Identificar las causas de generación de residuos debido al diseño

people, the state suppressing, or at least discouraging, aberrant views on account of the fact that they do not express this equality. Such an attitude would, in the most extreme case, lead to the complete overlap of the private and public domains (and thus, as was argued above, a totalitarian state453_).

451 _{Cf. B. Spinoza, Tractatus Politicus, Ch. 3, § 5 (p. 286): “[…] quia imperii corpus unâ veluti mente duci debet, &} consequenter Civitatis voluntas pro omnium voluntate habenda est, id quod Civitas justum, & bonum esse decernit, tanquam ab unoquoque decretum esse, censendum est; atque adeò, quamvis subditus Civitatis decreta iniqua esse censeat, tenetur nihilominùs eadem exequi.” (“Because the body of the sovereignty is to be ruled as if by one mind and the will of the state is, consequently, to be taken to be the will of all, that which the state determines to be right and good is to be considered as if decreed by everyone, and therefore, however much the subject may judge the state decrees to be iniquitous, he is nonetheless bound to carry them out.”) (I have translated both ‘veluti’ and ‘tanquam’, I think justifiably, as ‘as if’ here; although one must avoid projecting one’s own thoughts on another’s line of reasoning, it would be difficult to read anything but a fictitious account here.) Incidentally, Rousseau, to whose thoughts these remarks bear a similarity, is more radical in this respect than Spinoza (e.g., J.-J. Rousseau, Du Contrat Social, Book 1, Ch. 7 (p. 22)), especially if his ideas concerning the

content of what he perceives to be the general will are taken into consideration (Du Contrat Social, Book 2, Ch. 1

(p. 31), Ch. 3 (pp. 35-37)). Such a view, presuming that a minority is necessarily mistaken (cf. note 203, supra), I

do not endorse, unless the general will is interpreted as a fiction. What complicates this issue is that ‘mistaken’

may be taken in two ways, first in the sense of ‘truth’, and second in the sense of what is most desirable. The majority may be mistaken in the first sense but not in the second, as what is most desirable is defined in a (liberal)

democratic state by what the majority considers to be such. Chapter 16 will elaborate on this issue.

452 _{In a similar vein, Kant distinguishes between the ‘juristische’ (juridical) and ‘ethische’ (ethical) laws of} freedom, the former regarding only external actions and their conformity to the law (Die Metaphysik der Sitten,

pp. 214, 219 (cf. notes 178 and 179, supra). As he says further on (p. 225), “Die Übereinstimmung einer

Handlung mit dem Pflichtgesetze ist die Gesetzmäßigkeit (legalitas) – die der Maxime der Handlung mit dem

Gesetze die Sittlichkeit (moralitas) derselben.” (“The conformity of an action with the law of duty is legality; that

of the maxim of an action with the law is its morality.”) What Kant argues with respect to ‘moral’ duties (on the

basis of considerations such as those presented in chapter 5) constitutes a worldview.

453 _{It is crucial that one acknowledge the totalitarian character of this state of affairs, and that one not be led} astray by an outcome one deems desirable. In other words, the fact that the equality mentioned is deemed

desirable does not mean that the process that is intent on forcing people to acknowledge it is not, for that reason, totalitarian. The universal acknowledgement of the equality of men and women that follows in the case of the example just given (forgoing here the fact that acknowledgement cannot be enforced, just as no one can be forced to believe something) may indeed be considered something desirable, but it comes at the expense of losing the freedom to express (or in very extreme – totalitarian – cases even preserve) one’s own viewpoint, which

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The example I presented did not coincidentally concern equality. If my analysis of ‘equality’ is correct, it would be doubly unwarranted for a state to intrude on a private domain by imposing its view454 _{that equality in the sense of a reflection of ‘human dignity’ is} ‘morally right’ on people that oppose such a view. The basic reason would be that the state should abstain from imposing anything that transgresses the minimum requirements for a liberal democratic state to exist. Apart from that, equal treatment by the state of its citizens means that the citizens should – equally – be allowed to hold whatever views they wish, irrespective of their contents. Forbidding some views on the basis of the fact that these are deemed reproachable would mean an unequal treatment, which is not justified, at least not at this level.

Once actual consequences that cannot reasonably be ignored follow from a (world)view, these consequences must of course be prevented and penalized – at that level, an

unequal treatment is justified, namely, between those who act in a harmful way such that it cannot reasonably be ignored by those affected by such acts and those who do not. That has nothing to do, however, with a condemnation of the views themselves, which is, as far as the

state is concerned, not justified.455

13.8 Summary and relation to chapter 14

The fact that a specification of basic equality – the most viable candidate being basic rationality – and, with it, prescriptive equality must be acknowledged by all citizens in a liberal democratic state means that they must act in accordance with the laws that concretize the allotment of the rights granted on the basis of formal equality, for otherwise the ignore principle would not be observed, but it does not follow from this that they should also be convinced of the correctness of this specification of basic equality, and they may use opportunities to – democratically – change the legislation. This issue will be revisited in chapter 16. The alternative would entail that the political domain would unjustifiably interfere with the private domains, to such an extent that in the most extreme case, the state would cease to be a liberal democratic state. After all, the freedom to think is seriously jeopardized if states demand of citizens that they not only act in accordance with

force an outlook on people, but I would in addition point out that some people may consider such an intrusion on the private domain sufficient justification to (violently) resist a government implementing such policies. 454 _{It would be difficult to argue that the state, apart from those that govern the people, should have any view at} all, as was indicated in chapter 12. Still, I am not using this space to cavil about semantic matters (besides, one might metaphorically speak thus) but would rather point out that a state need not acknowledge such equality. (Since some specification of basic equality must in any case be acknowledged by citizens in a liberal democratic state, at least insofar as the outward acts are concerned, the difference will in practice be nonexistent.)

455 _{This dichotomy is described relatively neatly here compared with its practical manifestation. The following} example should suffice to illustrate the difficulty. It would be difficult (and arguably undesirable) to forbid a member of parliament, or even a representative of the government, to express his opinion with regard to a view he considers abject.

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prescriptive equality’s demands – which may be justifiably imposed – but agree with the foundations from which such demands stem, which is all the more problematic if these foundations constitute a worldview. In light of what was argued in this chapter, some alternatives appear difficult to accept. Two such alternatives will be inquired in the following chapters, namely, those proposed by Rawls and Habermas, respectively.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

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