Rationality and democracy in Rorty’s pragmatism

Abstract

If it is impossible to find a rational foundation for liberal democracies, that is, to argue that they constitute political systems which are superior to others (the fall of socialism is not suficient, as Fukuyama has popularly sustained), then it remains to constantly evaluate democratic systems from its consequences, and demanding a series of reforms that represent a transformation of an ethic and cultural nature. To speak of democracy, as we will see, is to do so with regard to a "moral identity and community". A central task of contemporary democracies, where we are able to identify them, consists in widening the "moral obligations" which tend to incorporate in a greater measure "them" to "us", in such a way that the "world" of each one is not destroyed (solidarity). Rorty inscribes himself in the Dewey an tradition by continuing to highlight the link of pragmatism with the problems of democracy, that is, to understand pragmatism as a proyect for a social democratic utopia.