic project – namely right-wing populism and self-declared national conservatism (which is not directly mentioned in the book) – seem to be severely underestimated by the authors. I would challenge the assertion that right-wing populism supporters do not consider themselves enemies of liberalism, as claimed by Badano and Nuti (e.g. on pp. 108 and 112). The number of right-wing populists and “national conservatives” in politics, media, and even business has been growing for several years. They do not conceal their hostility toward liberal institutions, whether domestic or international, nor their opposition to the very concept of an open society – that is, one that is pluralist, tolerant, inclusive, equal, and diverse. Openly illiberal positions are not uncommon among them. One could object that the mere persuasion strategies encompassed in the aforementioned framework of duties will not be sufficient to counter these challengers.
Gabriele Badano and Alasia Nuti dedicate the book to their son Alessandro, wishing him “to end up living in a world populated by fewer unreasonable people than we have today” (p. viii). I wish the same for him and all of us. It should be noted that the authors have made a great deal of effort in constructing the framework for containing illiberal and antidemocratic views, aiming to make the above-mentioned wish more feasible. In any case, much work still needs to be done in the field of political theory and practical politics. Otherwise, there is a risk that reasonable citizens will one day find themselves in the minority, and political liberalism will weaken to the point that it ceases to be a broadly desired conception – the best one we could hope for as humanity.