Year: 2003
Type: article
Abstract: The Democracy / Contractualism AnalogyOne of the dangers in the modern enthusiasm for democracy is a temptation to suppose that the right institutions will promote justice or avoid horrors all by themselves, as if "by an invisible hand." 1 Joshua Cohen plausibly counters that "we cannot expect outcomes that advance the common good unless people are looking for them." 2 I propose to defend Cohen's proposition even against his own important normative theory of democracy and others like it.I want to demonstrate that a central strand in theories of deliberative democracy-theories generally antithetical to economistic approaches-has an invisible hand structure, and that it is inadequate for this reason.The strand I have in mind asserts what I shall call a democracy/contractualism analogy, in which justice is understood along contractualist lines (explained below), and then outcomes of proper democratic arrangements are held to track justice (call this the Tracking Claim), and to do so because they have a structural similarity to the hypothetical choice situation posited in contractualism.
Source: Philosophy & Public Affairs
Author: DAVID ESTLUND
Institution: Brown University
Language: English
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2049825248