PANEL 14 /// UNDER EXTREME CIRCUMSTANCES. HISTORICAL AND NORMATIVE PERSPECTIVES ON PUBLIC INTEREST IN TIMES OF EMERGENCY
CONVENORS: DANIELE SANTORO, JOÃO CARDOSO ROSAS AND PAULO ANTUNES
All inquiries about the panel should be sent to [email protected], [email protected] or [email protected]
The discussants in this panel will include Daniele Archibugi (CNRS, Italy, and Birkbeck College, University of London).
This panel is part of the project "The Public Interest: A Politico-Philosophical Investigation", funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (EXPL/FER-ETC/1226/2021).
Political uncertainty peaks under extreme circumstances, when democratic decision-making often defers pragmatic calculations dictated by governments and their experts. In the wake of 9/11 and the ensuing war on terror, political and legal theorists have insisted on models of balance or trade-off to adjudicate conflicting normative claims about security. More recently, appeals to public interest have been made during the pandemic to adjudicate between the competing goods of public safety, public health, and individual freedom. In this panel, we focus on contributions that deal with both the historical reconstruction and the normative theorization public interest principles. We are particularly interested in discussing the historical roots of these principles in the liberal, utilitarian, and republican thought, and the models that can improve our understanding of public interest in exceptional circumstances, when conflicts between individual rights and public goods become manifest.
Among the questions that we would like to address are the following:
All inquiries about the panel should be sent to [email protected], [email protected] or [email protected]
The discussants in this panel will include Daniele Archibugi (CNRS, Italy, and Birkbeck College, University of London).
This panel is part of the project "The Public Interest: A Politico-Philosophical Investigation", funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (EXPL/FER-ETC/1226/2021).
Political uncertainty peaks under extreme circumstances, when democratic decision-making often defers pragmatic calculations dictated by governments and their experts. In the wake of 9/11 and the ensuing war on terror, political and legal theorists have insisted on models of balance or trade-off to adjudicate conflicting normative claims about security. More recently, appeals to public interest have been made during the pandemic to adjudicate between the competing goods of public safety, public health, and individual freedom. In this panel, we focus on contributions that deal with both the historical reconstruction and the normative theorization public interest principles. We are particularly interested in discussing the historical roots of these principles in the liberal, utilitarian, and republican thought, and the models that can improve our understanding of public interest in exceptional circumstances, when conflicts between individual rights and public goods become manifest.
Among the questions that we would like to address are the following:
- What are the historical roots of public interest, and which paradigms can be identified in the history of political thought?
- How is the notion of public interest conceptualized in the post-war political philosophy?
- What conception of public interest should govern decisions in extreme conditions?
- Under what conditions deference to expertise is justified?
- Does dissent in democracy represent a public interest value?
