Can the agreement only of a majority of society’s members – whether broad agreement to have a government or agreement to have specific policies or personnel – confer authority on government? At first glance, it is unclear how this might be thought to work.Read more at location 1976
Bar Tab example. You have gone out for drinks with a few of your colleagues and graduate students. You are all busy talking about philosophy, when someone raises the question of who is going to pay the bill.Read more at location 1981
A graduate student then suggests that you pay for everybody’s drinks. Reluctant to spend so much money, you decline. But the student persists: ‘Let’s take a vote.’ To your consternation, they proceed to take the vote, which reveals that everyone at the table except you wants you to payRead more at location 1983
This sort of example places a dialectical burden on defenders of democratic authority, a burden of identifying some special circumstancesRead more at location 1990
1. Participants take their deliberation to be capable of determining action and to be unconstrained by any prior norms. 2. Participants offer reasons for their proposals, with the (correct) expectation that those reasons alone will determine the fate of their proposals. 3. Each participant has an equal voice. 4. The deliberation aims at consensus. However, if consensus cannot be achieved, the deliberation ends with voting.Read more at location 1999
he is stipulating that citizens in an ideal deliberative democracy – a purely hypothetical scenario – take deliberation as the basis for legitimacy.Read more at location 2008
How might democratic deliberation provide a basis for legitimacy? Cohen does not clearly explain this.Read more at location 2010
why should we assume that any procedure, however good, confers a content-independent, exclusive entitlement for the state to coerce peopleRead more at location 2012
If there is one thing that stands out when one reads philosophical descriptions of deliberative democracy, it is how far these descriptions fall from reality. Of the four features of deliberative democracy that Cohen identifies, how many are satisfied by any actual society?Read more at location 2015
Actual people frequently regard themselves as bound by things other than the results of public deliberation. For instance, some believe in natural law, many believe in divinely mandated moral requirements, some believe themselves bound by a constitution that was established long ago, and so on.Read more at location 2020
as Habermas puts it, ‘no force except that of the better argumentRead more at location 2025
In actual democracies, no one is required (by the state or anyone else) to state their reasons for advancing policy proposals. Moreover, the quality of the reasons offered for a policy proposal is only one part of what determines the fate of that proposal, and nearly everyone knows this.Read more at location 2027
‘parties are both formally and substantively equal.’Read more at location 2035
There is of course no actual society in which these things are true. In any modern society, a small number of individuals – journalists, authors, professors, politicians, celebrities – play a large role in public discourse, while the vast majority of individuals play essentially no role in the discourse.Read more at location 2038
the President of the United States, for example, can call a press conference at any time;Read more at location 2043
fourth condition, ideal deliberation ‘aims to arrive at a rationally motivated consensus’.Read more at location 2046
Cohen writes that ‘the ideal deliberative procedure is meant to provide a model for institutions to mirror.’10 Perhaps Cohen’s conception of deliberative democracy provides guidance for how society ought to change. While this may provide a useful role for Cohen’s construction, it brings us no closer to deriving political authority. A description of an ideal that our society ought to aim at but of which we in fact fall very far short hardly constitutes an argument that our state has political authority.Read more at location 2058
‘outcomes are democratically legitimate if and only if they could be the object of a free and reasoned agreementRead more at location 2062
On one reading, Cohen’s principle is absurdly permissive. Imagine that you are walking down the street, when a boxer suddenly punches you in the face. ‘What did you do that for?!’ you demand. ‘Well’, the boxer explains, ‘you could have agreed to be punched in the face.’Read more at location 2065
Habermas writes of what ‘would meet with the unforced agreement of all those involved, if they could participate, as free and equal, in discursive will-formation’.Read more at location 2070
Habermas are appealing to a hypothetical social contract theory.Read more at location 2073
there were two main problems. First, there is no reason to think that the structure and principles of any actual state would in fact be agreed to after ideal deliberation. Second, even if the structure and principles of some actual state would be agreed to, there is no reason to think that this fact would confer authority on that state.Read more at location 2074
Recall the Bar Tab example (Section 4.1). Your colleagues and students have voted, over your objections, to have you pay for everyone’s drinks. Now add the following stipulations to the example: before taking the vote, the group deliberated. Everyone, including you, had an equal opportunity to offer reasons for or against forcing you to pay for everyone’s drinks. The others advanced arguments that it would be in the best interests of the group as a whole to force you to pay. They attempted to reach a consensus. In the end, they were unable to convince you that you should pay, but everyone else agreed that you should pay. Are you now obligated to pay for everyone? Are the other members of the group entitled to compel you to pay through threats of violence? Clearly not. You have rightsRead more at location 2080
The central idea is that we have a general obligation to treat other members of our society as equals and that this requires respecting democratically made decisions.Read more at location 2095
laws that most voters do not support but that were passed by a democratically elected legislature?Read more at location 2099
supported by a majority of voters but not by a majority of all citizens?Read more at location 2100
Thomas Christiano has developed the Argument from Equality as an argument for political obligation, roughly as follows:14 1. Individuals are obligated to treat other members of their society as equals and not to treat them as inferiors. 2. To treat others as equals and not as inferiors, one must obey democratic laws. 3. Therefore, individuals are obligated to obey democratic laws.Read more at location 2103
2e. Democracy is crucial to the equal advancement of persons’ interests.Read more at location 2126
Christiano spends the most time justifying (2e). He argues that to truly advance individuals’ interests equally, a social system must satisfy a publicity requirement, meaning that it must be possible for citizens to see for themselves that they are being treated equally. He then argues that only democratic decision making, as a procedural form of equality, satisfies this requirement. There are other, substantive interpretations of equality – for example, that one treats others equally by equalizing their resources or that one treats others equally by granting them the same liberty rights. But these interpretations of equality do not satisfy the publicity requirement, because they are too controversial; only those who accept certain controversial ethical views could see themselves to be treated as equals in virtue of the implementation of one of these substantive forms of equality.Read more at location 2129
Taken without qualification, this putative requirement of justice is absurdly demanding.Read more at location 2139
Suppose I have $50. If I spend the money on myself, I would be advancing my interests more than the interests of others. To advance persons’ interests equally, I must spend the money on something that benefits everyone, or divide the money among all the members of my society, or perhaps donate the money to help people whose interests are presently less well advanced than the average.Read more at location 2139
Consider two examples: Charity Case: I have $50, which I am considering either donating to a very effective antipoverty charity or spending on my own personal consumption. If I give the money to charity, it will reduce the inequality in society and bring society closer to the equal advancement of all its members’ interests. However, I have already given a large amount of money to charity this year and do not wish to give more. I decide to keep the money. Tax Case: Tax laws require me to pay a large amount of money to the government. I am considering either paying all of the required taxes or cheating on my taxes in such a way as to pay $50 less than the legally required amount, in which case I will spend the $50 on personal consumption. Assume that I am certain that, if I cheat, I will not be caught or suffer any other negative personal consequences. I decide to cheat. Advocates of democratic authority would surely wish to deny that my action is permissible in the Tax Case, yet to avoid an absurdly demanding ethical theory, they would wish to allow that my action is permissible in the Charity Case.Read more at location 2158
Note: ANALOGIA TRA GOVERNO E FILANTROPIA. SE I MIEI INTERESSI PREVALGONO NEL PRIMO CASO PREVARRANNO ANCHE NEL SECONDO Edit
either the obligation to promote equal advancement of interests is implausibly demanding, or it is too weak to support basic political obligations.Read more at location 2182
The obvious problem with this inference is that a particular individual’s obedience or disobedience to a particular law has no actual impact on the functioning of the state. For instance, the government persists despite a large number of people who evade a large amount of taxes every year.Read more at location 2187
most modern societies are nowhere near the threshold level of disobedience that would be required for government to collapse; thus, the individual’s marginal impact on the state’s survival is zero.Read more at location 2195
Christiano argues that only the last interpretation – democratic equality, as I shall call it – satisfies the crucial publicity principle, the principle that ‘it is not enough that justice is done; it must be seen to be done.’Read more at location 2202
If we adopt the weak interpretation of publicity, then democratic decision making satisfies the publicity constraint, as do many other conceptions of equality. For instance, suppose one holds that the proper way to treat others equally is by according everyone the same liberty rights (roughly, rights to do as they wish, free of government interference). Individuals would be able to see that they were accorded the same liberty rights,Read more at location 2209
On the other hand, if we adopt the strong interpretation of publicity, then no interpretation of equality or justice satisfies publicity, because there is no conception of justice that all can agree on. Not all rational thinkers have agreed even that democracy is just.Read more at location 2213
Does equality of decision-making power require direct democracy, or is representative democracy sufficient? Does it require that all citizens have the same chance to stand for public office? If so, is it sufficient that all citizens are legally permitted to stand for public office, or must individuals also have financially and socially realistic opportunities to run for public office? If representative democracy is permitted, must representation be strictly proportional to population, or may some parts of a nation have representation in the legislature out of proportion to their population (as in the case of the representation of states in the U.S. Senate)? Is democratic equality violated if public officials draw districts in unusual shapes for voting purposes (as in the American practice of gerrymandering), with the specific intent of maximizing the representation of a particular party in the legislature? Is democratic equality violated if some persistent minorities rarely or never get their way? If so, what sort of minorities count? Do members of all third parties in the United States (parties other than the Democrats and the Republicans) count as persistent minorities who are not treated equally? These are all controversial questions.Read more at location 2222
when one disobeys a democratic law, one thereby treats others as inferiors by placing one’s own judgment above the judgments of other citizens.Read more at location 2236
the principle that individuals ought to treat each other as equals.Read more at location 2237
All of these factors – intelligence, knowledge, time, and effort – affect one’s reliability in arriving at correct beliefs. No one seriously maintains that persons are anywhere near to being equal in any of these dimensions, let alone all of them. It is therefore very difficult to see how one could argue that all persons are equally reliable at identifying correct political beliefs. In violating a democratic law, one may well be treating others as though they were epistemic ‘inferiors’, in the sense of persons with less reliable normative beliefs in a particular area. But there is nothing unjust in this if, as is very often the case, one knows this to be true.Read more at location 2258
You have gone out for drinks with some colleagues and students, and one of the students has proposed that you pay for everybody’s drinks. Over your protests, the other parties at the table vote to have you pay for the drinks. You tell them that you will not agree to do so. They then inform you that, if you do not pay, they intend to punish you by locking you in a room for some time and that they are prepared to take you by force.Read more at location 2267
Note: ANCHE VIOLENTARE CHI NN È D ACCVORDO CON LA MAGGIORANZA È TRATTARLO DA INFERIORE. ESEMPIO Edit
Who in this scenario is doing an injustice to whom? Who is treating whom as an inferior?Read more at location 2271
I have no comprehensive theory to offer of the conditions under which coercion is objectionable. But on the surface of it, the state’s collection of taxes is analogous to the collection of money from you in the Bar Tab example. In both cases a majority votes to take someone’s property for the benefit of the group,Read more at location 2292
One might still worry that the Bar Tab example trades on the apparent unfairness of the student’s proposal and that our intuitions would change if the group had voted for an essentially fair and equitable way of paying the bar tab. But advocates of democratic authority explicitly claim that one must comply with a democratic decision regardless of whether the decision is in itself just.Read more at location 2299
even if we could account for political obligation, there would remain the challenge of accounting for political legitimacyRead more at location 2305
[T]he democratic assembly has a right to rule [ ... ] since one treats its members unjustly if one ignores or skirts its decisions. Each citizen has a right to one’s obedience and therefore the assembly as a whole has a right to one’s obedience.30Read more at location 2307
4. If justice requires (forbids) a person to do A, then it is permissible to coerce that person to do (not to do) A.Read more at location 2312
why should we accept (4)? In many cases it is plausible that one may enforce the requirements of justice by coercion. As we have seen above, it is plausible that one may use coercion to prevent a person from unjustly harming another person. It is also plausible that one may sometimes use coercion to prevent a person from unjustly damaging or stealing another person’s property or to recover stolen property or extract compensation.Read more at location 2316
Consider an example in which I appear to violate one of these duties. I am out for drinks with some friends. Several of them are discussing what an excellent President Barack Obama is. I chime in, ‘You people are fools and your opinions are worthless. I do not respect your judgment. You are all inferior to me.’ I then plug my ears so I don’t have to hear what they say and turn my back on them. In this case, I have both failed to respect my friends’ judgments and treated them as inferiors. This strikes me as much more evident than the claim that I fail to respect other citizens’ judgments or treat other citizens as inferiors whenever I disobey a democratic law. But would my friends (or anyone else) now be justified in using physical force to impose punishment on me?Read more at location 2324
Suppose I have recently learned that Amnesty International is working to promote democracy in the little-known country of New Florida. AI is appealing for monetary donations and contributors to letter-writing campaigns. I think AI has a reasonable chance of being reasonably effective in this endeavor, and I recognize that I could support democratic institutions by helping AI at this time.32 Because democracy is crucial to the equal advancement of persons’ interests, I would thereby be promoting the equal advancement of persons’ interests. Nevertheless, I fail to support Amnesty International. In this case, it is very plausible to say that I have (a) failed to promote the equal advancement of persons’ interests and (b) failed to help bring democratic institutions into being. And perhaps I have done wrong. But am I now an appropriate target for threats of violence?Read more at location 2331
