In Democratic Authority, David Estlund 2008 presents a major new defense of democracy, called epistemic proceduralism. The theory claims that democracy exercises legitimate authority in virtue of possessing a modest epistemic power: its decisions are the product of procedures that tend to produce just laws at a better than chance rate, and better than any other type of government that is justifiable within the terms of public reason. The balance Estlund strikes between epistemic and non-epistemic justifications of democracy is open (...) to question, both for its neglect of the roles of non-epistemic values of equality and collective autonomy in democracy, and for the ways his use of the public reason standard overshadows empirically based epistemic arguments for democracy. Nevertheless, Estlund presents telling critiques of rival theories and develops a sophisticated alternative that illuminates some central normative features of democracy. (shrink)

Democratic instrumentalism is the combination of two ideas. One is instrumentalism regarding political arrangements: the form of government that ought to be instituted and sustained in a political society is the one the consequences of whose operation would be better than those of any feasible alternative. The second idea is the claim that under modern conditions democratic political institutions would be best according to the instrumentalist norm and ought to be established. “Democratic instrumentalism” is not a catchy political slogan apt (...) for car bumper stickers. To my knowledge people have never marched in solidarity under its banner. In fact it is a dreary political abstraction. Yet it has a lot going for it, morally, politically, and intellectually. This essay defends democratic instrumentalism.1 The democratic instrumentalist opposes the doctrine of the divine right of kings along with the idea that aristocrats are inherently more worthy than commoners and as such are uniquely entitled to rule. Striking a more controversial note, the democratic instrumentalist also opposes the suggestion that each adult person has a fundamental moral right to be admitted as a full member of some political society, entitled to run for office and vote (on a one person, one vote basis) in free elections that select the public officials in top government posts and directly or indirectly determine the content of the laws and policies that the government enforces on all members of the society. Call this the right to a democratic say.2 Here a moral right is an individual claim that others ought to honor. If one has a moral right, one is wronged if others do not honor it; a given right is constituted by specified duties that specified others are bound to fulfill. A fundamental moral right holds independently of social and political arrangements, cultural understandings, or people’s opinions. It also holds, at least to some degree, independently of the consequences that would ensue if it were upheld or not upheld.3 A fundamental moral right might be hedged with conditions.. (shrink)

Political judgment is notoriously hard to theorise, and in the recent debates surrounding Habermas's discourse ethics we encounter classic disagreements around the nature, operation and validity of such judgments. This paper evaluates Habermas's account of political judgment and explores the problems raised by his critics. It then focuses on the contentious role played by universals within his account. What emerges is a reformulated theory of judgment based on the thin universalism of fair deliberation, and a description of a sub-set of (...) judgments, termed ``democratic judgments'', which are oriented to the preservation of democracy. (shrink)

The practice of unrestricted universal suffrage is unjust. Citizens have a right that any political power held over them should be exercised by competent people in a competent way. Universal suffrage violates this right. To satisfy this right, universal suffrage in most cases must be replaced by a moderate epistocracy, in which suffrage is restricted to citizens of sufficient political competence. Epistocracy itself seems to fall foul of the qualified acceptability requirement, that political power must be distributed in ways against (...) which there are no qualified objections. However, it is less intrinsically unjust than democracy with universal suffrage, and probably produces more just outcomes. Thus epistocracy is more just than democracy, even if not perfectly just. (shrink)

Book review of Ian Shapiro - "The State of Democratic Theory".

This is a expository and critical review of Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. 's last book, War and the American Presidency. The book collects and focuses recent writings of Arthur Schlesinger on the themes of its title. In its short Foreword and seven concise essays, the book aims to explore, in some contrast with the genre of “instant history,” the relationship between President George W. Bush’s Iraq adventure and the national past. This aim and the present work are deserving of wide attention, (...) both because of the contemporary need to deal with the extended war in Iraq and because Americans, in particular, need to attend to their own history, if we are to avoid past mistakes and make the best use of our ongoing political traditions and institutions. In order to know better where we might go in the future, we need an adequate picture of where we have been in the past. Schlesinger invites us to debate the war, the Presidency, and their relation to the American past. (shrink)

Whilst legitimacy is often thought to concern the processes through which coercive decisions are made in society, justice has been standardly viewed as a ‘substantial’ matter concerning the moral justification of the terms of social cooperation. Accordingly, theorization about procedures may seem appropriate for the former but not for the latter. To defend proceduralism as a relevant approach to justice, I distinguish three questions: (1) Who is entitled to exercise coercive power? (2) On what terms should the participants to a (...) scheme of cooperation interact? (3) How should the costs and benefits produced by cooperation be distributed? Legitimacy concerns (1), whereas justice applies to (2) and (3). Although the appropriateness of proceduralism is debatable in relation to (3), it seems well equipped to address the justice-related question in (2). And it does so by focusing on the inherent moral acceptability of the way in which persons are treated by the procedures through which they interact. (shrink)

In The Public and Its Problems, a classic of social and political philosophy, John Dewey exhibits his strong faith in the potential of human intelligence to solve the public's problems. In his characteristic provocative style, Dewey clarifies the meaning and implications of such concepts as "the public," "the state," "government," and "political democracy." He distinguishes his a posterior reasoning from a priori reasoning, which, he argues permeates less meaningful discussion of basic concepts. Dewey repeatedly demonstrates the interrelationships between fact and (...) theory. (shrink)

For a state to be legitimate is for it to be permissible for the state to issue and enforce its commands (mostly laws), and for this to be permissible “owing to the process by which they were produced” (2).1 For a state to have authority is for it to have the power to morally require or forbid actions through commands, or the power to create duties (2).2 It seems that a state’s being democratic—in somewhat like the way in which the (...) democracies we are familiar with are democratic—has something to do with its having both authority and legitimacy. But what, exactly? There is, after all, nothing obvious about the relation between democracy on the one hand and legitimacy and authority on the other. One may think that consent has something to do with it. But this would be wrong, because most of those supposedly under the authority of the state haven’t consented to anything of relevance (9). Implicit consent, if it is too implicit, so that the agent may not realize she is consenting, is no substitute for real consent, and if it is more explicit than that then, again, hardly anyone has consented to the state’s authority, not even in democracies (9). And most hypothetical consent theories fall prey to their own difficulties. So consent theory of the typical kind cannot ground political legitimacy and authority. (A very atypical kind of consent will nevertheless eventually emerge victorious.). (shrink)

This volume explores the relationship between human rights and democracy within both the theoretical and empirical field.

Democracy has difficulties with the rights on non-voters (children, the mentally ill, foreigners etc). Democratic leaders have sometimes acted ethically, contrary to the wishes of voters, e.g. in accepting refugees as immigrants.

I argue for an epistemic conception of voting, a conception on which the purpose of the ballot is at least in some cases to identify which of several policy proposals will best promote the public good. To support this view I first briefly investigate several notions of the kind of public good that public policy should promote. Then I examine the probability logic of voting as embodied in two very robust versions of the Condorcet Jury Theorem and some related results. (...) These theorems show that if the number of voters or legislators is sufficiently large and the average of their individual propensities to select the better of two policy proposals is a little above random chance, and if each person votes his or her own best judgment (rather than in alliance with a block or faction), then the majority is extremely likely to select the better alternative. Here ‘better alternative’ means that policy or law that will best promote the public good. I also explicate a Convincing Majorities Theorem, which shows the extent to which the majority vote should provide evidence that the better policy has been selected. Finally, I show how to extend all of these results to judgments among multiple alternatives through the kind of sequential balloting typical of the legislative amendment process. (shrink)

Offered are two epistemic accounts of deliberative democracy which suggest the reasonable minority has epistemically sound reasons to willingly follow a reasonable majority position. One of these accounts suggests that the truth will be on the side of an overwhelming rational majority. This is because it is less likely that there is a widespread cognitive failure that “contaminates” the moral intuitions of rational majority than a rational minority. The second account suggests that where there is a rational disagreement, instead of (...) assuming: a) one side is right and the other wrong or b) that they are both failing to discover what justice dictates, or c) that there is no moral fact of the matter, it is sometimes plausible to conclude that both views are compatible with justice. While the competing views can’t both be simultaneously realized, it is not contradictory to assert they are both compatible with justice. (shrink)

The idea of “promoting democracy” is one that goes in and out of favor. With the advent of the so-called “Arab Spring”, the idea of promoting democracy abroad has come up for discussion once again. Yet an important recent line of thinking about human rights, starting with John Rawls’s book The Law of Peoples, has held that there is no human right to democracy, and that nondemocratic states that respect human rights should be “beyond reproach” in the realm of international (...) relations. This is, for obvious reasons, a controversial view, especially given the powerful and important arguments purporting to show that democracies do significantly better than nondemocracies in promoting internal peace and equality, and in engaging in peaceful international cooperation. Both proponents and opponents of the Rawlsian view of human rights have argued that the view implies that democracies may not “promote democracy” in nondemocratic societies. But, given that all parties to this dispute agree that democracy is necessary for justice, and given the important instrumental goods provided by democracy, the Rawlsian view has seemed deeply implausible to many. -/- In this paper I blunt this challenge to the Rawlsian view by showing how, even if there is no human right to democracy, we may still rightfully promote democracy in a number of ways and cases. Showing this requires investigation of what it means to “promote democracy”, and a more careful inspection of when various methods of promoting democracy are appropriate than has been done by most political theorists working on human rights. When we look carefully, we can see that in some instances acceptable forms of promoting democracy are compatible with the Rawlsian view of human rights, and that this view is therefore not vulnerable to the “instrumentalist” challenge. We also see how, if political philosophy is to be useful, it must be less abstract and look closely at actual cases. -/- This paper posted by permission of the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. For information visit the Stanford University website. (shrink)

I argue that some instances of constitutional religious establishment can be consistent with an expressivist interpretation of democratic legitimacy. Whether official religious endorsements disparage or exclude religious minorities depends on a number of contextual considerations, including the philosophical content of the religion in question, the attitudes of the majority, and the underlying purpose of the official status of the religious doctrine.

I argue against Rawls's claim that the liberal principle of legitimacy would be selected in the original position in addition to a democratic principle. Since a religious democracy could satisfy the democratic principle, the parties in the original position would not exclude it as illegitimate.

The concept of authority crosses many social sciences, but there is a lack of common taxonomy and definitions on this topic. The aims of this review are: (1) to define the basic characteristics of the authority relationship, reaching a definition suitable for the different domains of social psychology and social sciences; (2) to bridge the gap between individual and societal levels of explanation concerning the authority relationship, by proposing an interpretation within the framework of social representations. The authority relationship can (...) be conceived as a negotiation of meanings and it is closely linked to shared value orientation and the attribution of meanings negotiated within a society. We assume that the authority relationship is socially constructed and represents both a shared representation of society and a normative principle of social life. A multidisciplinary approach is adopted, crossing definitions and studies provided in sociology, political science, law and social psychology. (shrink)

In this paper I defend a pure proceduralist conception of legitimacy that applies to epistemic democracy. This conception, which I call pure epistemic proceduralism, does not depend on procedure-independent standards for good outcomes and relies on a proceduralist epistemology. It identifies a democratic decision as legitimate if it is the outcome of a process that satisfies certain conditions of political and epistemic fairness. My argument starts with a rejection of instrumentalism – the view that political equality is only instrumentally valuable. (...) I reject instrumentalism on two grounds: (i) because it fails to respect reasonable value pluralism and to recognize the constitutive role of democratic procedures for legitimacy in pluralist societies, and (ii) because it neglects the constructive function of democratic decision-making. I then consider two alternatives to pure epistemic proceduralism: David Estlund's version of epistemic proceduralism and a Deweyan account of epistemic democracy. I argue that only pure epistemic proceduralism can make good on both shortcomings of instrumentalism, whereas each of the other two approaches only makes good on one and neglects the other. (shrink)

Political egalitarianism is at the core of most normative conceptions of democratic legitimacy. It finds its minimal expression in the “one person one vote” formula. In the literature on deliberative democracy, political equality is typically interpreted in a more demanding sense, but different interpretations of what political equality requires can be identified. In this paper I shall argue that the attempt to specify political equality in deliberative democracy is affected by a dilemma. I shall illustrate the political egalitarian’s dilemma by (...) a hypothetical choice between two informational bases for political equality: Rawlsian primary goods and Amartya Sen’s capability approach. The political egalitarian’s dilemma reveals a clash between the requirement of ensuring equal possibilities to participate in the democratic process and the requirement of subjecting substantive judgments to deliberative evaluation. As such, the dilemma is a variant of the procedure vs. substance dilemma that is well-known in democratic theory. While it has sometimes been argued that deliberative democracy solves the tension between procedure and substance, the political egalitarian’s dilemma shows that this tension continues within deliberative democracy. (shrink)

The right to freedom of expression and the democratic system have a directly proportional relationship. Through the exercise of this right we are able to decide who we are, to speak our minds, get information, cast our vote, shape government and hold it to account, and influence our environment so that it becomes the kind of place we wish to lead our lives in. It is within a framework of democratic values that, in my view, the right of freedom of (...) expression makes unique sense and this paper aims to make this claim more precise, cogent and differentiated from alternative libertarian and liberal conceptions. I apply a fairly uncontroversial conception of the proper functions of the right of freedom of expression, to two concrete cases of international controversy: Julian Assange and Wiki Leaks, and Correa v. Palacio and El Universo. Independent of avowed adherence to democracy, supposed bastions of the right of freedom of expression in society such as some major human rights NGO’s, states and the major mass media turn out to be defending undemocratic positions—undermining the authentic right of freedom of expression in society. Crucial underlying functions of the right of freedom of expression in terms of which this right acquires value are achieving individual and collective autonomy, informed democratic control of government by the people and the right to know facts of public interest. Securing the realization of such values furthers the cause of the abolition of domination, while extending the exercise of freedom of expression to the point where it becomes an act of domination is to extend it beyond the sphere in which this freedom is a right. The same happens with the freedom of movement (Art. 13 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights)—it is a right until the point at which, without reason, my fist impacts your nose. The right of freedom of expression defines a scope for this freedom—it is the scope in which freedom is (at least) not unjust. The libertarian and liberal conceptions of freedom of expression hold a version of the doctrine that the content of any expression is sacrosanct, in that it is to be unlimitedly protected from government intervention, independent of whether it is false or leads to harmful consequences. A more proper way of evaluating an action or policy is with a rights-based approach, common to democratic theory. Actions or policies which maximize the marginal extent to which human rights are respected in practice in a community —amounting to non-domination—are actions or policies worth realizing. (shrink)

Abstract. The Western conception of the individual as a rational, self-directing agent is a mythology that organizes and distorts religion, science, economics, and politics. It produces an abstracted and atomized form of engagement that is fatal to collective self-governance. And it turns democracy into the enemy of equality. Considering the meaning of democracy and autonomy from a perspective that takes the subject as truly social would refocus our attention on the constitutive contexts and practices necessary for the production of citizens (...) who are capable of meaningful self-governance. Under modern conditions, it is in the development of sexual autonomy that we learn how to take initiative with respect to our well-being and do so in concert with others. Where the view of rational agency as the defining characteristic of humanity yields a deracinated view of autonomy, a more realistic, humanistic view that we are, necessarily, social beings yields a view of freedom and self-governance as social phenomena that require empathy, negotiation, compromise, cooperation, and mutual recognition and respect. (shrink)