Fwd: Questioning Democracy

I entirely agree with the thrust of what you are saying- that suspending democracy would be a potentially very dangerous thing to do. I definitely think that even if there are gaping problems with the current form of government then we should try to change it slowly. Once we start dramatically changing things power can easily end up in the hands of dangerous people, ( e.g. the French Revolution). I don't think we're going to agree about whether some people are 'better placed to judge.' We all know that philosophy is the academic subject probably least likely to allow a consensus, but still I think that philosophers are better placed to decide things. I was just reading the tail end of an article this evening (by a GR Grice?) in which he said that there is a world of difference between a moral opinion (ie what one thinks about a moral issue) and a considered moral judgement. I think that philosophers are more likely to think about their moral opinions than just repeat the opinion that tradition has handed down to them (like many people do). (Perhaps I am a bit scathing about the common man's morality here. Being a fairly militant vegetarian means that I really do not think that most people really think about ethics very much at all and very much do accept the moral traditions of their culture, but that's another discussion for another time). When discussing things academics do generally allow different voices be heard, abandoning democracy need not mean abandoning dissent. Even if we agree about all of that (and I'm sure we don't!) we can still leave room to disagree about the purpose of government. Should it be simply to try to further the interests of the public? I don't think so. And I guess you could say that the purpose of the government should be to 'do the right thing' and decide that the best way to assess this would be to allow elected representatives to do the right thing, but I think that this will (and does) lead to laws being formed with heavy party political agendas influencing it and the raw egoism of the electorate. The ordinary bloke might agree that the most important thing and the most morally important in the world is to preserve the environment, "but hang on, I'm not going to vote for Gordon Brown if he keeps putting up fuel tax." So Nick, do you think that democracy is worthwhile because a) government should try to do what the people want, perhaps restrained somewhat, but basically to further the interests of the population because that itself is of importance or b) government should try to legislate 'to do the right thing' and that the best way of deciding what the right thing to do is happens to be to throw the question open to the whole country, rather than it being important per se to gather everyone's opinion?

On 05/01/06, nj8 <nj8@ntlworld.com> wrote:

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Matthew -

I just don't see why you think that there are some people better placed
than others to make political decisions (as opposed to
technical/implementation decisions, where some degree of expertise might
be useful). It's taken us a v long time to get to universal suffrage,
and I'd rather not see it disappear - most of the members of this group
(tho not me, ha ha!) would be disenfranchised by age, sex or a property
qualification!

Politics is not a technical matter. It's about preferences and
priorities, about deciding what it is you want.

Of COURSE the people (as a lump) are not automatically correct. but the
(correct) implication of that is that no-one is automatically correct.
Take your cars example - I happen to agree with your point, but it's up
to me to argue this point in the political arena, and to try to win
people over. Opinions genuinely  differ... one can accept that an expert
is an expert in their field, but that doesn't mean I must want what they
tell me (consider the evidence from smoking - we've known for 40 years
that smoking = death, and young people still smoke). We could have big
govt deciding these things for us, but given the risks of that
(Stalinist 5 year plans, anyone?) most democratic governments prefer to
walk a fine line - a bit of persuasion, creeping legislation in areas of
uncontroversial benefit, holding the ring between competing views,
checks and balances. If you want something, go out and campaign for it -
that's the freedom that a democracy gives you.

Actually, you and I may be, but I don't think most of us are moral
realists (I think most of us are egoists, but that's a different point).
Morality is again disputed territory, and I very much doubt that
ethicists are better placed than others to make moral decisions (tho
some of my best friends are ethicists!). Weak joke from Jeff Ketland
(Edinburgh): 'why should ethicists be ethical? I'm a geometer, but I'm
not a triangle!'.

If you're talking applied ethics, you can pick your morality from a huge
marketplace - you'll find people arguing for pretty well every position,
so again you have to CHOOSE - these are not technical questions. The
desire to have only the righteous making decisions is what leads to
theocracies, and they can be scary (cf old Iran, Calvinist Geneva, the
Inquisition, Measure for Measure etc). the job of government, as I see
it, is not to legislate morality any more than is needed to make it
possible for people to live together without hurting one another. Law
is, as someone said, the widest boundary of morality.

And that's why democracy is good, if sub-optimal - because it allows a
lot of voices to be heard, in areas where there are conflicting interests.

On the death penalty, the reason we don't have it is the very checks and
balances I mentioned last time. MPs are not mandated, they are
representatives, and expected to vote on their consciences. No-one is
suggesting that they SHOULD be mandated - I would argue for a
representative democracy, not a direct one - but I want to maintain the
right to kick em out if they go beyond the pale (as in e.g. voting for a
death penality because the current crop of  'experts' or 'moralists'
tell them to!)

Rant over. I'll go back to my lair now.

best
nick j

Matthew Hodgetts wrote:

> I take on board what you are all saying about the stability of a
> democracy and the advantages the spread of power might have for
> preventing tyranny. I guess that these are empirical matters and we
> need to go out into the world to find out what the most stable and
> most free form of government is. Fine. I want to look at the more
> philosophical aspect of why serving the interests of the people should
> be the aim of government or even be a good idea generally. I have some
> prima facie reasons why it is not a good idea:
>
> * The people are not automatically correct. For example, the use of
> petrol in cars is seriously bad for the environment, and I think that
> we should accept that the environment needs looking after. Hence let's
> say that the government should put a heavy tax on fuel so as to reduce
> usage and hence damage to the environment. But what if the
> self-interested public wants cheap petrol? Does the government now
> have some (moral?) obligation to reduce fuel duty and let the
> environment be damned because it's /vox populi/?
>
> *The people's wishes might be immoral. If we are taking realism about
> ethics seriously (and, deep down, I think most of us do) then things
> can be right or wrong. Somethings should not be done. I agree that
> finding answers in ethics is hard, but ethics is some kind of a
> (non-empirical) science. People study it: they are called ethicists.
> They are better informed to make ethical decisions, than the public at
> large. Ethical decisions are arguably the most important ones,
> shouldn't we do more than contract these important decisions out to
> the laity? Suppose you have serious ethical objections to the death
> penalty, and yet you are a proper democrat. (The majority of people in
> the UK support capital punishment:
> http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=23&did=210#ip04
> < http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=23&did=210#ip04> I
> can't actually find the /Guardian/ article it talks about). What do
> you do? You can be democratic or do the right thing. Democracy seems
> to require that sometimes you don't do the right thing.
>
> *People don't always know what's good for them. We all look too much
> at the short term, even if screwing up our long term interests.
>
> So there are some initial reasons against democracy being an ends in
> itself (rather than just a means to preventing tyranny). What reasons
> do we have to actually think that the people's wishes have some kind
> of legitimacy in themselves, just because they are people's wishes?
>
> M.
>
>
> On 05/01/06, *nj8* < nj8@ntlworld.com <mailto:nj8@ntlworld.com>> wrote:
>
>     To reply to this message or start a new topic please email:
>     BUPS-DIS@bups.org <mailto: BUPS-DIS@bups.org>
>
>
>     I was shooting from the hip, rather (don't have a lot of time
>     right now)
>     but WHY shouldn't the people have the power? they are the ones
>     affected
>     by the decisions, after all.
>
>     There is an awful lot of political theory on how & why bureaucratic
>     democracies (in the +ve sense) work ...  but it seems to me to
>     come down
>     to stability: there are checks and balances. In a democracy, there is
>     probably more of a closed circle of accountability than in
>     business. I
>     elect you in, I thereby give you authority to make the law for me (to
>     'lead' me if you like), but I can help to get rid of you if I
>     don't like
>     the way you do it.
>
>     Of course, I don't get everything I want, but why should I expect
>     that
>     when there are 60m other voices out there? If I don't like your
>     abortion
>     policy, I'd rather have the chance to get rid of you than to be stuck
>     with you for ever (or until the men in grey suits, or sandals, decide
>     THEY want someone else...)
>
>     best
>     nj
>
>     Matthew Hodgetts wrote:
>
>     > OK, I admit that it might be hard to form a system so that
>     everyone is
>     > always accountable. But that doesn't mean that we should shrug our
>     > shoulders and say, "Oh well, it might as well be the public." It
>     just
>     > occurs that in a business everyone is accountable to someone higher
>     > than themselves: bottom-rung people to middle management to senior
>     > management to senior executives, who in turn are responsible (often
>     > but not always) to boards, whose members have their personal bosses.
>     > Nobody need not have anyone above them. But I think I am slightly
>     > twisting what you are saying Nick, You say
>     >
>     > > The thing about democracy is that it recognises that everyone has
>     > interests.
>     >
>     > You think that the specifically the people should have
>     oversight. Fair
>     > enough, but be careful not to presuppose this (ie democracy) when
>     > trying to defend democracy. I want to know whether a government
>     should
>     > even be trying to serve the interests of the people. I know that
>     it is
>     > hard to decide what the 'right thing to do is,' but I would much
>     > rather have ethicists decide my countries abortion policy than
>     the man
>     > on the street.
>     >
>     > Just on a pedantic note, it's not true that in a democracy
>     politicians
>     > do not follow their own (or their party's own) agenda. Of course
>     they
>     > do, we don't have the people's wishes served just like that.
>     > Politicians do things the people don't want ( e.g. the war against
>     > Iraq had a majority opposing it, yet it still happened, (not
>     trying to
>     > comment of rightness or wrongness of that btw), and they fail to do
>     > things that the majority of people in this country want ( e.g.
>     > reinstating capital punishment).
>     >
>     > I think that we can say a lot about the failings of democracy
>     and the
>     > possible advantages or disadvantages of 'meritocracy,' but I wonder
>     > what people think about the presupposition of democracy that
>     > government /ought / to be just trying to satisfy the wishes of
>     as many
>     > of the electorate as possible? (Perhaps this isn't a good definition
>     > of what democracies are supposed to do, I don't know).
>     >
>     > Matthew
>
>
>
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>
>

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