Episteme 5 (1):pp. 94-105 (2008)
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The pragmatist view of politics is at its very heart epistemic, for it treats morals and politics as a kind of deliberation or inquiry, not terribly unlike other kinds of inquiry. With the exception of Richard Rorty, the pragmatists argue that morals and politics, like science, aim at the truth or at getting things right and that the best method for achieving this aim is a method they sometimes call the scientific method or the method of intelligence – what would now be termed deliberative democracy. Hence, the pragmatists offer an argument for democracy which appeals to the quality of the decisions supplied by democratic procedure. Why should we value decisions that are the products of voting after open debate over private decision-making and then voting, over bargaining, or over elimination of those who disagree with us? We should value them because the deliberative democratic method is more likely to give us true or right or justified answers to our questions. Rorty, of course, thinks that no inquiry aims at the truth and that nothing about pragmatism speaks in democracy’s favor. This paper will show how his brand of pragmatism betrays what is good and deeply interesting in the pragmatist tradition.
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DOI | 10.1353/epi.0.0027 |
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References found in this work BETA
Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce.Charles S. Peirce - 1931 - Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
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Citations of this work BETA
Autorité démocratique et contestation. L’apport d’une approche épistémique.Alice Le Goff & Christian Nadeau - 2013 - Philosophiques 40 (2):255.
Democratic Epistemology and Democratic Morality: The Appeal and Challenges of Peircean Pragmatism.Annabelle Lever & Clayton Chin - 2017 - Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy:1-22.
A Peircean Epistemic Argument for a Modest Multiculturalism.J. Caleb Clanton & Andrew T. Forcehimes - 2011 - Contemporary Pragmatism 8 (2):163-185.
Moral Pluralism, Moral Motivation, and Democracy: A Critique of Talisse’s Epistemic Justification of Democracy.Paul Ott - 2011 - Contemporary Pragmatism 8 (2):145-162.
View all 6 citations / Add more citations
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