Getting Democratic Priorities Straight
Pragmatism, Diversity, and the Role of Beliefs
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6252041 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Paul Gunn (0009-0008-6204-3715, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2015 |
| Volume | 27 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 146-173 |
| Publication date | 2015-04-03 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Critical Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0891-3811 • E-ISSN: 1933-8007 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/08913811.2015.1052609 |
| OpenAlex | W2181537312 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 37 |
Jack Knight and James Johnson argue in The Priority of Democracy that democracy should be theorized and justified pragmatically: Democratic deliberations should be given a central coordinating role in society not because they realize any particular abstract ideal, but because they would elicit the information needed to solve real-world problems. However, Knight and Johnson rely on a naïve economic understanding of knowledge that assumes implausibly that individuals know what they need to know and need only aggregate thier separate beliefs. It is precisely because we may not know what we need to know that we need to continually test our ideas. Contra Knight and Johnson, moreover, we ought to accept that our ability to interpret social experiments properly is questionable. A pragmatic approach to social inquiry, therefore, ought to investigate what beliefs political actors actually bring to collective decisions rather than how theoretically perfect beliefs ought to be elicited and aggregated
Democracy · Diversity (politics · Economics · Epistemology · Ideal (ethics · Knight · Law and economics · Political science · Politics · Positive economics · Pragmatism · Social choice theory · Sociology · Welfare economics · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Law · Philosophy · Political Philosophy and Ethics · Political Science Research and Education
The Claims of Culture
Self-Interest and Public Interest in Western Politics
The Priority of Democracy
Groups of diverse problem solvers can outperform groups of high-ability problem solvers
The limited effect of economic self-interest on the political attitudes of the mass public
Democratic Reason
The Fatal Conceit
The Non Sequitur of the "Dependence Effect"
A Theory of Justice
Bourgeois Dignity
A Theory of Justice
Individualism and Economic Order
Justice and the Politics of Difference
‘It Ain’t What You Say…’
Rivalry and Central Planning
Search” vs. “Browse”
Deliberation and disagreement
The nature of belief systems in mass publics (1964)
Same Facts, Different Interpretations
Aggregation and Deliberation
The Politics of Motivation
Deep Down
Democratic competence in normative and positive theory
Hayek's Two Epistemologies and the Paradoxes of His Thought
Deliberative Democracy and Political Ignorance
Political Epistemology
Sources of Mass Political Disagreement
Realistic Idealism and Classical Liberalism
Can Deliberative Democracy Be Partisan
Democracy and the Deliberative Conceit
Motivated Skepticism in the Evaluation of Political Beliefs
Inquiry into Democracy
Economic Discontent and Political Behavior
Congressional Oversight Overlooked
Sociotropic Politics
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |