Larmore would probably reply that disagreements of such a kind
cannot be accepted as 'reasonable'. But who decides what is and what
is not 'reasonable'? In politics the very distinction between 'reasonable'
and 'unreasonable' is already the drawing of a frontier; it has a political
character and is always the expression of a given hegemony. What is at
a given moment deemed 'rational' or 'reasonable' in a community is
what corresponds to the dominant language games and the 'common
sense' that they construe. It is the result of a process of 'sedimentation'
of an ensemble of discourses and practices whose political character
has been elided. If it is perfectly legitimate to make a distinction
between the reasonable and the unreasonable, such an opposition has
implications that must be acknowledged. Otherwise a specific
configuration of practices and arrangements becomes naturalized and
is put out of reach of critical inquiry. In a modern democracy, we
should be able to question the very frontiers of reason and to put under
scrutiny the claims to universality made in the name of rationality. As
Judith Butler reminds us, To establish a set of norms that are beyond
power or force is itself a powerful and forceful conceptual practice that
sublimates, disguises and extends its own power play through
recourse to tropes of normative universality/
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