Articles by David Estlund

Meet my neighbors, the Kazans. Stan and his wife Jan live together with their three grown children (one daughter and two sons) who are there until they can afford places of their own. They are a decent family, and they are friendly and cooperative with the rest of the neighborhood, although some of their practices trouble me. Read the rest of this entry »

Audio recordings of the talks delivered at the January 2009 Oxford conference in honor of Jerry Cohen are posted as podcasts here. Most speakers and commentators are included, as are Jerry Cohen’s moving reflections that closed the conference. (The linked page contains many related links, so search the page for “cohen conference.”)

I’m grateful to Zofia for the excellent summary and questions. Let me say something about her question in order:

On her (1): Zofia asks whether there is really much point to hopeless ideal theory if we really know it won’t be met. I wrote that one of the benefits of such theory is that we can surprise ourselves, but suppose we really do know that certain standards will never be met. She’s write that, since we’re limiting our concern here to standards that are not beyond people’s abilities, I would insist that it is usually pretty hard to really know that they won’t ever be met. But I hasten to emphasize that my defense of hopeless aspirational theory does not rest on this conjecture. The fact, if it is one, that a certain kind of normative political theory will never be met, is not a defect in the theory. More concessive theory is valuable and important too, of course.

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Thanks again to Jonathan for the very useful summary and comments. I’ll consider his three questions in order.

First, Jonathan raises a small exegetical question. Does Rawls suggest the kind of democracy/contractualism analogy of the kind I’m discussing? Nothing in my argument depends on this, but it’s still interesting. Here’s the passage I use in support of my claim that he uses the analogy:

The guarantee of fair value for political liberties is included in the first principle of justice because it is essential in order to establish just legislation and also to make sure that the fair political process specified by the constitution is open to everyone on a basis of rough equality. The idea is to incorporate into the basic structure of society an effective political procedure which mirrors in that structure the fair representation of persons achieved by the original position.

Jonathan says that Rawls could just mean that the original position is fair and so by mirroring it in actual political procedures would also be fair, and good in that way. This, Jonathan says, wouldn’t be the same as saying that since the choices in the hypothetical original position constitute justice, choices in a structurally similar real procedure would tend to be similar, thus tracking justice. So on Jonathan’s possible reading the fairness of the original position would be a kind of fairness that has nothing to do with the subsequent claim that choices made in that kind of fair procedure count as principles of justice for a social basic structure. That way this same kind of fairness could be thought of as a value in real institutions quite apart from anything about what kinds of substantive decisions they would make.

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Thanks to Loren for the great summary and questions. Loren is largely sympathetic, so, as a reward, this can be more brief than most weeks. But he does raise two concerns.

First, Loren proposes a way of avoiding the disjunction problem. He says that we might suppose there is one correct way of enumerating the alternatives, leading to n alternatives, and then take individual competence to be above 1/n. “After all, we might reply that the assumption of slightly better than random voter competence presupposes correct specification of the choice problem.” I’m not sure what a correct specification of the problem would mean. Suppose we are deciding about building a bridge. We could build a cheap bridge, an expensive bridge, or no bridge. Suppose the best thing is to build a cheap bridge. If we ask the voters to choose between these three options, random competence would be 1/3. If we give them two choices: Build a bridge (cheap or expensive), or build no bridge, random competence is .5. I don’t know what it would mean to say one of these is the correct way to put the question. In any case, Loren says that even if there is a correct or privileged way to enumerate the alternatives it would remain unclear who should get to make that decision. I don’t know how to evaluate that point because I don’t get the idea of a privileged enumeration. For all I can tell, if there is a privileged enumeration it might be beyond reasonable objection. So I might benefit from some clarification of this suggestion. Read the rest of this entry »

Blain’s summary is accurate and helpful, and he raises several good questions. I take those up before turning to questions by the other participants.

Blain’s first worry is whether, in the absence of an account that would give us clear boundaries for the reasonable or the qualified, we are unable to go forward with this kind of approach at all. Is any way of going forward bound to be unacceptably ad hoc? I try to indicate an alternative to this defeatist position. I mention this methodological stance briefly in several places, including pp. 63-64, p. 217, and p. 286, note 3. Notice that the wish for clear boundaries is no particular support for Blain’s second concern, that the principle of acceptability should be defended by resting it on a deeper principle of respect. It might seem as though having such a deeper account would also give us the boundaries we want. But I see no general reason to think it would. Suppose the duty not to lie is based on the categorical imperative. That’s very little help in in knowing what the exceptions are to this duty, or whether (as Kant thought) there are none. Depth and specificity are quite independent features of moral theories.

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Thanks to Rebecca for the great summary and questions about this chapter, and to Jonathan and Ben for pitching in. The chapter proposes a way to combine, in broadly deliberative approach to democracy, a central role for an ideal deliberative situation with a similarly central place in democratic practice for activities other than deliberating. I suggest that an ideal deliberation can be used as a template by which to identify actual deviations. Where there are deviations that clearly insert power over reason in favor of a particular point of view, the epistemic core of my approach recommends efforts to restore the epistemic balance. Where this can’t be done by removing the skewing element of power, it can sometimes be done by injecting power on the other side of the question in a way that attempts to neutralize the first, skewing element. The thing to emphasize is that this will often be yet a further departure from the ideal deliberative situation. An abuse of power by a certain company or industry that tilts the political system in their favor might responsibly be answered by a boycott. A boycott is primarily an exercise of brute market power, and not a rational argument in response to the company’s view. I suggest that this is a way to keep deliberation in its place: central to the theory, less central to political practice.

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Thanks to Harry for the excellent summary and comments. His two comments really amount to a single challenge: Since a smaller-than-universal sample of the population could deliberate or vote with as much epistemic value as the universal franchise, doesn’t epistemic proceduralism end up endorsing non-democratic political institutions after all?

It’s one challenge, but with two parts. So, first, is it true that a sample could be trusted (beyond qualified disagreement) to deliberate with as good effect as if the whole adult population were enfranchised? Then, second, if so, would deliberation and/or voting by a sample count as democratic?

There’s a third question in play, raised when Harry writes, “Democracy is, in part, justified because we have an obligation to allow other people to play a full role in determining how our collective affairs will go, precisely because they have a stake in how things will go.” Here the question is not what counts as democratic, but whether we are obligated to enfranchise all adult citizens. Read the rest of this entry »

Again, I’m gratified to see such a clear and accurate summary of the chapter. Let me start with Simon’s excellent questions, drawing connections to Jonathan’s where appropriate.

Simon’s question (1) is whether the system of justice that arises in Juristic Prejuria has some unique claim to obedience or whether other schemes might also arise and place similar claims on people’s obedience. This question grants, at least for the sake of argument, that the case for the jury system’s original authority goes through. It then asks, since it goes through for this arrangement, why wouldn’t it go through for multiple parallel arrangements? So the specific challenge in (1) is not to the argument for the original authority of the jury system. But if parallel arrangements can make an equal claim to authority then the authority of the jury system seems to be limited by those other possibilities. It will only work as an analogy for the authority of a whole political system if it grounds unique authority. Read the rest of this entry »

Thanks to David (I’ll call him David L. lest readers get confused about the multiple Davids on the screen) for his excellent summary and questions. The first issue he raises is about my appeal to symmetry between consent and non-consent. I say that it’s interestingly asymmetrical if consent is sometimes null but non-consent never is. David L. is quite right that symmetry of this kind is not automatically an important thing, and so it’s no basis for thinking that non-consent must also be capable of being null. But Jonathan is also right, I think, to say that we might find the asymmetry morally puzzling. That’s all I had in mind. The asymmetry just opens up a question. After that, it does no argumentative work. I refer back to the question of symmetry once or twice as I argue for normative consent, but only to stay clear about what it was that was initially puzzling.

David L.’s main concern is focused around my airplane crash example. I should say that I don’t intend that example to elicit strong predictable intuitions. (It is not like the famous trolley problems in that way.) Rather, it is just a story I can use to illustrate what it is that I want to claim. It has also proven very useful to my critics in helping them make clear just where they think I go wrong. You’re welcome.

The main line of worry seems to be that I haven’t clearly or adequately answered what I call the direct authority objection, which holds that normative consent is superfluous. As David L. points out, the crucial distinction is between what conditions materially entail authority, and what conditions morally ground authority. So it’s important first to see that these are two separate things. I give as an example the fact that all present facts about masses, forces, etc., must materially entail all the moral facts. (This claim is available to lots of different metaethical views, though not all, I admit.) But those facts don’t morally ground or support the moral facts. For example, the micro-physical facts that entail that I consent to your using my pen do not morally ground your permission even though they do guarantee it by way of guaranteeing that I consent. Read the rest of this entry »

Daniel gives a very nice summary of the chapter and raises a few questions. First, he wonders whether the fact that democratic procedures might generate trust, and so compliance, is an epistemic or non-epistemic reason in its favor. Before taking that up, however, I want to quibble with his description of the options. He says that I’m mainly distinguishing between values intrinsic to a collective decision procedure on one hand, and consequentialist considerations on the other. That might not be the best way to put it, since while my theory brings in non-procedural values, it is not consequentialist. (I should say, I’m using “consequentialist,” to contrast with “deontological,” not in the broader way that some use it so that virtually any normative theory could receive a consequentialist formulation. On the latter use, there’s no interesting question about whether there is a consequentialist theory of democracy, since there would be no contrast class.) On my view, democracy is not recommended on the basis of its maximizing good consequences. It is recommended because (and when) the laws that are passed are legitimate and authoritative. They are legitimate and authoritative owing, in certain ways, to the decision procedure’s having some tendency to produce just or correct outcomes. That part is instrumental in a certain sense, but not necessarily consequentialist. The accounts of authority, legitimacy, and justice could all be deontological for all I’ve said. I’m not suggesting that Daniel misunderstood this, but my view is always at risk of being misunderstood to be consequentialist, and so I’m at pains to use that term advisedly. (I address the issue at pp. 164-167, in Chapter IX.)

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The main issue that has come up in this week’s comments concerns my rejection of fair proceduralism. My argument against it was that procedural fairness can’t prefer a fair democratic procedure to a random selection of outcomes, since both are equally fair. The question arising now is whether, nevertheless, there isn’t something that can be said for fair democratic procedures favoring them over random procedure, but without bringing in any epistemic features.

One idea is that either the idea of fairness or the idea of equality incorporates a concern for more rather than less of the distributed power, as opposed to caring only for an equal distribution. I doubt that either of these concepts includes such a thing. A coin flip (which gives each person zero expected influence or power) is sometimes a perfectly fair way to decide something even if voting (which increases each person’s expected influence above zero) is available. As for equality, it is patently satisfied by a random procedure since all equally have no influence. Christiano argues that we would only care about an equal distribution of something if we also cared about having more rather than less of it. First, this doesn’t show that equality includes that second concern. We might (or might not) just have two concerns: equality of x, and more of x. Second, the concern for an equal share of procedural power looks like a counterexample to the claim that we never have the concern for equal distribution without also wanting more of the distributed thing. It seems perfectly comprehensible to be satisfied with a random procedure in some context, but to insist that if anyone is to have power or influence all should have it equally. Suppose the question is which of several designs should be chosen for the new public fountain. I might be happy to have this decided randomly. So I don’t care about having any influence. However, I would object if some were given a vote in the matter while I was not. I want equal influence but I don’t care if any of us has any. So it is not true, as a general matter, that to value an equal distribution of x entails positively valuing more x over less. So I think neither the idea of fairness nor the idea of equal distribution can favor voting over a random procedure.

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As usual, I’d like to offer some comments in response to points and questions raised in this week’s comments following Ben’s terrific summary of my Chapter 4. Sorry again for the length, but I’ve tried to briefly address most of the points that have come up.

First on Ben’s comments: Ben grants that a random choice procedure is procedurally fair, but denies that it is democratic. I agree that obviously it isn’t democratic. But that is not yet any argument against it, because it may be that the decision procedure needs only to be procedurally fair. So any attempt to justify democracy solely on the ground that it is procedurally fair seems forced to say that a random (and non-democratic) procedure is equally justified, being equally fair. Ben argues that democracy includes some element of what I call aggregativity. I agree. He says that the theorist who wants to ground democracy in fairness might just mean that what’s required is a procedurally fair treatment of everyone’s votes or preferences. I agree. My argument is that this shows that they appeal to something more than mere procedural fairness. They add a principle requiring a link between the output and individual inputs, a principle that is not part of the concept of procedural fairness (as shown by the example of a random choice procedure). So I think there’s nothing in that first comment of Ben’s that we disagree about, but I hope this clarifies what I’m arguing for.

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Again, I really appreciate all the excellent and challenging discussion so far. I am glad to have the chance to reply. Sorry this is rather lengthy, and still doesn’t address nearly all the points.

I assert and employ what I call a “qualified acceptability requirement” in a schematic form, leaving largely open which views count as qualified (although I fill in bits of it at crucial points). I don’t go deeper into moral philosophy in order to provide a moral argument for it. Many people object to the whole approach, which is very similar to that of Rawls’s political liberalism. What I do by way of defense is to defend it against several lines of objection. Several commentators have wished I gave a “direct” argument for it. To say, however, that the theory “needs” to do so seems to require an awful lot. Is a theory not entitled to any beginning premises? If there are objections to the premises, that’s one thing. I defend against what I take to be the more important ones, and no doubt there are others that would need to be answered. But apart from the evaluation of specific objections, the theory doesn’t seem much damaged by noting that the premises are not themselves supported by deeper argument. What theory could be immune from that objection?

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I have some thoughts about the terrific discussion, so far (through comment 7), of my Chapter 2. I can’t take everything up, but I hope this offers some clarification where people asked for it.

In addition to his excellent summary, Jonathan raises some good questions about my defense against the charge that I beg the question in favor of democracy. Let me review my argument briefly, and then respond to the challenges that have come up. Before reviewing the argument, it might help avoid confusion to remind us all of the distinction between authority (the power to require action), and legitimacy (permissibility of enforcement). The reason is that it’s not entirely clear which concept is mainly at stake here. This points to something that will probably come up later, that it’s not very clear what role, if any, the general acceptability requirement plays in my account of authority, as distinct from legitimacy. In the passages at issue here, I use the term “authority” often, without clearly acknowledging the difference between that and legitimacy. All I can say here is that, despite appearances, I think the general acceptability requirement also plays a role in questions of authority, though I will not try to say exactly how that works here. For present purposes, don’t worry too much about the legitimacy/authority distinction, and then we can see later whether bringing that distinction in cause further difficulties for what I say. Read the rest of this entry »

[Simon has advised me to submit this as a “post” rather than as a “comment.” As I write, there are 19 comments. I’ll insert a comment to mark the point at which I posted these remarks]

This might be a good time to jump in and respond to a few of the points that have been raised in the discussion of Chapter 1. Let me first say that Jonathan’s summary is excellent, and gets this off to a great start.

Obviously, Chapter 1 is a condensed run-through of many of the themes and arguments of the book. So I think the best plan is for me to respond only rather quickly on issues that will come up again in more detail later in the book. Some of the points raised this week don’t get any further attention in the book, so I’ll say what I can now. There are just too many points to respond to. If I skip something that any of you thinks is especially important, feel free to push me on it and I’ll take it up if I can.

I might also say that I would ask people not to quote what I say here in published work without checking with me, a courtesy I’ll extend to you all as well. (This raises interesting questions, of course, about what, these days, counts as a publication.) Maybe it goes without saying, but I am not putting the time and thought into this that I would if I regarded it as part of my published output. It wouldn’t be possible to do that and keep rolling in a timely way. It’s like a conversation at a conference. I (or you) might well trip up, or contradict myself, maybe fixing it a few days later, maybe not, etc. It’s not that I live in fear of having my mistakes exposed publicly. I just think that if we treat blogs and related things as part of the published literature we are going to wreak a lot of havoc unnecessarily. This issue could trigger a whole thread of its own, but we don’t want to get off on that tangent. Enough said. Back to democracy.
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I’m happy to announce that The Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy (JESP) now welcomes the submission of short discussions of articles recently published in this or other journals. All submissions are subject to peer-review, and should not exceed 2,000 words. The “Notes Editor” is Julia Driver.

This effectively takes over the central feature of the now-defunct site BEARS, which closed due to inactivity. But now with more wired philosophers, there has been a lot of interest in resurrecting that feature. Since Jamie Dreier and I, the former editors of BEARS, are now editors at JESP, an all online journal, we have chosen to add this functionality to that journal instead.

Visit the website at www.jesp.org, and click on Symposia & Discussion Notes to see how easy it is to submit.