Suchergebnisse

La défense peircienne de la démocratie propose de fonder l'attrait du gouvernement démocratique sur des intérêts épistémiques universels que nous partageons en tant qu'agents épistémiques individuels. Le problème avec cette approche est qu'elle se heurte à la manière caractéristique dont la délibération et la prise de décision démocratique socialisent notre savoir et nos croyances. L'approche peircienne méconnaît que ce trait caractéristique distingue la démocratie comme un jeu épistémique fondamentalement à part des jeux dans lesquelles nous nous situons, en tant qu'agents épistémiques, dans des contextes non-politiques et non-démocratiques. Les défauts de la défense peircienne se manifestent quand celle-ci fait face aux paradoxes du vote démocratique qui, pour être surmontés, demandent une conceptualisation profondément collectivisée et socialisée des processus démocratiques de la délibération et de la formation des opinions. Pour cette raison, la méconnaissance de la manière distinctive dont la délibération et la prise de décision démocratique socialisent le savoir pose problème à deux titres : premièrement, en basant la défense peircienne de la démocratie sure une conception inadéquate de l'épistémologie démocratique ; deuxièmement, en privant l'approche peircienne de sa capacité de répondre aux défis des paradoxes du vote.

This paper defends two fundamental but under-theorized insights coming from the theory of deliberative democracy. The first is that consensus is valuable as a precondition of democratic collective self-determination, since it ensures that democratic decisions display an adequate degree of integrity and consistency and therefore that the polity can act as a unified agent. The second is that consensus in this integrity-building role is essential if citizens need to act as decision-makers; it ensures that the decisions that issue from the exercise of their political rights are meaningful, and that they are so as the intended result of their joint agency.Aggregative approaches, which do not acknowledge this role of consensus, offer an atomistic account of voting and other political rights, and model the outcomes of democratic decision-making as unintended aggregative consequences of individual votes. In these models, democratic political agency and the decision-making power of citizens are curtailed, because citizens do not exert any intentional control on the final outcome of the decision-making process in which they participate.Although the insight on these shortcomings comes from the deliberative camp, I show that the most prominent accounts of how deliberation is supposed to further consensus in its integrity-building role can be subject to the same criticisms. In fact, in these models consensus is achieved as a by-product of people's engaging in deliberation. Although interactive, these approaches are still atomistic and unintentional. As an alternative, I propose a model of democratic decision-making that acknowledges the role played by the citizens' intentional consensus-building through the strategic use of their political rights.

This paper defends two fundamental but under-theorized insights coming from the theory of deliberative democracy. The first is that consensus is valuable as a precondition of democratic collective self-determination, since it ensures that democratic decisions display an adequate degree of integrity and consistency and therefore that the polity can act as a unified agent. The second is that consensus in this integrity-building role is essential if citizens need to act as decision-makers; it ensures that the decisions that issue from the exercise of their political rights are meaningful, and that they are so as the intended result of their joint agency. Aggregative approaches, which do not acknowledge this role of consensus, offer an atomistic account of voting and other political rights, and model the outcomes of democratic decision-making as unintended aggregative consequences of individual votes. In these models, democratic political agency and the decision-making power of citizens are curtailed, because citizens do not exert any intentional control on the final outcome of the decision-making process in which they participate. Although the insight on these shortcomings comes from the deliberative camp, I show that the most prominent accounts of how deliberation is supposed to further consensus in its integrity-building role can be subject to the same criticisms. In fact, in these models consensus is achieved as a by-product of people's engaging in deliberation. Although interactive, these approaches are still atomistic and unintentional. As an alternative, I propose a model of democratic decision-making that acknowledges the role played by the citizens' intentional consensus-building through the strategic use of their political rights.

Pettit's claim that the discovery of the so-called 'discursive paradox' bears important implications for the normative theory of deliberative democracy has been challenged on the ground that there are substantial structural differences between the fora of democratic deliberation and the judicial context in which the paradox first emerged. In this article I defend Pettit's claim against these objections, but I also reject the implications Pettit draws from his discussion of the paradox. Specifically, I argue against one of the key assumptions on which Pettit's discussion rests: that in order to function properly as a guarantee against tyranny deliberation requires consistency. The upshot of the discussion is that the discursive paradox is, indeed, relevant for the theory of deliberative democracy. However, contrary to what Pettit's argument suggests, the discursive paradox is not relevant because it reveals a conflict between deliberation and democracy. Rather, it is relevant because it reveals a conflict between deliberative democracy and the requirement of collective consistency.