Year: 2001
Type: article
Abstract: Classical debates, recently rejoined, rage over the question of whether we want our political outcomes to be right or whether we want them to be fair. Democracy can be (and has been) justified in either way, or both at once. For epistemic democrats, the aim of democracy is to "track the truth. " 1 For them, democracy is more desirable than alternative forms of decision-making because, and insofar as, it does that. One democratic decision rule is more desirable than another according to that same standard, so far as epistemic democrats are concerned. 2 For procedural democrats, the aim of democracy is instead to embody certain procedural virtues. 3 Procedural democrats are divided among themselves over what those virtues might be, as well as over which procedures best embody them. But all procedural democrats agree on the one central point that marks them off from epistemic democrats: for procedural democrats, democracy is not about tracking any "independent truth of the matter"; instead, the goodness or rightness of an outcome is wholly constituted by the fact of its
Source: Journal of Political Philosophy
Authors: Christian List, Robert E. Goodin
Institutions: University of Oxford, Australian National University
Language: English
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2026043261