Bill asks whether I have an argument that majority rule is preferable to random choice on epistemic grounds. That’s a good question. However, before taking it up, let me point out that in Chapter 4 I am not trying to show any of the three things Bill lists. So let me review what I am trying to do.

I try to refute the suggestion that majority rule is required by procedural fairness. The main idea is that a random procedure would be a fair procedure, and equally so, but fairness can’t choose between two equally fair procedures. If that were all I said, I could be pressed to justify my claim that a random procedure is equally fair. That requires some conception of procedural fairness, and so I offer one. Having defended that conception on independent grounds, I point out that it vindicates my claim that a random procedure is perfectly fair, and so certainly not less fair than majority rule. Majority rule is also fair in a way, but it adds a non-fairness element: aggregativity. That is a procedure-independent standard for outcomes, and not one I raise any objection to. But once we’ve gone beyond procedural fairness in that way, the door is open to other procedure-independent standards. The question is which ones are and which are not available. I point out that elsewhere in the book I argue that another available standard is a formal epistemic one: the claim that certain democratic arrangements will tend to produce substantively just decisions (whatever those might be).

So in this chapter I have not argued that majority rule is superior to a random choice. I’ve just argued that fairness is indifferent between them.

I haven’t been able to look back at May’s article, so for now I’ll go on the basis of Bill’s gloss. As he states “positive responsiveness,” I would indeed argue that it is not any part of procedural fairness. By the way, just to be clear, I hope we agree that it is not the same thing as my “aggregativity.” But they both violate anonymity, and so go beyond fairness. And he’s right, of course, that my argument for majority rule would rest on a claim that it is part of an arrangement that has epistemic value (all within public reason). But (and this is nothing to brag about) I don’t argue for that anywhere in the book. Still, nothing in Chapter 4 depends on such an argument.

But let me say a few things about it. I do give some argument that public deliberation mixed with a dose of countervailing deviations from ideal deliberation will tend to do better than random. So far that doesn’t mention voting or majority rule. But we would need some way to take the measure of whatever epistemic improvements have taken place in the course of deliberation and other political activity. Majority rule is not by any means the only possibility. In fact, democracy is not the only possibility. We might rely on someone who is especially wise and able to learn from the points that are raised in public discussion and then let just this person (or elite) vote. My arguments against epistocracy apply here directly, so let’s count that out.

This leaves decision procedures that are not premised on the supposed superiority of any specified person or class as compared with another. We could pick a decision randomly, which would be perfectly fair procedurally, but epistemically completely worthless. The epistemic value of political deliberation and activity would not be tapped. Here are some of the main remaining alternatives: majority rule (simple or special), voting by a randomly chosen subset of eligible voters, or decision by a single randomly chosen person (with a long or short term). All of these, by the way, are more or less equally procedurally fair, and all go beyond fairness by including some aggregativity in addition (and so none is purely fair in the sense I define as “full anonymity).

Any of these would tend to track whatever epistemic progress public deliberation and political activity achieve. Which of them would do best I’m not sure. I often speak of majority rule, but that’s for simplicity, and I wouldn’t, without better warrant, want to be committed to the claim that it is preferable to a random voting sample or a single randomly selected person.

Would the random sample method be democratic? I discuss this in my remarks on the comments on Chapter 9. Briefly, (with a few new points): It depends on how democracy is defined. I am using the definition of democracy as the actual collective authorization of laws and policies by those subject to them. Does the sampling method count? I’m not sure. I’m not sure it doesn’t. It’s not dictatorial, aristocratic, not oligarchic, or epistocratic. It might seem to fall short of the idea of democracy because not everyone votes, but that’s true under majority rule too, since turnout in large elections is far from complete. We just get a self-selected sample. Indeed, random sampling (with voting, not mere polling) might improve statistical representation if those selected were more likely to actually vote (as I predict they would be). I’m not recommending it. I’m just not sure.

In any case, if you decide sampling shouldn’t be counted as democratic, but it is the epistemically best arrangement so far as can be explained within public reason, then I’m still comfortable saying it is what political legitimacy and authority require—democratic (technically) or not.

What deeper principle would prefer majority rule to the sample if the sample were epistemically better? Procedural fairness seems to me to be indifferent. If three of us are deciding which movie to go to, we could choose a movie randomly (dumb), choose by majority rule, or choose one of us randomly as the chooser. All three are basically fair, with the last two including some extra element of aggregativity. Someone might offer this as the deeper principle: each person ought to have not just an equal chance of voting (or having their vote counted), but a vote (or a counted vote). But that’s not a deeper principle, that’s the proposition in question.

Summarizing: I’m not arguing in Chapter 4 that majority rule is preferable to random choice. But I do think it is better on epistemic grounds (even if also on some other thinner grounds like responsiveness). I’m not sure whether it is better than a lottery to choose multiple voters, or even a single voter. I’m not sure if these would all count as democratic, but I don’t see any clear reason why they shouldn’t. And, in any case, that wouldn’t by itself be any argument for or against them.

Firstly, I think it’s wrong to say that May shows majority rule preferable to a lottery. As I recall, his article is entirely definitional, and he does little if anything to establish the attractiveness of his conditions. Certainly at least one is violated by any decision rule that isn’t simple majority rule (e.g. a super majority for constitutional amendment), but that doesn’t mean these alternatives are necessarily normatively unattractive.

Secondly, I don’t think you’re right to draw the conclusion David has to show positive responsiveness to be epistemic. Positive responsiveness isn’t the only difference between a lottery and majority rule. This, of course, should be obvious as adding positive responsiveness to the other three conditions leaves you with only simple majority rule, whereas there are of course other decision rules that differ from lotteries (and perhaps satisfy weaker conditions, e.g. non-negative responsiveness).

Finally, if we have any confidence that choice can perform better than simply flipping a coin between alternatives, then I guess the epistemic value of democracy is something to do with its responsiveness (though not necessarily its satisfying May’s positive responsiveness, which it probably doesn’t). I’d guess the random choice between options would be pretty unworkable, because it may end up selecting options no one wants and it’d be pretty hard to define the relevant options to be given equal chances anyway.

1) Majority rule is preferable to decision by lottery;

2) Majority rule is preferable to decision by lottery on grounds other than fairness;

3) What makes majority rule preferable to decision by lottery is its epistemic superiority.

Let’s grant 1) and 2), and in granting 2) grant that aggregativity–what Kenneth May called “positive responsiveness”–is not an element of fairness. May showed in 1952 that in a choice between two alternatives, majority rule uniquely satisfies four attractive conditions (the other three, besides positive responsiveness, he called “decisiveness,” “anonynymity, “and “neutrality”–but I digress). He defined positive responsiveness this way: If a decision is favorable to alternative A, or indifferent between A and B, then if a voter switches to A, the result is favorable to A. Though it satisfies the other three conditions, flipping a coin doesn’t satisfy positive responsiveness. But majority rule satisfies all four.

So, because May has offered a compelling explanation of 1), the burden of your argument is to show that positive responsiveness–concededly, by 2), not an aspect of fairness–is (or reflects) an epistemic consideration, and not merely that it is a non-fairness value, or merely that it is a “procedure- independent” or a “substantive” value in some sense, or that is not part of what you call “full anonymity.”

Where is that argument? Or must others shoulder the burden of showing that positive responsiveness is nonepistemic?

With respect to comment four, what would you say to the usual panoply of deontological (all the autonomy-based stuff, consent to be governed, duty to participate, etc. etc.) and non-outcome-oriented consequentialist (like Mill’s school for public spirit) reasons for incorporating public participation into governance in cases like the jury trial? I assume you’re not just rejecting them out of hand.

My first pass at supplying an answer for you to that question would be to make use again of the distinction between substance and procedure, and to say that an appeal to those reasons isn’t purely procedural. But (see below), I guess I still don’t quite understand what “purely procedural” means. For those values are such that they’re present regardless of what the ultimate outcome of the decision procedure is. We can believe the jury will be right or wrong, and still believe that it ought to be making the decision because we care about educating the public to be better citizens. Isn’t that a perfectly procedural, and perfectly good, reason to prefer the jury even when it’s epistemically dominated by a non-jury procedure?

With respect to comment five: I may have been confused (indeed, it seems likely, since your clarification bears little relationship to how I understood that section of the chapter). May I request a further clarification? Specifically: I take it that you think that there is a distinction between a procedurally fair standard and a substantively fair standard, and that distinction has something to do with the function that maps acts of decision-making (voting, coin-flipping, the utterance of a monarch’s command etc.) to outcomes (the enactment of a law). There must be such a distinction running underneath the chapter in order for the argument that procedural fairness does no work to fly. Can you say what that distinction is?

You agree with most of my first point, which is as I expected - it was supposed to be something you could accept, so far as coin-tossing and majority-rule are both fair. That seems to suffice for your purpose, since it establishes that fairness can’t chose between the two. The challenge comes with the thought that there might be some other way of choosing between the two, when equally fair, that doesn’t appeal to substantive outcomes.

You point out the educative effect is unlikely if people only value majority-rule for that reason, and I agree, but I think there may be a certain delusion going on - people vote seeking correct answers but the real reason to value the procedure is not that it’s any more likely to reach such but it develops capcities for broader consideration and deliberation. (You could perhaps compare this to something like the paradox of hedonism).

Moreover, this is only one possibility. One could justify democracy on the grounds that one thinks there’s some inherent value in stimulating public reason and debate (I think Richard Vernon argues something like this) or simply say the value of freedom applies to groups, so we should let groups be self-determining (in a way realised by majority-rule but not a coin-flip) for reasons other than that they might thereby produce better outcomes.

As to my second point, I think it’s clear that fairness has diminished in importance in your account and that this is (partly?) because you think things can be non-fair without being unfair. Really my worry was that I’m not sure the substantive issue is lexically prior to procedural fairness. I think substantive values may be indeterminate between different equally just outcomes, so there’s still some room for fairness in deciding between these. One might also push the issue by asking whether there’s any reason to think of this as a case of non-fairness rather than unfairness.

On the whole, though, I’m very sympathetic to your claims here. I think democracy requires more than fairness, because it also requires citizen input. I wouldn’t say a procedure needs epistemic value to be democratic, but I’m open to saying it needs such to be justified - though I’m presently more inclined to stressing something like educative effects. Perhaps the more fundamental difference is that I’m less inclined to regard modern representative institutions as particularly democratic.