Corey Brettschneider argues in Chapter 2 of Democratic Rights that citizens’ status as rulers in a democracy entitles them to claim individual rights based on the core elements of the value theory—equality of interests, political autonomy, and reciprocity.  These democratic rights are substantive rights and not just rights of participation.  After elaborating how the value theory works to ground substantive rights, Brettschneider closes by considering how two fundamental democratic rights—to the rule of law and to freedom of speech—might be argued for from the perspective of the value theory.

(more…)

(more…)

Summary

This chapter begins by describing the view, commonly held among liberal theorists, that there is a conflict between democracy and individual rights. On this view, democracy is defined by a set of political procedures, whereas rights are substantive, or “procedure-independent,” constraints on the outcomes of those procedures. This view leads to the following puzzle in democratic theory:  If democratic procedures confer legitimacy on their outcomes – because the people who are subject to those outcomes have also authorized them – then how can those outcomes be limited by a set of procedure-independent, or substantive, rights? This is what Brettschneider calls the “problem of constraint” (8). (more…)

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.

(more…)

Much research demonstrates that voters are largely ignorant about the issues and institutions at stake when they vote. Some research also suggests that voters are selfish and irrational. Such poor voter performance might be thought to pose problems for an epistemic theory of democracy since if the performance is bad enough democracy may not deliver on its epistemic promise – it might fail to outperform choosing policies ‘with a roulette wheel’ (262). Estlund has two answers to the challenge posed by the reports about voters’ poor performance. The main answer consists in showing that there is in general value in theories that demand of people that they behave better than they in fact behave or are ever likely to behave.

(more…)

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.

(more…)

(more…)

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. (more…)

If your account of democratic authority uses the term “epistemic” then sooner or later you’re going to have to deal with the Jury Theorem. And here is where David takes up the gauntlet.

I’ve made that seem rather dramatic, but by this point in the book the gauntlet isn’t especially heavy! After all, in preceding chapters we’ve seen a model form of deliberation, a distinction between formal and substantive epistemic value, and a careful distinction between a “test” for finding the correct answer to some shared problem (such as majority rule), and a “testing system” (such as a constitutional democracy within which majoritarian decision procedures are embedded). The Jury Theorem, as tantalizing as it may be to some democratic theorists, does not appeal to discussion and argument, relies on claims about voter competence and the substantive correctness of some choices, and it applies in the first instance to specific tests (voting and majority or plurality rule), not to a testing system per se.

(more…)

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.

(more…)

In this chapter Estlund asks the question whether an ‘epistocracy of the educated’ — whether, as J.S. Mill recommends, the educated should receive more votes than the uneducated — could satisfy the ‘qualified acceptability requirement’, that is, be a political principle to which no qualified objection could be levelled. Most epistocratic proposals are defeated because they could not satisfy the qualified acceptability requirement, as there exists qualified disagreement in pluralist societies over who counts as ‘wise’ with respect to political matters. Thus epistemic proceduralism rules out ‘invidious comparisons’ amongst citizens with respect to their normative political wisdom (as explained in chapter II). However, given the widespread view that a ‘good political education’ promotes good political decision-making, and that under Mill’s proposal all citizens would have at least one vote, can the Millian proposal for additional votes for the educated satisfy the qualified acceptability requirement?

(more…)

Chapter 12 ‘The Irrelevance of the Jury Theorem’

Apr. 7, 2008, Loren King

Chapter 13 ‘Rejecting the Democracy/Contractualism Analogy’

Apr. 14, 2008, Jonathan Quong

Chapter 14 ‘Utopophobia: Concession and Aspiration in Democratic Theory’

Apr. 21, 2008, Zofia Stemplowska

‘Author’s Comments’

Apr. 28, 2008, David Estlund

(more…)

(more…)

Summary

In this chapter, Estlund seeks to identify the correct role played by an ideal deliberative situation in democratic theory. He argues that while in practice, democratic communication should not aim to resemble ideal deliberation, nonetheless the idea has an important function as a template through which to examine real-life instances of democratic communication and identify deviations from the ideal. Real deliberative practices and institutions should not aim to mirror the model deliberative situation because when epistemic distortions arise as a result of deviations from the ideal, it may be justified to employ further deviations to remedy these. This leads him to defend a model of wide civility for the informal political sphere, which makes room for sharp, disruptive and even suppressive forms of participation under certain circumstances. This wide version of civility is appropriate only for the informal public sphere, however. In formal political institutions such as the courts and legislatures the norms of narrow civility still apply. In summary then, it seems that there are three main arguments at work in this chapter: (1) that the appropriate way to think of the ideal deliberative situation is not as a set of prescriptions for citizens to aim at, but rather as an analytical tool for diagnosing and remedying failures; (2) that there might be good epistemic reasons to reject the narrow civility inherent in model deliberation in favour of a wider version; and (3) that while the use of countervailing deviations from the ideal might be appropriate in the informal political sphere, formal instances of political deliberation ought still to be governed by the requirements of narrow civility.

(more…)

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. (more…)

Chapter 9 advances the first stage of an argument which is completed in chapter 10. I’ll just concentrate on the part of the argument that is presented in chapter 9, but it is worth seeing where it is going. The burden of the two chapters is to show that feasible democratic procedures have substantially more than random probability of finding the correct answers to what society should do. Chapter 9 only argues that an imaginary situation which Estlund calls a model epistemic deliberation would have a substantially better than random chance of getting the right answers, but he also says that this model is not an ideal for which it would be sensible to strive. Rather, it illustrates how an ideal democracy could be justified epistemically, and the subsequent chapter will argue that feasible democratic procedures for which it would be sensible to strive are relevantly like this “ideal”. The point is to “defeat a certain kind of sceptic, the one who denies that any (nonutopian) democratic arrangements could tend to perform better than random”.

How does the argument of this chapter work, then?

(more…)

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. (more…)

(more…)