Book Review: Jeffrey Edward Green, The Shadow of Unfairness: A Plebeian Theory of Liberal Democracy
| DOI | 10.1177/1478929917712905 |
| Published date | 01 November 2017 |
| Date | 01 November 2017 |
| Author | James David Hodgson |
| Subject Matter | Book ReviewsPolitical Theory |
606 Political Studies Review 15(4)
what he calls, using John Dewey’s phrase, a
‘quest for certainty’ (p. 28). Hoover argues that
not only are thinkers unsuccessful on their own
terms in justifying moral principles with which
to render human rights certain and secure but
also that the very ‘quest’ itself is ‘highly prob-
lematic’ (p. 19).
Hoover makes a compelling argument
against the approach of authors, including
James Griffin and Martha Nussbaum, on this
point, arguing that ‘the move to transcend spe-
cific contexts and particular problems expresses
a more worrying desire for certainty and con-
trol’ (p. 40). Furthermore, theories of human
rights that seek certainty ‘limit … the demo-
cratic content and radical political potential of
human rights by turning our attention towards
idealized orders, rather than focusing on the
contexts in which rights are used’ (p. 73).
Instead of certainty, Hoover draws on
Dewey’s ‘situationist ethics’ and William
Connolly’s ‘deep pluralism’ to offer a ‘critical
reconstruction’ of human rights, whereby a
human right is a ‘generalization of a specific
claim’ that remains ‘both contested and contin-
gent’ and ‘subject to testing’ (p. 131). This
reconstruction eschews any attempt at cer-
tainly in ethics and takes seriously ‘the basic
undecidability of questions of value and the
reality that people hold different values that
cannot be reconciled in final and distinctively
rational ways’ (p. 137).
Running through this is the idea that
‘human rights should be valued for what they
allow us to make of ourselves’ (p. 173). Hoover
suggests that part of this is ‘empowering peo-
ple to exert more control over their own lives’
and that human rights ought to support a
‘democratizing ethos’ (p. 172). Critics might
counter that this sort of conviction is precisely
the sort of certainty that Hoover argues against,
but one need not share his view of what human
rights enable to find his theory of rights valua-
ble and insightful.
Although sacrificing any attempt at moral
certainty might cause alarm, Hoover convinc-
ingly displays the damage the quest for such
certainty can cause. Others have argued against
such certainty in human rights – Rex Martin and
Derrick Darby, for example, develop nineteenth-
century philosopher Thomas Hill Green’s
insight that rights are constructed through social
recognition. Hoover, however, provides a fresh
perspective on questions of human rights which
promises to enrich contemporary human rights
theory.
Matt Hann
(Independent Scholar)
© The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/1478929917718675
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The Shadow of Unfairness: A Plebeian
Theory of Liberal Democracy by Jeffrey
Edward Green. New York: Oxford University
Press, 2016. 252pp., £25.99 (h/b), ISBN
9780190215903
Jeffrey Edward Green has written two formida-
ble works of democratic theory. The first is his
2010 book The Eyes of the People: Democracy
in an Age of Spectatorship, which introduced a
conception of democracy characterised by the
critical spectatorship of the masses. The sec-
ond is The Shadow of Unfairness: A Plebeian
Theory of Liberal Democracy, which attempts
to develop his theory in light of economic ine-
qualities which, Green argues, are necessary
aspects of any liberal democratic regime. It is a
sobering analysis.
The central thesis of The Shadow of
Unfairness is that liberal democracies are prone
to a delusion: that once reforms have removed
the baleful effects of money in politics and sig-
nificantly curtailed inequalities of income and
wealth, citizens will be afforded equal opportu-
nities for political participation. However, it is
impossible to perfect liberal democracy in prac-
tice, Green argues, owing to three conditions
inherent to the regime: the sheer size of the
modern polity; the ambiguity of the determi-
nants of representation; and the existence of the
institutions of the family and private property,
which ensure that some will always be more
advantaged than others. Taken together, these
conditions form the shadow of unfairness,
under which most citizens of liberal democra-
cies must live. What is required, therefore, are
proposals which contain and ameliorate the
worst effects of the shadow of unfairness. To
this end, Green proposes a number of measures
inspired by the plebeian class of the Roman
Republic, such as introducing special burdens
for members of the most advantaged class.
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