6

Deliberative Democratism

Introduction

Democratism does not conform to a single set of rules. Sometimes it manifests as a foreign policy of idealism abroad and sometimes it is more subtle. Deliberative democracy is one example of a powerful yet understated expression of democratism. Deliberative democracy has been described as an “ideal in which people come together, on the basis of equal status and mutual respect,” to discuss and decide political issues.¹ It would seem to be a much-needed democratic corrective to democratism’s typical reliance on an enlightened leadership class to “represent” the people. This approach to democracy, however, tends to incline toward the same paradoxical embrace of “the people’s” will as democratism, and it overlaps considerably with Rousseau’s philosophy of democracy.² Indeed, many deliberative democracy theorists self-consciously draw on Rousseau’s political ideals.³ The editors of the recent Oxford Handbook of Deliberative Democracy (2018) bemoan the global ascendancy of “post-truth” politics and the rise of populist leaders. These deliberative democrats and others assume that if the people were better educated and more informed, they would naturally reject the populist leaders whom they had once supported. The corrective for this failure of democracy, according to deliberative democracy, is deliberation “to help the citizens to understand better the issues, their own interests, and the interests and perceptions of others.” Where agreement is not possible, the deliberative democracy framework is supposed to help “structure and clarify the questions behind the conflict” before the issues are finally put to a vote.⁴

But what if an electoral majority nonetheless opts for the “populist” candidate that deliberative democracy repudiates as “undemocratic” and a proponent of “post-truth”? Is such an outcome precluded from possibility according to the procedures of deliberative democracy? If so, is deliberative democracy actually democratic? Given that some version of deliberative democracy appears to be hegemonic within modern democratic theory, it needs to be asked whether deliberative democracy helps to promote democracy in the classic sense of the word (“rule by the people”) or whether it conforms to the democratist version of democracy in which knowing elites rule on behalf of the people, disregarding the people’s intentions and desires.

President Bill Clinton credited the deliberative democracy theorist John Rawls with helping “a whole generation of learned Americans revive their faith in democracy itself.”⁵ Clinton’s praise demonstrates that the influence of Rawls and of deliberative democracy extends well beyond the ivory tower. The news media often announce the need for “national conversations” about the controversies or incidents making headlines. In 2016, the anchor of World News Tonight, David Muir, moderated a “town hall” with President Barack Obama called “The President and the People: A National Conversation.” The Woodrow Wilson Center and National Public Radio coproduce “The National Conversation,” a “forum for deep dialogue and informed discussion . . . of the most significant problems facing the nation and the world.”⁶ Lofty appeals to the need for a national conversation are so frequent and so abstract that they hardly mean anything, yet they testify to the core idea of deliberation that is at the heart of deliberative democracy, as if the nation’s “deliberating” would clarify issues and render political decisions more legitimate. This language and way of thinking reflects the same belief of deliberative democracy that public discourse ought to be normative, even central, in political decision-making. Unreflectively, many would likely agree with this notion. However, it must be asked how such deliberation would clarify issues. If a bunch of uninformed people get together in a forum, what is to say that their discussing issues will improve their thinking? Implicit in deliberative democracy’s assumption (as well as that of Muir and other hosts of “national conversations”) is that the discussion will be carefully moderated by enlightened experts of some sort.

Approach

Rawls and Habermas are different in many respects. While this chapter examines some of their commonalities it does not claim that they are identical thinkers or that their thought necessarily broadly overlaps. It analyzes them together because, while they express different versions of deliberative democracy, their respective philosophies both harken to the same idea of democratism. To examine deliberative democracy through the thought of one but not the other would be to assess one particular thinker rather than the idea of deliberative democracy more generally. This analysis seeks breadth over depth in this instance, hoping to show that some of the basic assumptions of deliberative democracy in general, rather than merely one of its exponents, align in important ways with democratism. It is possible to accept that Rawls and Habermas are different in significant ways while also agreeing that they share some normative assumptions about democracy. This chapter examines some of those shared overarching assumptions, including those of other deliberative democracy theorists, to broaden the picture even more. Thus, its intention is not to explore any single figure in great detail or to sort out the many nuances and competing perspectives within deliberative democratic theory. The purpose of this chapter is to demonstrate the connection between fundamental epistemological and philosophical assumptions of deliberative democracy and democratism.

Introduction to the Core Ideas of Deliberative Democracy

Habermas and Rawls generated tremendous interest in the deliberative democratic approach to democratic theory and political theory more broadly, and there has since evolved a “second generation” of deliberative democratic scholarship. Deliberative democrats are largely in agreement that democracy practiced through the ballot box alone is inadequate, substituting the mere aggregation of separate interests for a genuine notion of the common good. They hold that democracy ought to approximate a more transcendent notion of justice and a more holistic idea of Good. This thought squares with Rousseau’s bifurcation of a general will and a mere “will of all.” Citizen deliberation, deliberative democracy believes, is the way in which an “overlapping consensus” may be profitably discovered. Habermas’s theory of discourse ethics seeks to ground social and legal norms in “communicative action.” Rawls’s incredibly influential 1971 work, A Theory of Justice, is also broadly within this tradition, although it elaborates different norms. Together, these thinkers and other deliberative democrats argue that political norms in pluralistic societies stand in need of some kind of rational legitimation that goes beyond merely discerning the preferences of a numerical majority.⁷ Without a common religious, philosophical, or metaphysical system of belief, tradition can no longer be the leading source of political legitimacy in the West.⁸ Reason and discourse must to a great extent replace the normative role of inherited systems of beliefs.

Rawls develops the concept of “public reason,” which is a method for discerning and expressing the general will in a pluralist society. While Habermas believes that the actual act of public reasoning—the illocutionary exchange among “free and equal” citizens—is essential, Rawls believes that the individual need only consider the reasons that he or she would offer in public dialogue. In general, deliberative democracy seeks to institutionalize the ideal of “free public reasoning among equals.”⁹ In the introduction to the massive Oxford Handbook of Deliberative Democracy, the editors say that its more than one hundred contributors all agree that deliberative democracy is about “mutual communication that involves weighing and reflecting on preferences, values and interests regarding matters of common concern” and that “deliberative interactions have normatively valuable qualities that should be protected, supported, and institutionalized.”¹⁰

Joshua Cohen, a student of Rawls, defines deliberative democracy as “a framework of social and institutional conditions that facilitates free discussion among equal citizens—by providing favorable conditions for participation, association, and expression—and [it] ties the authorization to exercise public power (and the exercise itself) to such discussion by establishing a framework ensuring the responsiveness and accountability of political power to it through regular competitive elections, conditions of publicity, legislative oversight, and so on.”¹¹ Dennis F. Thompson’s “Deliberative Democratic Theory and Empirical Political Science” provides a brief but extensive survey of both theoretical and empirical work in the field. He says, “At the core of all theories of deliberative democracy is what may be called a reason-giving requirement. Citizens and their representatives are expected to justify the laws they would impose on one another by giving reasons for their political claims and responding to others’ reasons in return.”¹² Seyla Benhabib, who closely follows Habermas, adds, “Power is a social resource and a social relation in need of legitimation. Legitimacy means that there are good and justifiable reasons why one set of power relations and institutional arrangements are better than and to be preferred to others. I maintain that the legitimation of power should be thought of as a public dialogue.”¹³ As citizens, we have “dialogic obligations,” Bruce Ackerman asserts. “If you and I disagree about the moral truth, the only way we stand half a chance of solving our problems in coexistence in a way both of us find reasonable is by talking to one another about them.”¹⁴

Habermas, following fellow discourse theorist Robert Alexy (who was influenced by Habermas), outlines an “ideal speech situation” for public dialogue:

(3.1)“Every subject with the competence to speak and act is allowed to take part in the discourse.

(3.2)

a.Everyone is allowed to question any assertion whatever.

b.Everyone is allowed to introduce any assertion whatever into the discourse.

c.Everyone is allowed to express his attitudes, desires, and needs.”

(3.3)No speaker may be prevented, by internal or external coercion, from exercising his rights as laid down in (3.1) and (3.2).”¹⁵

Habermas admits that real discourse will stray from the ideal. However, the closer historical dialogue is to the “ideal speech situation,” the more legitimate its outcome. According to Benhabib, “each participant must have an equal chance to make assertions, recommendation, and explanation. All must have equal chances to express their wishes, desires, and feelings.”¹⁶ Rawls stresses the principle of “reciprocity”: “citizens are to think of themselves as if they were legislators and ask themselves what statutes, supported by what reasons satisfying the criterion of reciprocity, they would think it most reasonable to enact.”¹⁷

This turn in democratic theory, “a paradigm that is now perhaps the dominant—if not the hegemonic—orientation within democratic theory,” has arisen as an alternative to the notion that democracy functions as an aggregation of preferences expressed through voting.¹⁸ Deliberative democracy theorists believe that the majoritarian model of government sets the bar too low and that a more legitimate—because based on better consensus—democracy is possible. Andre Bächtiger et al. admit that deliberative democracy is based on aspirational ideals, which, although impossible to achieve perfectly, are no less valuable as standards toward which to strive. It is even worth incurring “significant costs” to come closer to the ideal, these authors say. Depending on circumstances, different ideals ought to be prioritized: “[A]ttending to the greater or lesser importance and the greater and lesser costs of different ideals in different contexts, applies to all aspirational democratic ideals, including deliberative ones.”¹⁹ This book in general tries to examine the value of democratic idealism and to demonstrate the relationship between idealism and ideology. To that end, this chapter assesses the extent to which the idealism that motivates deliberative democracy contributes to a more or less democratic outcome.

Jürgen Habermas

Habermas’s major work on deliberation, Theory of Communicative Action, argues that communities must determine political norms through a process of rational legitimation, what he terms “communicative action.”²⁰ For Habermas, the liberal model of government is inadequate because “[it] hinges, not on the democratic self-determination of deliberating citizens, but on the legal institutionalization of an economic society that is supposed to guarantee an essentially nonpolitical common good by the satisfaction of private preferences.”²¹ Communicative action, on the other hand, fosters citizen dialogue that ultimately justifies the political order with reasons that all can accept. Agreement is “evaluated in terms of the intersubjective recognition of validity claims.”²² That is, majority assent to a certain political norm or course of action must be based on reasons that the majority finds acceptable. If consensus proves unattainable, consent is at least possible with this method, according to Habermas.

Public consensus along the lines that Habermas outlines reveals the people’s “common will.” Habermas emphasizes the “intersubjective process of reaching understanding,” and in that way differs from Rawls, whose theory of democratic justice is monological rather than dialogical.²³ Speakers reach understanding and consensus by “rationally motivating” one another to accept their claims: “The fact that a speaker can rationally motivate a hearer to accept such an offer is due not to the validity of what he says but to the speaker’s guarantee that he will, if necessary, make efforts to redeem the claim that the hearer has accepted.”²⁴ That is, claims need not be backed by truth in any objective sense but by the speaker’s confidence that his or her normative statement could be accepted as reasonable (and therefore legitimate) by the majority of the listeners. “The moral principle is so conceived as to exclude as invalid any norm that could not meet with the qualified assent of all who are or might be affected by it,” Habermas says. “This bridging principle, which makes consensus possible, ensures that only those norms are accepted as valid that express a general will.”²⁵ In order for a norm to be valid, according to Habermas, “[a]ll affected can accept the consequences and the side effects its general observance can be anticipated to have for the satisfaction of everyone’s interests (and these consequences are preferred to those of known alternative possibilities for regulation).”²⁶

Habermas tries to avoid the ahistoricism of which some have accused Rawls and considers the historical dimension of life in his theory of deliberative democracy. Dialogue, for Habermas, helps persons to clarify identities and commitments. It gives them “a clear understanding of themselves as members of a specific nation, as members of a locale or a state, as inhabitants of a region, etc.”²⁷ However, Habermas is not historical in the sense of, say, Edmund Burke. Reason, not tradition or generational and experiential knowledge, ought ultimately determine what is politically normative.²⁸ For Habermas, it is not lived experience as members of a nation, locale, region, etc. that shapes ideas about political norms, as it is for Burke, but the rational understanding and articulation of that experience. Habermas believes that citizens “determine which traditions they will continue,” “determine how they will treat each other, and how they will treat minorities and marginal groups,” and “get clear about the kind of society they want to live in.”²⁹ The political process for a historical thinker like Burke, on the other hand, is grounded in generational knowledge; practical experience often guides political norms in unreflective and unspoken ways. This inherited wisdom, as Burke would call it, foregrounds actions, beliefs, and customs in a way that, in a certain sense, defies rational explanation. Citizens cannot determine which traditions are valuable by rationally dissecting them, Burke would argue. Although Habermas takes the Aristotelian position that human beings are naturally social and shaped by social networks and relations, he believes that a universal “abstract core” guides moral intuitions.³⁰ Thomas McCarthy says that for Habermas, our natural, universal sociability implies “the inviolability of the person and the solidarity of the community,” two ideas “at the heart of traditional moralities.”³¹ But this obfuscates a major difference between Habermas’s political theory and that of the Aristotelian and Burkean varieties. According to the traditional or historical perspective, “reasoned agreement” alone cannot justify political norms, and indeed the solidarity of the community depends on the continuity of traditional norms. Experience, rather than reason, is foremost in shaping habits and customs and in determining the course of civic life, according to Aristotle and Burke. Norms that come about through the fires of trial and error might not follow rational logic or be easily justified through reasoning. Only in dispensing with them does their inherent value really become clear.

John Rawls

Rawls’s understanding of deliberative democracy relies on a similar belief in the universality and objectivity of reason. Rawls invites us to reimagine political possibilities through his famous hypothetical, the “veil of ignorance.” Ignoring personal, social, and historical circumstances, we are to imagine what should constitute the norms of political existence in general. Within these constraints and others (and working with givens, such as basic knowledge of biology, psychology, the natural sciences, etc.), Rawls believes that we can reason or internally deliberate our way to a political (and social and economic) system acceptable to all “reasonable” persons. He calls this thought experiment the “original position,” the most famous aspect of which is the veil of ignorance. The original position mimics the imaginative function of the state of nature in the philosophies of the social contract thinkers. Stripped of historical, religious, cultural, social, ethnic, national, and any other particular self-knowledge, persons are assumed to be free to act on the basis of objective reason. Given that there are competing conceptions of the good and differing philosophical, religious, and moral convictions, the best way to determine principles of justice is to rationally determine them, according to this theory. Following Rousseau, Rawls believes that disinterested reasoning can guide our thinking and that when applied to politics can result in something like the general will. For Rawls, liberal democracy is the only rationally plausible form of government given his first principles, although there may be different legitimate variants of liberal democracy.

Public reason, Rawls believes, is one of the essential elements of deliberative democracy and relates to citizens’ reasoning concerning constitutional questions and matters of justice.³² Unlike Habermas’s theory, in which citizens must actually deliberate, Rawls’s theory has citizens reason only theoretically, imagining what sorts of justifications they would offer in public. “A citizen engages in public reason,” Rawls explains, “when he or she deliberates within a framework of what he or she sincerely regards as the most reasonable political conception of justice, a conception that expresses political values that others, as free and equal citizens, might reasonably be expected reasonably to endorse.”³³ A crucial component of public reason is the criterion of “reciprocity”: legitimate reasons are only those that other citizens could accept, even if they ultimately disagree on other reasonable grounds. Guided by the principle of reciprocity, the goal of public reason is to find overlapping conceptions of justice. Mirroring the original position, the “dialogue” in public reasoning is similarly hypothetical and imaginary.³⁴ For both Rawls and Habermas, the goal is to discern a general will through some sort of dialogue.

By assenting at minimum to the legitimacy of the reasons given, citizens theoretically are united in a certain sense. In this respect, deliberative democracy aims at the Rousseauean ideal of universal acceptance of the political order (even if all do not necessarily agree with each specific policy). What is significant is the underlying belief that reason is an objective and disinterested force, and that citizens coming together and engaging in reasoned debate can ultimately change their minds or at least accept the reasoning of others and therefore the final outcome as legitimate. This understanding of democracy sharply contrasts with the older view of, say, Plato, who believed that democratic interests compete in such a way that democracy must eventually give way not to consensus but to such disorder than a strongman must finally put an end to the chaos. So many discordant preferences and voices, which stem from antithetical beliefs about life and politics, cannot coalesce around shared ideas about what is “reasonable” in the Platonic perspective. Instead, according to Plato, Aristotle, and other skeptics such as the framers of the U.S. Constitution, these competing interests form factions and thwart the emergence of anything like a general will. Compromise, negotiation, and a federated system of some kind holds the political order together, according to the classical republican tradition of Aristotle or Hamilton.

At bottom, these two perspectives ultimately differ in their conceptions of human nature. One inclines toward the Rousseauean view that human nature is naturally good and the other toward the Augustinian view that human beings are fallen. For the deliberative democrats, procedures and norms help to guide thinking away from selfish or myopic views and toward the common good. This idea shares with Rousseau the belief that if people organize and reason in a particular way, the political outcome can be very different from what it has been historically.

The Autonomy of Reason?

“Political reason,” Cohen says, following Rawls, is “autonomous” and does not need to rely on “an encompassing philosophy of life” in order to articulate a conception of democracy.³⁵ Deliberative democracy believes that citizen deliberation, properly ordered, would have a general purifying effect when reason is permitted to “float freely.”³⁶ Parochial beliefs would tend to give way to the common good, which is assumed to be in line with reason. Deliberative democracy agrees with John Stuart Mill that reason and free inquiry ought to be promoted so that the truth can emerge through public filtration of ideas.³⁷ Jefferson also held this belief about the epistemological role of reason; it is why he was so committed to the idea that the people, when permitted to debate freely, would come to the right opinions. The belief that rational inquiry and dialogue can act as disinterested forces in the search for truth and justice is quintessential of Enlightenment thinking and informed its progressive philosophy of history. As citizens become more educated in scientific and rational principles, they will naturally discern what is right and moral. These ideas helped to give life to a new sensibility and ethic that held that morality is not a result of habit and struggle with self, as the older classical and Christian traditions held, but a function of right reasoning. Deliberative democracy follows this Enlightenment tradition, believing that the major obstacle to a thriving democracy is not moral-spiritual but rational and educational.

Deliberative democracy’s first principle is the belief that reason is autonomous and that, through it, we can arrive at shared conceptions of the good, regardless of our personal beliefs. “Citizens must judge, from within [their] separate philosophies,” Cohen says, “that autonomous political argument is appropriate, and accept, as a public matter, that the diversity of such philosophies recommends an autonomous political reason.”³⁸ Historical circumstance and personal experience, identity, and worldview are not only unnecessary in determining what is politically just but cloud that determination. The procedures and methods of proper deliberation are to guide citizens toward the type of thinking that deliberative democracy believes is “objectively reasonable.” That such thinking must be cultivated suggests that it is not as natural as deliberative democracy would initially have us believe.

Deliberative democracy’s belief that abstract reason ought to guide discussion places quite a burden on citizens. They must practice “conversational restraint,” listening to and engaging with other speakers on equal terms. A citizen is not permitted to “respond by appealing to (his understanding of) the moral truth; he must instead be prepared, in principle, to engage in a restrained dialogic effort to locate normative premises that both sides find reasonable,” Ackerman says.³⁹ Using one’s own experience or philosophical views as justifications for an argument is not acceptable. Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson expect “citizens and officials to espouse their moral positions independently of the circumstances in which they speak. This is consistency in speech and is a sign of political sincerity: it indicates that a person holds the position because it is a moral position, not for reasons of political advantage.”⁴⁰ While deliberative democracy poses this as an ideal, it might be argued that such an ideal is incompatible with human psychology. Are we able to radically divorce our reasoning from the circumstances and experiences that have formed us and arguably informed that very reasoning? This raises certain epistemological questions about how we form opinions in the first place. But deliberative democracy has little to say about that.

Democratism in general holds the view of deliberative democracy that reason is an impartial force capable of discerning general political truth. It contends that a majority of the people, when brought together, can give form to their general will. Rousseau, like Rawls, believes this is accomplished through inner reflection, while deliberative democracy generally believes that an exchange of ideas must take place. But the end result is to be the same: the general will is somehow to be elicited from this process. However, with Rousseau, deliberative democracy is not confident that actual popular desires will result in the general will. This lack of confidence is betrayed by Rousseau’s dependence on the legislator and deliberative democracy’s reliance on correct procedures for discussion. That the general will must be coaxed in such a way suggests that democratists such as Rousseau and the deliberative democracy theorists either do not believe that reason is an impartial arbiter of truth or believe that some other force holds greater epistemological sway than reason; thus the people must be cajoled into the “right” beliefs.

Equality in Deliberation

Another requirement of deliberative democracy is that all citizens be considered equal. Thompson says that equality “refers to the resources, including talents, status, and power, that participants bring to the deliberation.”⁴¹ Equality also refers to the dynamic of the dialogue. The “random selection” of speakers, “proportional representation,” and equal time to speak, for example, are supposed to lead to better discussion.⁴² Citizens ought to have equal opportunity to advance persuasive arguments and ought to give equal weight to all “good” arguments, regardless of the background of the speaker. Most deliberative democrats agree that the more the “deliberation is influenced by unequal economic resources and social status, the more deficient it is.”⁴³ While some have observed that this would require “ ‘equality of resources,’ including ‘material wealth and educational treatment,’ ” deliberative democracy nonetheless sees it as an ideal that can serve as a useful heuristic.⁴⁴ The idea of entirely equal citizens pursuing the general will is an essential aspect of Rousseau’s version of democracy. For the same reason that Rousseau wishes to prevent communication among citizens, deliberative democracy hopes to add the requirement of equality as a corrective to the potential for thought leaders to emerge and sway citizens unduly.⁴⁵ Rousseau would likely disagree with Cohen that each citizen may be equally “recognized as having the capacities required for participating in discussion aimed at authorizing the exercise of power.”⁴⁶ It is therefore somewhat paradoxical that Rousseau should be one of the guiding lights of deliberative democracy, given his belief that deliberation would only perpetuate existing social hierarchies. For Rousseau, the only way to prevent thought leaders from emerging and swaying public opinion is to prevent all citizen communication prior to debate. He would acknowledge the inevitability of some people being inherently more eloquent, more tenacious, more opinionated, while others are happy to follow their more outspoken or intelligent counterparts.

Deliberative democracy is with Rousseau in its fear of social hierarchy, even what democratic societies might traditionally consider leadership or statesmanship, believing that differentiation among citizens will interfere with the emergence of the general will. Deliberative democracy, like Rousseauean democracy, believes that partial societies prioritize their own interests and generate cleavages in society. These divisions, according to this perspective, are adverse to democracy properly conceived, which is not composed of a plurality of interests but is reconcilable in some form of the general will. At bottom, this is what distinguishes the deliberative democracy understanding of democracy from the republican vision of the framers of the U.S. Constitution. James MacGregor Burns, although not a deliberative democrat, was frustrated with the American federated system precisely because it aims to balance rather than reconcile so many competing interests.⁴⁷

How Democratic Is Deliberative Democracy?

Deliberative democracy’s reliance on procedures at times amounts to the type of coercion it seeks to avoid in deliberation. To demand citizens suppress the expression of thoughts and ideas which arise from particular considerations does not encourage the “frank and free flow of ideas” that it purports to seek.⁴⁸ Is it fair to say that citizens whose moral positions derive from their particular circumstances are acting with a view to “political advantage”? It is not clear that citizens attempting to suppress “whatever moral principles they hold privately” in favor of the common good is possible or desirable.⁴⁹ Personal moral convictions may be as conducive to the common good as not; it is not possible to determine in the abstract. The demand that citizens act, or more importantly think in this way inclines dangerously toward a type of thought-policing that deliberative democracy would no doubt wish to avoid.

One of the major sources of tension within deliberative democracy and also a source of its kinship with democratism is its assumptions about human psychology and what ultimately motivates human beings. Prescribing rules to change the nature of civic debate does not, on its own, bring about the desired changes. Power to restrain must be exercised internally or externally on the part of citizens. Benjamin Barber, whose participatory democracy dovetails with deliberative democracy, “suggests that man is a ‘mutable’ creature whose capacity for ‘self-transformation’ stems from deliberation and interaction with his fellow men. Democratic participation, [Barber] claims, changes both ‘the community’ and ‘the participating member.’ ”⁵⁰ According to this author, Barber’s interpretation “is not atypical” of those who look to some version of “participatory democracy” as normative.⁵¹ It is implied within deliberative democracy that experts must guide the discussion and the outcome. Gutmann and Thompson’s assertion that citizens “can learn how to take each other seriously as moral agents” implies that citizens are not, on their own, up to the task of deliberation. Ideals such as mutual respect and equality may need to be enforced.⁵² In this respect, deliberative democracy seems to veer in the direction of other democratist schemes that rely on an elite to institutionalize “the people’s” will. The devices of the democratist require philosophically elaborate treatises detailing the types of practices that must become normalized, suggesting how far these ideas are from the minds of ordinary people—the people who are supposed to be the beneficiaries of these ideas. Deliberative democracy generally does not expound upon the fact that the political philosopher or intellectual is to play a major role in the creation of the new “democratic” system.

In a controlled study of deliberation in Switzerland, Bächtiger et al found that citizens who were presented with “carefully balanced materials” changed their minds prior to voting on a contentious issue.⁵³ The authors concluded that “preference transformations via deliberation occurred in more complex ways than previous studies have found.” Indeed, they “happened before the discussion, as a result of information as well as internal reflection.” This, the authors say, supports the claim that “the discussion component may be less important for opinion change than the information phase and the internal-reflective process in participants’ heads prior to discussion.”⁵⁴ This report does not give details about the information given to participants, but the effect of the information was to sway participants in the direction of the policy that the authors of the study believed was “less simplistic and more balanced.” Finding that “deliberating citizens change their opinions quite dramatically, frequently in the direction of more common good–oriented policies,” the authors are optimistic that deliberative democracy might even prove “a cure against populism, making citizens aware of the dangers related to simplistic populist initiatives.”⁵⁵ Interestingly, it was not deliberation or rational exchange among participants that changed their minds, but the information presented, as the authors themselves say.

The authors imply that their view, which is the opposite of “simplistic populist initiatives,” is the correct one, even self-evidently so, without specifying the content of either view. But what is to say that right is on the side of the deliberative democracy theorists? Could the opposing viewpoint have equal claim to democratic legitimacy? What is to determine the legitimacy of either? For deliberative democracy’s framework to determine which is legitimate is to have deliberative democracy as the jury in its own trial. As another example, Paul Quirk et al. contend that the British referendum to leave the European Union (“Brexit”) illustrates that referenda without the “institutional support” of deliberative democracy is downright harmful.⁵⁶ The implication is that the information leaflets or seminars that deliberative democracy could provide would have prevented Brexit. What is to sort out the superior, legitimate version of the people’s will? Bächtiger et al.’s study indicates that dialogue not only is not necessary for changing minds but is actually less effective than simply a presentation of materials that goes in one direction. But that is not an exchange and exhibits the power dynamic of inequality that deliberative democracy claims to wish to overturn. Or does deliberative democracy simply wish to replace one ruling elite with another? Deliberative democracy theoretically provides a framework for the free exchange of ideas among equals, but it nonetheless condones a certain hierarchy in which more informed and knowledgeable experts are to guide the preferences of citizens toward particular outcomes.

“Epistemic Elitism”

For deliberative democracy, politics is not an ethical and historical challenge but an institutional and procedural problem, to be solved through expert knowledge, “education” of citizens, and a rearrangement of social institutions and norms. While procedural politics makes possible reasoning among equals, the reasoning of experts is required to makes possible a procedural politics. The intellectual must first determine the criteria for the procedure, which itself encompasses a normative framework, presumably precluding the possibility of “simplistic populist narratives.” If all persons are equal by virtue of their ability to weigh and consider arguments as well as to put forth arguments, what is to justify deliberative democracy’s parameters for “proper” discussion? This is a paradox that Gutmann and Thompson acknowledge but do not resolve. Deliberation among citizens along the lines that deliberative democracy theorizes is “not a purely natural process,” they concede. Artificial social constructs that “may be quite complex” are necessary to facilitate it.⁵⁷ But how can citizens be made to participate? They can’t, Gutmann and Thompson respond, and so “civic education” that would teach citizens to appreciate this new framework must be a component of the overall project of deliberative democracy. In this way, deliberative democracy exemplifies the democratist paradox: the need to find a way for the people willingly to adopt the new system. Once again, education (understood in a particular way) provides the key. As soon as the people see that the new plan is in their interest, they will happily adopt it, democratism and deliberative democracy alike assume.

This would seem to suggest “epistemic elitism,” a charge leveled at deliberative democracy’s forefather John Stuart Mill. Gutmann and Thompson are “unequivocal about the influence of John Stuart Mill” on deliberative democracy and that he is “rightly considered one of the sources of deliberative democracy.”⁵⁸ But as Simone Chambers points out, Mill’s endorsement of institutional arrangements that would facilitate discussion but not actually affect legislation suggests that at least this aspect of his philosophy is “at odds with the ideals of deliberative democracy.” Yet deliberative democracy seems unknowingly to trend in the same direction as Mill’s thought, relying on the force of intellectuals and experts to ensure that deliberation is conducted properly and ignorance is not, in the words of Mill, “entitled to as much political power as knowledge.”⁵⁹ When Gutmann and Thompson say that citizens “can learn how to take each other seriously as moral agents,” they seem to mean that they might teach us.⁶⁰ “[C]lasses that teach deliberative techniques” are needed, these authors say.⁶¹ And similarly, when Bächtiger et al. emphasize the role of “carefully balanced information” in changing citizens’ minds, they imply that deliberative democrats such as Bächtiger will determine what is “balanced” and what is “simplistic” and “populist.”⁶²

Moral Geometry Leads to a Predetermined Outcome

The philosopher Michael Saward argues that Rawls’s theory of deliberative democracy leaves no room for actual deliberation or conclusions that might differ from Rawls’s own. The rational framework that Rawls provides via public reason mirrors that of the original position and preordains the outcome of a theoretical “dialogue.” Both public reason and the original position lead necessarily to Rawls’s own conception of justice, says Saward.⁶³ The citizen engaged in “public reason” and the citizen in the original position are both constrained by a theoretical framework in which only “certain sorts of arguments about courses of action are appropriate or acceptable.”⁶⁴ However, as Saward points out, even internal “dialogue” is not necessary in Rawls’s conception of deliberative democracy. Given the provisions of the ideal dialogue, which mirrors the original position, Rawls’s conception of justice—“justice as fairness”—is a foregone conclusion. In Political Liberalism, Rawls writes, “[T]he guidelines of inquiry of public reason, as well as its principle of legitimacy, have the same basis as the substantive principles of justice. This means in justice as fairness that the parties in the original position, in adopting principles of justice for the basic structure, must also adopt guidelines and criteria of public reason for applying those norms.”⁶⁵ The original position sets the terms of public reason. The “ ‘overlapping consensus of reasonable comprehensive doctrines’ is itself the conception of ‘justice as fairness,’ ” Saward says.⁶⁶ Rawls claims that “many liberalisms” are possible under the terms of public reason, but given its limiting criteria, the differences among the “liberalisms” must be inconsequential. Rawls provides at the outset only a “family of reasonable political conceptions” from which citizens may hypothetically choose. In A Theory of Justice, a person in the original position is limited to the choice of “traditional conceptions of justice” listed by Rawls; in “The Idea of Public Reason Revisited” Rawls constrains discussion with the reciprocity criterion that citizens must put forth reasons on grounds that others could accept through appeal to rationality.⁶⁷ More subtly, however, Rawls’s modern, Enlightenment understanding of persons as free, equal, and rational itself constitutes a comprehensive doctrine about human nature, epistemology, and political society. Contrast, for instance, Rawls’s interpretation of these concepts with that of Islam or orthodox Christianity, both of which have a rather different understanding of what constitutes freedom and equality and believe that human beings are motivated primarily by something other than abstract reason. What is to say that Rawls’s post-Enlightenment understanding of these concepts is objectively true or final?

Rawls’s ostensibly objective conception of justice takes on a definitive form politically. In “The Idea of Public Reason,” he states that “three main features” necessarily arise from public reason:

First, a list of certain basic rights, liberties, and opportunities (such as those familiar from constitutional regimes);

Second, an assignment of special priority to those rights, liberties, and opportunities, especially with respect to the claims of the general good and perfectionist values; and

Third, measures ensuring for all citizens adequate all-purpose means to make effective use of their freedoms.⁶⁸

What emerges is a picture of the modern liberal, democratic state in the West. Specifically, Rawls’s conception of justice inclines toward the modern welfare state.⁶⁹ In A Theory of Justice he makes even more explicit his assumption that “social justice in the modern state” entails government assurance of competitive markets, full employment, redistribution of property and wealth, and education for all.⁷⁰ Given that Rawls believes that discerning political justice is a matter of “moral geometry,” there can be little doubt that, like a geometrical proof, there is but one correct result. Rawls claims that there are many different possible conceptions of justice, but in practice there could be few substantive differences among them. “The content of public reason,” he avers, “is given by a family of political conceptions of justice, and not by a single one. There are many liberalisms and related views, and therefore many forms of public reason specified by a family of reasonable political conceptions.”⁷¹ However, the methodology of Rawls and of deliberative democracy in general does not allow for much diversity of opinion or differences in worldview. That deliberative democracy in general equates justice with the democratic norms of advanced Western nations suggests that “deliberation” is less about an honest discovering of what might be “overlapping consensus” than a pretense to democratic legitimacy.

While those who follow Habermas’s variant of deliberative democracy over Rawls’s stress the importance of actual discussion and even historical circumstance, the result is much the same. For Habermas, the give and take that characterizes speech and communication indicates the naturalness of freedom and equality, understood to mean egalitarianism and lack of constraint. Habermas’s first principle, that human nature is discursive and that this implies ahistorical liberty and equality, draws from the same epistemological paradigm of rationalism as does Rawls. Upon examination, deliberative democracy as Rawls and Habermas express it assumes that something like an a priori general will will become evident through rational dialogue. Even accounting for “affective appeals, informal arguments, rhetorical speeches, personal testimony and the like as important ingredients in the deliberative process,” deliberative democracy’s proceduralism betrays normative commitments that are not necessarily aligned with the beliefs and preferences of ordinary citizens. Its “proceduralist” methodology reveals a latent proclivity for social engineering. Citizens are expected to discern, through the proper type of dialoguing, what has already been determined as just, evident in the very rules and procedures used as guides. Habermas confirms this assertion. “The normative content,” he says, “arises from the very structure of communicative actions.”⁷² Despite the claims of Habermas disciples such as Benhabib that “proceduralism does not imply formalism and ahistoricism,” the assumption that a formal structure for communication can produce a certain outcome implies formalism and ahistoricism.⁷³

Although Habermas especially hopes to avoid metaphysical claims, the assumption that human beings can discern a general will through dialogue reveals the centrality of metaphysics even to his version of deliberative democracy. One of the major normative assumptions of deliberative democracy is that something like a general will exists and can be rationally articulated and legislated. This is not to say that a common good does not exist, but that deliberative democracy puts forth the radical claim that discerning and legislating the common good based upon expediency, contingency, and compromise among inherently competing interests is illegitimate as a form of democratic government. It bases this claim on the empirically suspect notion that deliberation, carefully controlled by guidelines that deliberative democracy theorists set forth, will result in a common consensus, or at least acceptance on the part of dissenting participants. It also assumes that the common consensus will be just. The historical record would seem to refute this hypothesis, as nothing like it has ever occurred. Even townhall meetings can become riotous events.

Deliberative Democracy in the Concrete

The editors of The Oxford Handbook of Deliberative Democracy say in their introduction that although they believe that populists and authoritarians are often to blame for a lack of political deliberation, even when deliberation is not suppressed, “we too often see levels of political polarization that signal inabilities to listen to the other side and reflect upon what they may have to say.”⁷⁴ Despite this observation, the focus of the Handbook, with a few exceptions, is on the ideal the editors assert. Two of the contributors express concern over the “disparity” between deliberative democratic theory and practice but conclude that “to deny the relevance of the theory to practice is exactly the wrong response to this challenge.”⁷⁵ For most deliberative democracy theorists, the divide between the real and the ideal suggests not the need to recalibrate expectations but to find more robust theories and to push policies to engineer the conditions in which proper deliberation might take place.

Deliberative democracy claims to be democratic in the sense that citizens discover for themselves the norms that ought to guide politics, but its bias in favor of a certain type of reasoning and the direction that reasoning ought to go calls into question its claim to be democratic. To allow local and partial considerations to guide decision-making, deliberative democrats describe as “self-interested bargaining” that which “advance[s] only [citizens’] own interests.”⁷⁶ However, if human psychology is such that we are epistemically incapable of envisioning a “general” good abstracted from any particulars, then deliberative democracy’s notion of an “overlapping consensus” discerned through abstract reasoning of one sort or another (including affective or emotional appeals, narrative, etc.) cannot result in such a consensus. This includes the Habermasian idea that citizens, although perhaps motivated by partial concerns, are nonetheless able to come together to “jointly determine how the different needs, interests, and values of all the participants should be reconciled in an impartial manner.”⁷⁷ Who might decide which version of justice is “impartial”? Alternatively, how might different viewpoints finally be reconciled into one “general” position on justice for any particular matter? It seems easier to envision this in the abstract than in an actual civic debate.

There are, to be sure, deliberative democrats sensitive to the difficulty of reaching consensus in certain contexts and open to traditional democratic practices of compromise, negotiation, and “even bargaining.” Although, one author points out, these are practices of the “adversary tradition” of democracy and are “controversial” among deliberative democrats.⁷⁸ Monique Deveaux highlights that for some deliberative democrats, cultural or identity-based disagreements ought not preclude dialogue and eventual compromise of some sort, even if that means pluralism rather than unity. Sometimes compromise is the best that can be hoped for when deep cleavages separate citizens. However, most deliberative democrats willing to consider the need for compromise and pluralism do so out of sensitivity to “the justice claims of indigenous, racialized, and cultural minority groups” rather than the belief that deep political cleavages may exist because of fundamental differences in worldview and first principles.⁷⁹ Moreover, those deliberative democrats willing to make theoretical accommodations for the “requirements” of deliberation do so to ensure that “cultural minority citizens” do not need to “bracket their identity-related interests in order to make normative claims consistent with public reason and impartiality”—something these theorists acknowledge would be problematic or unjust. However, it may be that deliberative democracy overestimates the possibility of a rationally articulated “overlapping consensus” among the dominant cultural group. It may indeed be problematic or unjust to require anyone to bracket his or her particular interests in an attempt to engage in abstract reasoning of the Rawlsian or Habermasian sort. While it certainly can be argued that marginalized voices are disadvantaged in many ways and often excluded from the public sphere, deliberative democracy seems not to consider the epistemological possibility that all perspectives are “diverse and situated,” regardless of identity, and that these will inherently influence one’s conception of what is normative.⁸⁰ That is not to say that consensus is impossible and that all viewpoints are radically individualistic and opposed but that the methodology of deliberative democracy may be based in a faulty epistemology, a possibility that is suggested in the willingness to make room for “multicultural” voices in dialogue. It may also suggest that tradition is not necessarily antithetical to genuine democracy, if it reflects the accumulated preferences and experience of a particular people.

If deliberative democracy’s new version of democracy based on the general will of particular communities (or nations or the globe) is possible only theoretically and not in actuality, then what might the “procedural constraints” of deliberative democracy accomplish in practice?⁸¹ A cynic might suggest that these constraints are a means of control and a way of forcing certain outcomes. The arbiters of “legitimate” discussion are the deliberative democracy theorists who, rather than creating freedom and equality, may be embarking on a project of social engineering. Two authors seem unwittingly to reveal the importance of control within Rawls’s deliberative democratic theory. In a review of Rawls’s religious reasoning proviso, these authors says that in updating his earlier position, “Rawls allowed that such defections from the normal requirements of public reason could be justified provided that ‘in due course proper political reasons’ ” are given.⁸² That Rawls would “allow” what these sympathetic authors characterize as “defections” suggests that deliberative democracy may be less democratic than the name would imply and might instead be another form of dogmatism, inseparable from the elaborate and abstract vision of its theorist. Deliberative democracy is prima facie supremely democratic, but implied in its normative assumptions might be the very elitism that it hopes to overturn.

Focusing on the ideal of a general will and the hopeful prospect that it can emerge given the right conditions, deliberative democracy glosses over the practical need to silence or ignore the voices that do not offer reasons that conform to deliberative democracy’s criteria of “reasonableness” and “reciprocity.” Implicit is that the benefit from “constraints on public discussion” is worth the cost of restricting the liberties of insubordinate citizens. Deliberative democracy does not make explicit that there is such a price to pay. If the general will can emerge, then the good that would be accomplished would outweigh any seeming drawback of the program. Power always “in principle rests with the citizenry as a whole,” deliberative democracy asserts, but coupled with this belief is the assumption that experts must coax the right general will out of the people.⁸³

Under the guise of using reason and impartial logic, thinkers such as Rawls argue that our common human nature as free, equal, and rational beings naturally implies a version of “procedural justice” like the one he elaborates. Yet an entire philosophy of human nature and politics is behind his and deliberative democracy’s understanding of these concepts. It is not always spelled out, but at the heart of deliberative democracy is the epistemological belief that reason is an objective investigation into truth and that its proper use leads to indisputable revelations about justice and the common good. Idealized conceptions of persons as “free” and “equal” form the basis of deliberative democracy’s prescriptions, but other conceptions surely are possible.⁸⁴ Pre-Enlightenment understandings of freedom, equality, and rationality, following Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, and classical and Christian traditions, for example, hold that persons are not autonomous individuals, and, for good or ill, hierarchy and leadership are natural. Reason, according to this older tradition, is often weaker than other forces that motivate and move human beings, such as the appetites and imagination. “I do not understand my own actions,” St. Paul says in the epistle to the Romans. “I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.”⁸⁵ Plato, although prone to a certain philosophical rationalism that is in many ways compatible with deliberative democracy, nonetheless was sensitive to the weakness of reason in the face of appetitive desires and also to the power of imagination. The careful control of myth and imaginative content in the Republic was central to Plato’s own procedural and institutional designs that were to bring about justice in the city.⁸⁶

For Rawls, “procedural justice” simplifies political justice and the difficulty of taking into account an “endless variety of circumstances.”⁸⁷ The “relative positions of particular persons” are unimportant, he specifies, in meeting the demands of justice. “It is the arrangement of the basic structure which is to be judged, and judged from a general point of view. Unless we are prepared to criticize it from the standpoint of a relevant representative man in some particular position, we have no complaint against it.”⁸⁸ That is precisely one of the central tensions that this chapter has highlighted, namely that judging the basic structure from the standpoint of the “general” instead of the particular is deeply problematic for actual, pluralistic democracy. Has Rawls’s basic structure been determined just by the relevant parties, the “relevant representative man” that Rawls seems to think has little relevance? It would seem that the actual people to be affected by the system should have greater relevance and importance, not in spite of their limited, particular viewpoints but because of them. These are the people whose lives will be affected by the changes and by the new system. Surely they should have a say, even if their reasons for desiring this or that policy are motivated by something other than “objective reasoning.”

Rawls’s “just basic structure” in society and deliberative democracy’s procedures and constraints are similar to the rules of a game, as he says. All players are expected to abide by the rules and accept the results. Justice relates to the whole, not to individual outcomes. A closer look at Rawls’s understanding of what constitutes the “intuitive idea” of basic justice reveals that he is closely aligned with modern progressives on the Left. He expects a heavy-handed government to redistribute wealth, provide free education, and guarantee “a reasonable social minimum.” But these concepts are all vague abstractions, requiring concrete interpretation and application. Unlike the rules of a poker game, there is a wide range of beliefs about what constitutes “basic justice,” from the libertarian belief in privatization to the socialist belief in nationalization. Yet Rawls suggests that the modern welfare state is written on the heart.

That Rawls calls on us to avoid assessing his theory from the standpoint of individual persons should give pause. His and deliberative democracy’s reliance on abstract ideals invites us to assess the theory not from the standpoint of real human practices and concerns but from purely theoretical, even wishful thinking. Lofty ideals and abstractions might easily appear to be self-evident and the tenets of “basic justice” obvious until concretized in real life. Such specifics are “the complications of everyday life” that Rawls believes we ought “to discard as irrelevant.”⁸⁹ But even small, controlled studies of so-called democratic deliberation attest to the chimeric nature of deliberative democracy’s ideals.⁹⁰ Thompson admits, “The conditions under which deliberative democracy thrives may be quite rare and difficult to achieve.”⁹¹ One study of juries found that the social and economic status and level of education of the jurors significantly impacted discussion and levels of participation.⁹² Jury members with higher-status jobs, more education, and higher income speak more and are perceived to be more credible. Studies also demonstrate that sex and race play a role in levels of participation and influence. These types of empirical findings suggest to many deliberative democracy theorists the need for institutionalized procedures to “provide a more level playing field for the disadvantaged” and that such findings justify officials taking special measures to equalize conditions.⁹³ But again, who is to be in charge of the system? Clearly not the people themselves if they are considered the perpetrators of the old, unequal status quo.

Deliberative Democracy’s Imaginative Orientation

Deliberative democracy’s abstract and procedural understanding of justice and democracy lend themselves to governance by bureaucracy, in which the particularities and experiences of individual persons and communities are unimportant, even hindrances to the system. Administered and overseen by experts, deliberative democracy is “democratic” in the sense that other democratist theories are. Hiding behind an apparent rationalism and objectivity and orienting it is a comprehensive and imaginative vision. Engaging in extensive and elaborate reasoning, deliberative democracy fundamentally reimagines political possibilities. It wishes for us to drain our consciousness of experiential reality and known cause and effect. Its use of logic confirms something that has already happened at an imaginative level. Rawls’s “veil of ignorance” relies primarily on the power of imagination. He does not try to demonstrate that humans are epistemically disposed to the type of abstract rationalizing to which he enjoins us. Whether or not we are capable of divorcing our identities and experiences from our beliefs about what is normative is not a question on which Rawls and other deliberative democrats dwell. They take for granted that not only are we capable of this, but also that it is the moral thing to do. But it may be that human psychology is not foremost rational in the sense that deliberative democracy believes. Considering the evidence of historical experience, a question that needs to be asked is whether the average citizen, in the end, will be moved by the better argument or by some other force or impulse. It needs to be considered whether the types of arguments that deliberative democracy considers “good” are indeed normative and also have the kind of epistemic sway that deliberative democracy takes for granted. History suggests that reason is not an impartial faculty but is closely bound with other, sometimes competing motivations and instincts.

The extent to which deliberative democracy itself relies on an unreal vision—“ideals”—to support its reasoning suggests that some other, imaginative capacity holds sway over our beliefs and ultimately worldview. Is it reasonable to envision a new way of conducting politics that has never happened before? If the imagination, perceptions, and emotional longing influence opinion-formation and, more important, action, then to what extent will citizens behave according to what is “rational” or “reasonable”? And to what extent will citizens agree and conform to deliberative democracy’s rules for deliberation? If, in general, citizens cannot be expected to follow deliberative democracy’s regulations, then should only the few, “true” democrats govern? Do those who defect from the deliberative democracy framework, as Patrick Deneen observes, “forfeit the right to be considered full-blown members of the democracy”?⁹⁴

Deliberative democracy places great faith in its procedures to bring about justice and believes that translating the general will into law involves the technical task of programing “the regulation of conflicts and the pursuit of collective goals.”⁹⁵ According to deliberative democracy, politics is largely a matter of reprogramming the citizenry according to rational rules. While deliberative democracy assumes that the proper exchange of reasons will elicit the general will, as in Rousseau’s Social Contract, the way in which the general will actually emerges and finds concrete expression is shrouded in some mystery. Like other democratist theories, deliberative democracy requires us first to believe. Thompson has admitted as much: “The general conclusion of surveys of the empirical research so far is . . . mixed or inconclusive.” While trying to identify the conditions under which deliberative democracy might be possible is a worthwhile endeavor for deliberative theory, “[t]here would be no guarantee that deliberative democracy would be vindicated.”⁹⁶ We might ask how a political theory that largely contradicts relevant empirical findings in the field could have such traction in the academy and the broader culture. It is perhaps because it compels belief at a nonrational or imaginative level, which this book argues holds tremendous epistemic power.

The degree to which the ideal orients deliberative theories suggests that the type of imagination informing them inclines toward the romantic. Favoring the ideal over the historical and empirical as a heuristic is one of the central features of democratism and animates many of its beliefs. Rousseau, too, believes his conception of democracy exists only in the abstract. “Taking the term in the strict sense,” he writes, “a true democracy has never existed and never will. . . . Besides, how many things that are difficult to unite are presupposed by this government!”⁹⁷ Democratism constitutes an ideology in part because of its preference for the abstract and the ideal, which do not constrain felicitous visions of freedom and equality. It does not focus on historical possibility and patterns of human psychology and behavior to determine what is possible and normative. “When confronted with findings that seem to confute his theory, Habermas is unfazed,” Thompson says. “He reads the ‘contradicting data as indicators of contingent constraints that deserve serious inquiry and . . . as detectors for the discovery of specific causes for existing lacks of legitimacy.’ ”⁹⁸ Evidence, even ample empirical evidence that refutes the hypothesis, to the committed democratist, does not indicate weakness or possible falsehood in the theory. Instead, the gap between theory and reality suggests to democratists in general and deliberative democracy theorists in particular that a great deal of work needs to be done to bring historical political societies closer to the ideal. The findings of this book suggest that such political idealism is dangerous. Insofar as the ideal sets our gaze on beautiful abstractions at the expense of real human beings, it does violence to reality. Rawls implies the irrelevance of the individual in his definition of procedural justice: “It is a mistake to focus attention on the varying relative positions of individuals and to require that every change, considered as a single transaction viewed in isolation, be in itself just.”⁹⁹ Rawls’s liberalism here resembles Plato’s republic. “How would you defend yourself, Socrates, [Adeimantus] said, if someone told you that you aren’t making these men very happy and that it’s their own fault?” Socrates replies, “We aren’t aiming to make any one group outstandingly happy but to make the whole city so.”¹⁰⁰ It would sound like a noble ideal until it justifies the use of force against the noncompliant, in the name of an abstract ideal.

Even today we are witnessing the dangers of “general” theories of justice. Those on both sides of the political spectrum criticize the alienating and dehumanizing effects of abstract theories that promise an “overall rise” in the standard of living or the “trickle-down” effects of the free market, for example.¹⁰¹ Similar abstract hypotheticals orient deliberative democracy. It promises that we will all be better off if everyone will just follow the procedures. But we have heard these promises before, and the burden of proof ought to be on those proposing to overturn and disrupt established ways. Without hard evidence that its vision of democracy is an actual possibility, there is little chance of its success and of people willingly participating. Deliberative theory claims that “heuristics, such as tradition,” represent oppressive practices because citizens have not rationally consented to them. The question may be asked whether deliberative democracy’s “procedural constraints” represent legitimate heuristics.¹⁰² They might or might not, but they reveal that deliberative democracy, like other democratist ideologies, is not democratic in the classical sense.

Does justice demand the sacrifice of individuals? Rousseau is emphatic that it does. He famously asserts that those who would contradict the general will need to be forced to be free, but he also says that violators of the social compact may be put to death: “For such an enemy is not a moral person, but a man, and in this situation the right of war is to kill the vanquished.”¹⁰³ It is hard to imagine deliberative democracy going this far, but implied in its theories of “good deliberation” is the need to silence those who do not follow the rules. If deliberative theorists were given the type of power they imagine they should have—recall the belief of Paul Quirk that a referendum on Brexit is dangerous without the institutional support of deliberative democracy—how would they deal with those whom they view as noncompliant? They would probably feel morally righteous in excluding people with views they have previously labeled “simple” or “populist,” for example. How far would that exclusion go? If deliberative theorists were at the very heights of political power, would they go so far as to exclude these insubordinate people from the market, the financial system, healthcare—all aspects of social life that could be painted as constituting the real “national conversation”? If certain people or groups of people are not willing to behave as the deliberative democracy theorists believe they should, can they legitimately be excluded from society? China is attempting just this with a “social credit” system. If given the power, would deliberative democracy theorists attempt to “improve” democracy along these same lines?

In a 2020 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, chief executive Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Jack Dorsey of Twitter defended their companies’ rights to “moderate” conversations on their social media platforms, citing the preservation of democracy as a reason. “We are required to help increase the health of the public conversation while at the same time ensuring that as many people as possible can participate,” Dorsey said. Zuckerberg stressed the importance of “the role internet platforms play in supporting democracy, keeping people safe and upholding fundamental values like free expression.”¹⁰⁴ Yet their “moderation” amounted to plain censorship of ideas. Their justifications for this censorship in the name of democracy mirror the type of logic that deliberative democracy uses to justify its “parameters” for discussion. Public conversation, proponents of such thinking believe, must be moderated in such a way that “extreme” or “misinformed” views are excluded. The assumption is that the “moderators” are rational and enlightened, and it is appropriate for them to be the arbiters of truth. Ordinary citizens, on the other hand, may need to be “deplatformed” or have their public postings removed, paradoxically, to protect “the health of our democracy.” It is not that Zuckerberg or Dorsey has studied deliberative democracy, but their horizon for thinking about norms of democracy is the same as that of deliberative democracy. That horizon is the ideology of democratism. They share the Rousseauean-democratist belief that a democratic ideal is normative, and undemocratic methods may be legitimate to achieve that ideal.