Alessandro Ferrara

Autenticità riflessiva. Il progetto della modernità dopo la svolta linguistica

Alessandro Ferrara explains what he terms 'the democratic horizon' and reviews the challenges under which democracies must operate.

Hyperpluralism and the Renewal of Political Liberalism

The Democratic Horizon

During the twentieth century, the view that assertions and norms are valid insofar as they respond to principles independent of all local and temporal contexts came under attack from two perspectives: the partiality of translation and the intersubjective constitution of the self, understood as responsive to recognition. Defenses of universalism have by and large taken the form of a thinning out of substantive universalism into various forms of proceduralism. Alessandro Ferrara instead launches an entirely different strategy for transcending the particularity of context without contradicting our pluralistic intuitions: a strategy centered on the exemplary universalism of judgment. Whereas exemplarity has long been thought to belong to the domain of aesthetics, this book explores the other uses to which it can be put in our philosophical predicament, especially in the field of politics. After defining exemplarity and describing how something unique can possess universal significance, Ferrara addresses the force exerted by exemplarity, the nature of the judgment that discloses exemplarity, and the way in which the force of the example can bridge the difference between various contexts. Drawing not only on Kant's Critique of the Power of Judgment but also on the work of Hannah Arendt, John Rawls, Ronald Dworkin, and Jürgen Habermas, Ferrara outlines a view of exemplary validity that is applicable to today's central philosophical issues, including public reason, human rights, radical evil, sovereignty, republicanism and liberalism, and religion in the public sphere.

Explorations in the Paradigm of Judgment

The Force of the Example

Reflective Authenticity draws on the work of Habermas, Kant, Taylor and Heidegger amongst others to present a compelling picture of how we think of modernity today.

Rethinking the Project of Modernity

Reflective Authenticity

Justice and Judgement is a comprehensive introduction to theories of judgement in contemporary political and moral philosophy. The book offers a critical examination of judgement in the recent works of Rawls, Habermas, Ackerman, Michelman and Dworkin, including an historical overview of the judgement model in contemporary political philosophy; the function of the constitution; and deliberative democracy. The book concludes with a discussion of universalism and contemporary liberalism and the judgement view of justice.

The Rise and the Prospect of the Judgement Model in Contemporary Political Philosophy

Justice and Judgement

This book provides an original framework to assess public investment policies co-financed by Union (Federal) governments. This framework is applied to two important case studies: the EU Cohesion Policy and the US Federal Investment Policies. Cost-Benefit Analysis of Multi-Level Government sheds light on a number of outstanding issues of economic theory by extending the theory of shadow prices, and provides guidance to real-world decision makers. In particular, the following questions are addressed: Under which theoretical circumstances, higher level government intervention in Member States through investment policies is justified? Is there any new welfare economics rationale underpinning interregional equity? What is the relationship between interregional and interpersonal income distribution? How can social exclusion be included in cost-benefit tests? How can higher level government budget funds to investment policies before it bargains programming documents with lower tiers of government by considering also their response function? In these circumstances, how can optimal matching rates be derived assuming binding and non binding budgetary constraints? Can such a theoretical framework be applied for guidance to real-world decision makers? The book will be of interest to policy makers, postgraduate students and researchers in cost-benefit analysis, welfare economics, public choice, public finance, multi-level government economics, and income distribution issues.

The Case of EU Cohesion Policy and of US Federal Investment Policies

Cost-Benefit Analysis of Multi-level Government

Reflective Authenticity: Rethinking the Project of Modernity is a challenging consideration of what remains of ambitious Enlightenment ideas such as democracy, freedom and universality in the wake of relativist, postmodern thought. Do clashes over gender, race and culture mean that universal notions such as justice or rights no longer apply outside our own communities? Do our actions lose their authenticity if we act on principles that transcend the confines of our particular communities ? Alessandro Ferrara proposes a path out of this impasse via the notion of reflective authenticity. Drawing on Aristotle, Kants concept of reflective judgement and Heideggers theory of reflexive self-grounding, Reflective Authenticity: Rethinking the Project of Modernity takes a fresh look at the state of Critical Theory today and the sustainability of postmodern politics.

Fred J. Evans

This study on the contemporary relevance of Rousseau's ethical and social thought, the "ethic of authenticity," responds to the tensions of modern morality and rivals the answers generated by the more mainstream tradition of the "ethic of autonomy."

Alessandro Ferrara

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