Justifying democracy

Hi. I’m Geoff Pynn, and I teach philosophy at Elgin Community College. In this video, I’m going to talk about different philosophical arguments for democracy. The modern world takes it for granted that democracy is a good thing. But it wasn’t always like this. In the ancient world, democracies were rare, and viewed with deep suspicion. Even ancient Athens, often seen as the birthplace of democracy, was also the home of Plato, who argued that democracy was the worst form of government. He thought it enabled bad actors to gain power by exploiting the people’s ignorance and self-serving desires, and would inevitably collapse into tyranny. The story of how democracy came to be the world’s dominant political ideology is too long to tell here. But we can summarize some of the main philosophical arguments on its behalf. The most common type of pro-democracy argument concerns political legitimacy. States govern by telling their citizens what to do, and threatening them with punishment if they disobey. A legitimate state has the moral authority to govern. An illegitimate state is no different from a gang that rules the neighborhood through fear. Many philosophers have argued that only democratic states can be legitimate. The others are just glorified gangs. One kind of argument says legitimacy requires some essential feature of democracy. These arguments are called intrinsic justifications of democracy. For example, enlightenment-era thinkers commonly argued that legitimacy rests on the people’s consent. As the US Declaration of Independence puts it, “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed.” Democracy, unlike any other form of government, is all about the people’s consent. So if legitimacy requires consent, and democracy is the only form of government that rests on consent, then legitimacy requires democracy. A more contemporary version of this idea says that legitimacy depends not upon consent per se, but rather upon there being a public justification for state authority that all reasonable citizens can accept. According to this idea, democratic deliberation is the process by which justifications for different exercises of state authority are developed and made public. Other features of democracy often thought to provide it with intrinsic justification include its respect for liberty and equality. If legitimate states must respect the liberty or equality of their citizens, and democracy is the only form of government that truly respects liberty and equality -- say, by giving each citizen an equal say in the conditions that affect their lives -- then legitimacy requires democracy. A different kind of argument is less abstract and more pragmatic. It says that democracy is more effective than any alternatives at doing what legitimate states ought to do. These arguments are referred to as instrumental justifications for democracy. For example, a legitimate state ought to promote the common good of society. If democracy is the form of government best suited to this purpose, then legitimate states ought to be democracies. Of course, this was precisely why Plato opposed democracy: He thought it would be disastrous to the common good. But while there are obvious examples of destructive democratic decisions, social scientists have amassed a wealth of information that suggests Plato was wrong. Democracy is consistently linked with improvements in individual and societal well-being. Economists generally agree that democracy promotes economic growth. There is a well-established correlation between democracy and happiness, as well as other measures of a society’s health and stability. Democracy may improve the common good by generating better decisions. Since the time of the French Revolution, mathematical arguments have attempted to demonstrate that elections are an especially effective way of finding the answers to vexing social questions. Plus, even well-intentioned experts and authorities can be misled by their own biases. Democratic procedures supply a necessary corrective. Or, democracy may improve the common good by building good character. In a democratic society, citizens are encouraged to be active, educated, reasonable, community-minded, and to take ownership of their own lives. In despotic societies, people become passive, isolated, self-absorbed, secretive, and dependent. The idea is not that democratic governments themselves improve people’s character, but that the kind of society that is best for our development as virtuous, autonomous individuals is a democratic one. Each argument points to a different aspect of democracy as its justifying feature. Each one, in turn, suggests a different standard for how democratic a society or state really is. A society might be viewed as more or less democratic depending upon whether we’re concerned with how well it supports democratic deliberation, how fully it respects the equality of all citizens, or how strongly it pushes citizens towards developing autonomous lives. There are as many varieties of democracy as there are justifications for democracy. Which ones are the best is a matter of great debate. What do you think?