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The paper seeks to explain how displays of emotion in the public sphere help to shape and structure our thinking about politics and how they challenge and transform the most fundamental philosophical concepts we use. The analysis focuses especially on the concept of freedom and the reactions accompanying its perceived lack or loss, including resentment, anger, fear and frustration. The aim is to show that no political theory is complete without analyzing emotions in the public sphere and assigning them their proper place. However, assigning emotions their proper place in political theory not only means recognizing their significance but also understanding the limits of their significance. The second part of the paper thus argues that assessing emotions relies at least in part on judgements concerning their 'appropriateness'. The paper then concludes with a version of Rawlsian reflective equilibrium, modelling the relation between displays of emotion in the public sphere and political theory.

The legitimacy of political regimes does not lie only in the manner in which these regimes use their power. A key role is played by the way these regimes are perceived by their populations. Following this insight, the paper defends and elaborates one necessary condition of legitimacy of every political regime: the justification of power provided by the regime must "make sense"to the citizens. This "making sense"can be best understood as a correspondence between the proposed justification of political authority and the citizens' understanding of themselves. In other words, a political regime "makes sense"to its population only if it resonates with their conception of themselves and their role in the society. The paper then analyses the possible correspondence between the Rawlsian conception of liberal self-understanding, where citizens view themselves as "self-authenticating sources of valid moral claims", and the legitimacy of contemporary democratic societies. This perspective reveals the sources of deep egalitarian assumptions behind the legitimation frameworks of contemporary societies, as well as the necessary limitations of power of contemporary states. The correspondence between our self-understanding and the legitimacy of the present-day states also reveals the fundamental importance of the human rights framework in current political life.

The popularity of conspiracy theories poses a clear challenge for contemporary liberal democracies. Conspiracy theories undermine rational debate, spread dangerous falsehoods and threaten social cohesion. However, any possible public policy response, which would try to contain their spread, needs to respect the liberal commitment to protect pluralism and free speech. A successful justification of such a policy must therefore: 1) clearly identify the problematic class of conspiracy theories; and 2) clarify the grounds on which the state is justified in acting against them. This article argues that the prevailing epistemic approaches to conspiracy theorizing cannot fulfil these criteria. Defining conspiracy theories by their flaws in reasoning, questionable coherence or factual mistakes can neither sharply distinguish problematic conspiracy theories from other, non-problematic worldviews nor justify state action. Thus, we propose to understand conspiracy theories through their ethical unreasonableness. We hold that containment of conspiracy theories is justifiable insofar as they undermine the liberal-democratic ideals of mutual respect, freedom and equality. We then show that such 'ethical' criteria for conspiracy theories can be sufficiently robust and clear-cut so that they can serve as a useful guide for public policy.