Date of Award

2026

Document Type

Open Access Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy in Rhetoric, Theory and Culture (PhD)

Administrative Home Department

Department of Humanities

Advisor 1

Michael Bowler

Committee Member 1

Alexandra Morrison

Committee Member 2

Scott Marratto

Committee Member 3

Susanna Peters

Abstract

This dissertation starts from the position that the stability of liberal-democratic political schemes relies on its citizens mutually accepting a basic conception of political justice. While these conceptions of justice may vary, most incorporate the inter-connected concepts of autonomy, liberty, liberalism, and the rule of law. Within this conception of a liberal democracy, a potentially destabilizing issue arises when a legislatively passed law is put into effect, but a portion of the citizens perceive it as unjust. If legitimate (i.e., lawful) actions do not sufficiently resolve the concern, civil disobedience (i.e., disobeying the law) is a potential recourse, but this raises questions about a scheme's political stability, as it implies that on occasion, to secure political justice, one must defy one of its core concepts, namely the rule of law. This concern is heightened when applied to specific state actors, namely the police, whose duties and obligations require them to enforce the law.

To maintain political justice, the police within liberal-democratic schemes are expected to uphold the rule of law, regardless of their personal views and attitudes towards specific legislation. However, there are many historical examples that demonstrate what harmful and politically destabilizing effects can occur when the police, for the sake of "just doing their job”, enforce laws they knew (or should have) known were unjust. A simple resolution to this issue suggests that the police should, on the basis of political justice, become selective in which laws they enforce. However, if the police become selective in what laws they choose to enforce, they could also delegitimize the rule of law. This is highlighted by the variety of sanctuary practices, both liberal and

conservative in nature, found in modern policing. Thus, the police find themselves in a precarious position regarding political justice within liberal-democratic schemes, wherein both the strict and selective (i.e., discretionary) enforcement of laws can both pose legitimate concerns for political stability.

Using the political philosopher John Rawls's conception of political justice, this dissertation seeks to address the theoretical conditions in which it may be possible for state actors of a liberal-democratic scheme, specifically the police, to engage in the discretionary enforcement of specific laws without disrupting the long-term political stability (i.e., legitimacy) of that same scheme. To address this issue, this dissertation, using a political philosophy methodological approach, utilizes the method of reflective equilibrium, specifically a Rawlsian conception of the method, to assess a case study of a gun-regulation law that was passed in Colorado in 2013, but was intentionally not enforced by several law enforcement agencies.

The results of the reflective equilibrium process demonstrate that it may be theoretically possible to achieve equilibrium (i.e. political stability), at least within the context of specific liberal-democratic schemes, but to achieve this, the various considered judgments and principles that are used to arrive at the scheme’s concept of political justice may need to be adjusted. The findings of this dissertation further demonstrate a potential path forward for policymakers, specifically those involved with law enforcement, in determining how specific acts of discretionary enforcement can be reconciled with the rule of law, while conceivably maintaining political stability.

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