There is a growing literature under the banner of "deliberative democracy," and Paul Weithman suggests that much of it is based on, or at least implies, a critique of the kind of theory of justice pioneered by Rawls 1. The issue at stake is whether a democratic political theory can admit independent normative standards that apply to and constrain democratic decisions. A certain kind of critic thinks independent standards are anti-democratic. Weithman's defense of Rawlsian theory against this charge is, I (...) believe, instructively mistaken. Rawlsian theory escapes the charge but not for Weithman's reasons. This dispute might reasonably hope to shed light on the interrelations not only between democracy and justice, but also between these and political legitimacy. (shrink)
Controversy has recently erupted, at least in a recent story in the Independent, over the question of whether Brown's Philosophy Department has been inappropriately exclusionary of courses in other departments, of diverse philosophical traditions, and of non-white philosophers. These are questions well worth asking, although the article's critical stance requires some scrutiny. It is worth supplementing the article with some information that might help students think about whether they ought to call for changes in the Philosophy Department's policies or practices. (...) As a member of that department, I certainly welcome students' opinions and suggestions on these matters. (shrink)
The maintenance of economic equality can easily seem to depend on participants caring more for impartial values such as distributive justice than they are morally required to do. A liberal morality in which partial concerns for the interests of oneself or one's loved ones are given some scope might seem to permit people to refrain from doing what is impartially best unless they are compensated, even though compensation would produce inequality. This tension between liberal morality and egalitarianism is often exaggerated (...) by a failure to consider the limits of permissible partiality even in a liberal, or partiality-friendly, morality. The option of partiality has limits; it cannot be exercised no matter what. I argue that partial concerns will often be overruled morally if some burdensome work would be good enough from an impartial standpoint. This idea of leveraged enhancement - intentionally enhancing the agent-neutral value of work that would otherwise be optional - has important normative consequences both for personal morality and for the design of social institutions with an eye to distributive justice. (shrink)
This volume includes 22 new pieces by leaders in the field on both perennial and emerging topics of keen interest to contemporary political philosophers.
The papers published in this special issue can fairly be unified under the heading “Epistemic Democracy,” but there is more variety among them than this might indicate. They exhibit the broad range of ways in which epistemological considerations are figuring in contemporary philosophical discussions of democracy. The authors range from young and promising to established and distinguished. I'd like to introduce a few of the issues that run through the papers, sprinkling references to the actual papers along the way. From (...) the beginning, democratic forms of government have included discussion and debate. In real life the value of democracy can hardly be separated from the value of free public discussion, prior to voting, about the issues and candidates. This is not to say that either the discussion or the vote have always been inspiring, but whatever value democracy is thought to have, it seems inseparable from public political discussion. One way of accounting for the value of the discussion is to suppose that voters exchange reasons (not always cooperatively) about what to do. Even a quick look at the content of political debate seems to confirm that it is mostly about which decision would be best for the country or city whose laws or leaders are in question. (shrink)
Under the assumptions of the standard Condorcet Jury Theorem, majority verdicts are virtually certain to be correct if the competence of voters is greater than one-half, and virtually certain to be incorrect if voter competence is less than one-half. But which is the case? Here we turn the Jury Theorem on its head, to provide one way of addressing that question. The same logic implies that, if the outcome saw 60 percent of voters supporting one proposition and 40 percent the (...) other, then average voter competence must either be 0.60 or 0.40. We still have to decide which, but limiting the choice to those two values is a considerable aid in that. Key Words: Condorcet Jury Theorem • epistemic democracy • voter competence. (shrink)
