Pluralismo, política e julgamento: para um projeto crítico à luz da filosofia de Charles Taylor

Abstract

The purpose of this doctoral thesis consists in defending an alternative for the political dilemmas related to the issue of incomparability within specific communities or among different communities - an issue which is often discussed in the context of contemporary pluralism. This line of thought is inspired by the concepts of constitutive goods, strong evaluations and articulation, as defined by the Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor, and it is also an attempt to think about a political science project which adopts motivation as an inescapable element for practical philosophy. Incomparability, that is, the impossibility of using appropriate criteria for judging specific practices which incurs in public repercussions, raises the question of up to what extent it is possible to rationally evaluate and deliberate on distinct modes of life, which sometimes exclude each other. This set of problems can be strongly identified in the so-called liberal-communitarian debate of the 80 s, and its developments are easily spotted in the discussions on multiculturalism which arose in the 90 s, as well as in more recent dilemmas regarding the role of religion within the public sphere. Such discussions have brought about not only diverging points on the issue of judgment; they have also highlighted a more central debate regarding the standing that politics is able to take with regard to our situation, as well as the categories through which we grasp the phenomenon of pluralism. Under the epithet of communitarian, Taylor s theoretical approach arises as an interesting pathway to be taken, since it doesn t subject itself neither to a relativistic perspective (the impossibility of finding appropriate criteria), nor to a strong universalism (which is based on general criteria established prior to the practices), by developing an ontology established upon the conflict of competing constitutive goods, without overlooking the phenomenon of pluralism. In fact, this happens when, confronted with diverging and rivaling practices, there is, either implicitly or explicitly, a position regarding how and from where we are able to take a critical stance towards the actual pluralism, since movements, discourses and relationships are built on behalf of what presents itself as being effectively valuable or worthy of respect and admiration. In this sense, any attempt at performing evaluations is automatically linked to our understanding of ourselves, of the world and of our relationship with the world. Taking into account our sources, from which action itself arises, a critical project requires attentive consideration, and this can be offered by Taylor s reasoning, especially with regard to the concepts mentioned above.