Bleaching preferences: Why deliberative procedure should include self-interested preferences

In: Filozofija i društvo, Band 22, Heft 3, S. 71-93

Abstract

Someone might vote for an option that on his or her view best promotes his or
her self-interest. But, someone might vote for an option that promotes what
he or she sees as a common good. The point is that there is no necessity
here. Empirically oriented investigations showed that people vote both for
self-centered and prosocial reasons. On the standard account of deliberative
democracy public discussion is oriented towards achieving the common good. In
this paper I shall argue that there is no necessity in supposing that public
deliberation will lead to consensus over the common good. If consensus over
the common good is neither realistic, nor desirable feature of public
deliberation, then the most that practically oriented deliberative democrats
might hope for is an open debate which may influence post-deliberative
voting. Or so I shall argue. On this account, deliberative democracy makes
more probable that outcome of the voting procedure will reflect concerns over
the common good. According to this conception the appeal to selfinterest is
not ex hypothesi excluded. The role of public deliberation is to bring to the
fore both self-centered and prosocial concerns, and eventually to show why
prosocial concerns should override private concerns. But there is no
necessity here. The most important thing is to have sound procedure for
weighting the reasons that speak both for and against self-interested
concerns.