Teorías de la Justicia y de la Legitimación: Una reivindicación de la sustantividad en las Teorías de la Justicia

Abstract

This article discusses a general class of theories that attempt to base a normative account
of justice on consent-giving procedures. Contemporary political philosophers
offer many different accounts of justice, but at present consent-based theories are
probably the most popular. Notwithstanding their (often understandable) appeal, I
will argue they cannot possibly succeed. All consent-based theories trade on a crucial
ambiguity as to whether they are supposed to be understood as voluntarist accounts
of justice on the one hand, or as rationalist accounts on the other. In the formercase, consent-based theories fail because they are at best indeterminate and at worst
incoherent; in the latter case, they fail because they are superfluous. I will refer to
this fatal ambiguity as “Cassirer’s Dilemma.” Interestingly, Cassirer’s Dilemma is not
at all new, on the contrary, it may be among the oldest problems plaguing western
moral and political philosophy. Faced with this insurmountable difficulty, I believe
we ought to abandon proceduralism and focus instead on developing substantive
accounts of justice