PO301 Lecture 17: Po301 lesson 17
Document Summary
However, if the average person is less than 50% likely to be right, democracy leads to the wrong answer being very much more likely. Multiple perspectives argued to yield different information; debate clarifies issues and changes minds. Leads to improvement on technical judgements through better evaluation of policy as means to achieve valued ends. Also to improvement on moral judgements since deliberation encourages an orientation towards common good/justice and selfish/hypocritical judgements are exposed. In the real world the problem is that what actually happens is the cloaking of sectional interests in the language of common good. Arneson therefore argues that democracy is extrinsically or instrumentally just, not intrinsically. Democracy, when it is just, is so entirely in virtue of the tendency of democratic institutions and practices to produce outcomes that are just according to standards that are conceptually independent of the standards that define the democratic ideal".
