POLS10003 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: John Stuart Mill
4 Aug 2018
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Document Summary
Democracy in the history of political thought. Democratic plateau: most of us think that democracy is a good thing. 3 questions to ask when considering democracy: Democracy theory is both a normative and descriptive question. John stuart mill argues that the democracy makes the right decision, because you have more people, more informed form of decision making because forced to discuss, he thought it made people fundamentally better. Undermines expertise: we don"t put people in power who know how to govern but rather know how to get elected, forces them to appeal to what people want rather than what is right, so democracy creates this. Destabilizing political effects: can"t add up what is collectively good, everyone is acting on what they think is right. The idea that democracy is good in of itself because of its values (liberty, public justification, equality) Plato was really skeptical of democracy, he thought that people were fundamentally different.
