Richard Posner's democratic pragmatism and the problem of ignorance
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6252200 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Ilya Somin (0000-0002-0241-7761, George Mason University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2004 |
| Volume | 16 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 1-22 |
| Publication date | 2004-01-01 |
| 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 | 10.1080/08913810408443596 |
| OpenAlex | W2019758526 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 10 |
| References cited | 31 |
Richard Posner's Law, Pragmatism, and Democracy urges that political and legal decision makers should be guided by what he calls “everyday pragmatism,” rather than by “abstract” moral theory. He links his conception of pragmatic government to Sclmmpeter's unromantic view of democracy. Posner argues that judicial review should be based on a combination of pragmatism and adherence to this limited conception of democracy, rather than sticking closely to “formalist” theories of adjudication, which demand strict adherence to traditional legal norms. However, Posner's consequentialist pragmatism fails to provide an adequate guide to judicial decision making, because it does not give us any criterion for deciding which consequences are desirable. His Schumpeterian theory of democracy, too, is problematic because it does not sufficiently consider the shortcomings exposed in recent scholarship in political science and economics
Adjudication · Constitutional law · Democracy · Democratic Theory · Economics · Epistemology · Ignorance · Law and economics · Originalism · Political science · Politics · Positive economics · Pragmatism · Scholarship · Sociology · Judicial and Constitutional Studies · Law · Legal and Constitutional Studies · Philosophy · Political Philosophy and Ethics
Democracy and Moral Conflict
Democracy Without Shortcuts
Pragmatism, democracy, and judicial review
Motivated Reasoning in Political Information Processing
Economic theories of democratic legitimacy and the normative role of an ideal consensus
Law, pragmatism, and democracy
Incommunicative Action
Ignorance as a Starting Point
Deliberative Democracy and Political Ignorance
Does public ignorance defeat deliberative democracy
What Americans know about politics and why it matters
The Responsible Electorate
The Supreme Court and the Attitudinal Model Revisited
Theories of Economic Regulation
An economic theory of democracy
The Calculus of Consent
The Reasoning Voter
Deliberation and Democratic Legitimacy
Designing Democracy
An Affair of State
Breaking the Deadlock
Development as Freedom
The Logic of Collective Action
Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy
Public Education
Presidents and the Prospective Voter
Against Deliberation
Out of Sight, Out of Mind
Know-nothings? revisited again
Voter ignorance and the democratic ideal
Political Knowledge, Political Engagement, and Civic Education
| Unique citing works | 10 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0.45 |
| Citation span | 2004 - 2019 (16) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 10 |