1.nathan, n.m.l.- democracy

DemocracyAuthor(s): N. M. L. NathanSource: Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, New Series, Vol. 93 (1993), pp. 123-137Published by: Wiley on behalf of The Aristotelian SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4545169Accessed: 15-06-2016 22:19 UTC

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at

http://about.jstor.org/terms

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted

digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about

JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Wiley, The Aristotelian Society are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access toProceedings of the Aristotelian Society

This content downloaded from 132.248.159.93 on Wed, 15 Jun 2016 22:19:25 UTCAll use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

Servicio Social

Resaltado

Servicio Social

Resaltado

VJ11*-DEMOCRACY

by N. M. L. Nathan

I

I ntroduction.

If we make the will of the majority the highest law, then we should not expect, or even demand, that justice should become supreme in the State. If, on the contrary, we wish that justice should be carried out in the State, then we must submit ourselves to those who are sufficiently educated for office and who are lovers of justice. ... Either there really does exist an ideal of justice for society-then the State ought to be ruled in accordance with it, independently of whether there is a majority whose will is directed towards this ideal; or else there is no such ideal of justice-then not even democracy can be such an ideal. We can imagine only one evasion which the apologist for democracy can adopt. He may say, there is certainly an ideal of justice for the community, not dependent on the decision of the majority. But this consists just in the fact that the majority in the state ought to govem. Thus whatsoever the majority may hold to be good, justice is realised so far, and only so far, as its will is carried out. Democracy and the ideal of the just society are one and the same ... we must be clear that, if this conception is consistently held, there is no longer the possibility of limiting the obligatory character of the decisions of a majority by just demands of a higher nature... .But even if, in order to save the principle, this consequence is accepted, it remains a fruitless evasion; it only leads to further contradictions. For assuming that there is such a principle ofjustice, according to which the demand of a majority in the nation is always right, the validity of this principle itself would yet be independent of the will of the majority. And we should thus have a principle of justice which must be certain per se, and must be beyond question, even before we had a just ground for establishing the democracy, and thus for appealing to the judgment of the majority. Thus we should not leave it to the will of the majority whether it wishes to

*Meeting of the Aristotelian Society held in the Senior Common Room, Birkbeck College, London, on Monday, 15th February, 1993 at 8.15 p.m.


Servicio Social

Subrayado

Servicio Social

Subrayado

Servicio Social

Subrayado

124 N. M. L. NATHAN

govern itself or not. On the other hand, the principle in question demands that we allow the will of the majority to decide without restriction. If therefore the people decided to lay down again the govemment and to revert to an autocracy, then this very decision, which annuls the democracy, must be binding, which is a contradiction of the principle.

Thus Leonard Nelson, writing in 1919.1 What exactly is the democrat to say, in the face of such frank and determined opposition? Is he to say just that even though the majority itself cannot be relied on consciously to select good policies still democratic executives tend for various reasons not to select some bad ones, tend even to select some good ones? Or should he maintain that democratic procedures have a value quite independent of the policies selected? In what follows I will criticize two standard proceduralist and policy-neutral lines of pro-democratic thought, and then I will describe in a little more detail the rather ragged collection of policy-based hopes to which the democrat is reduced if no proceduralist arguments can be vindicated. One of the proceduralisms I criticize is egalitarian, the other makes democracy out to be somehow specially appropriate to the non-existence of knowable objective values.

What would be left for the proceduralist to say, if my criticisms were sound? He would I think have to fall back on some such claim as that universal suffrage is a uniquely instructive public symbol of our common humanity, more potent than, for instance, a set of anti-discriminatory einployment laws, or that whatever actual policies democracy selects you do at least educate yourself by your participation in the democratic process and will not be seriously corrupted by the constantly renewed invitation to say what you think of policies that you have neither the time nor the competence to understand. I shall not, however, try to challenge these last redoubts of proceduralism.

II

Equality. Here is the egalitarian argument that I want to criticize. Whatever the policies that democracy selects, democratic

I Nelson (1928), pp.29-32. For the background to this passage, see Struve (1973), Ch.6.


DEMOCRACY 125

procedures do at least give each voter an equal say. But having a say is enjoying a good, and it is good for goods to be distributed equally. So, at least in this respect, democratic procedures are good.

What, to begin with, is the good supposed to be that one enjoys just by having a say? One possible answer is that it is a chance of seeing those policies selected which one wants to be selected. The good is a chance of having a kind of utility or want-satisfaction, with want-satisfaction taken to consist in wanting something to be the case while knowing that it is. Another possible answer is that the good one enjoys just by having a say is a chance of seeing those policies selected which one believes to be good. The good is a chance of having a kind of what we might call evaluative belief- fulfilment, this being taken to consist in knowing that something is the case whilst believing that it is good that it is the case. There are then two possible versions of the egalitarian argument, which I will now consider in turn.

In its want-satisfaction version, the argument can be put as follows:

(1) You enjoy a good just by seeing those policies selected which you want to be selected.

(2) The equal distribution of good things is itself a good.

(3) The chance to obtain a good is itself a good.

(4) In democracies, voting power is equally distributed.

(5) If voting power is equally distributed, so are people's chances of seeing those policies selected which they want to be selected.

(6) Democracies distribute a good equally. (from (1), (3), (4) and (5))

(7) Democracies are good. (from (2) and (6))

Obviously premiss (5) is very doubtful. Suppose that A wants policy X to be selected, but is opposed to policy Y. Suppose further that throughout A's lifetime a majority of the electorate is against policy X and in favour of policy Y. And suppose that both X and Y are continuously on the political agenda: regular votes are taken on whether X is to be carried out and on whether Y is to be carried out. Then there is obviously a sense in which A's chance of seeing X selected is not equal to the chance of seeing Y selected which is enjoyed by a member of the majority that favours Y. We can, I suppose, imagine that power to select policies rotates among a


126 N. M. L. NATHAN

number of political parties such that for every combination of political opinions held by any individual, that combination forms the policy of just one of the parties, and the number of terms of office enjoyed by each political party is directly proportional to the amount of support which each party enjoys.2 But why imagine that political opinions will bundle themselves in few enough ways for

the adherents of each bundle to have their term of office? (2) is another doubtful premiss. The equal distribution of good

things is obviously not always an instrumental good. Nor, I think, is it plausible to say that the equal distribution of purely instrumentally good things is always a non-instrumental good. Is

the equal distribution of non-instrumentally good things a non- instrumental good? If you believe that this is so, then for any non-instrumental good whose distribution is in question there is

some quantity x of the good whose existence is the least that would compensate you for the unequal distribution of that good. But now imagine the following two states of affairs, in each of which quantities of a non-instrumental good are distributed between A and B, and in which y stands for a quantity less than the compensatory minimum x.

A B A B

100 100 100 100 + y

If you believe that it is non-instrumentally good for non- instrumental goods to be distributed equally then you will prefer I

to II, because although there is a higher total of the distributed good in II than in I, the difference y is not enough to compensate you for the inequality in II. But it is difficult to prefer I to II, given that nobody is worse off in II, and that B is better off.

Finally, I doubt premiss (1), according to which you enjoy a good just by seeing those policies selected which you want to be selected. If (1) is acceptable then surely it is because all want-satisfaction is

2 Cf.Jones(1983),pp.155-82.


DEMOCRACY 127

good. Here, however, is an argument against that more general thesis:

(8) If any want-satisfaction is non-instrumentally good then so is all want-satisfaction.

(9) Some want-satisfaction is not non-instrumentally good.

(10) No want-satisfaction is non-instrumentally good. (from (8) and (9))

( 11) Some want satisfaction is not instrumentally good.

(12) Some want-satisfaction is not good. (from (10) and (11))

Here only (9) seems doubtful. There are, however, two things to be said in favour of (9).

(i) Consider this case. You want that p, and think that it would be non-instrumentally good if p. Then you discover that p. I doubt whether you will naturally see any non-instrumental goodness in the fact that your desire that p is now satisfied which is additional to the non-instrumental goodness of the fact that p. Certainly, it does not follow from my description of the case that, in addition to wanting that p, you want your desire that p to be satisfied. 'N wants that p' and 'If N wants that p and knows that p then his want that p is satisfied' do not jointly entail 'N wants his want that p to be satisfied'. Nor does that conclusion follow even from the con- junction of 'N believes that he wants that p' and 'N believes that if he wants that p and knows that p then his want that p is satisfied'. There would however have to be some additional non-instrumental goodness in the satisfaction of your desire that p, if all want- satisfaction were really non-instrumentally good.

(ii) Suppose nevertheless that N wants that p and thinks that it would be non-instrumentally good if p and does also think that there would be some additional non-instrumental goodness in the satisfaction of his desire that p. And assume that whenever he thinks that a state of affairs would be good, he wants that state of affairs to exist. Then he will want his desire that p to be satisfied. And presumably he will also agree that there would be some non- instrumental goodness, over and above that of the satisfaction of his desire that p, in the satisfaction of his desire for the satisfaction of his desire that p. But then he will want the satisfaction of his desire for the satisfaction of his desire that p. And presumably he will also agree... And so on indefinitely. But now he must agree


128 N. M. L. NATHAN

that if he knows that p, then (1) his desire that p is satisfied, and this is a good over and above the good that p, (2) his desire for the satisfaction of his desire that p is satisfied, and this is a good over and above the good of the satisfaction of his desire that p, and so on indefinitely. But surely this makes goodness too easy to realise. Surely the initial goodness of the fact that p doesn't multiply indefinitely just because whenever one thinks something good one wants it to exist.

Is the egalitarian argument any stronger in its evaluative belief-fulfilment version, i.e. if it supposed that the good which democracy distributes equally is, not the chance of seeing those policies selected which one wants to be selected, but rather the chance of seeing those policies selected which one believes to be good? I don't think that this alteration makes any difference. Premiss (1) would become

(la) You enjoy a good just by seeing those policies selected which you

believe to be good.

But just as (1) seems acceptable only if all want-satisfaction is good, so (la) seems acceptable only if all evaluative belief-fulfilment is good. And just as (8)-(12) throws doubt on (1), so there is a parallel argument for the conclusion that some evaluative belief-fulfilment is not good. The parallel argument is just like (8)-(12) except that references to evaluative belief-fulfilment replace references to want-satisfaction. And its one doubtful-looking premiss will be that some evaluative belief-fulfilment is not non-instrumentally good. But this premiss can be defended by an argument which mirrors my two-fold defence of the corresponding premiss that some want- satisfaction is not non-instrumentally good. Suppose you think that it would be non-instrumentally good if p and then you discover that p. I doubt whether you will naturally believe that there is any additional non-instrumental goodness in the fact that your evaluative belief that it would be good if p is now fulfilled. And if you do nevertheless believe that there is some extra non- instrumental goodness in this, then presumably you will agree that there would be yet more such goodness in the fulfilment of your evaluative belief that there would be goodness, additional to that of

the fact that p, in the fulfilment of your evaluative belief that it would be good that p. And so on indefinitely. But this again makes


DEMOCRACY 129

it too easy for goodness to multiply. Goodness will multiply indefinitely once you know that p, just by virtue of your having more and more beliefs about the goodness of fulfilling evaluative beliefs.

III

Anti-objectivism. The other proceduralist and policy-neutral line of thought that I want to criticize is the claim that whatever policies it actually selects democracy somehow derives support from anti- objectivism or non-cognitivism about values in general.

Often this idea is attacked on the grounds that if there really are no objective values then no sound argument can be constructed for the value of anything, democracy included. But that is far too quick. To argue for democracy's value you don't have to argue for its objective value. You could for example claim truly that democracy tends to produce x, judge x to be good, and regard the latter judgment merely as expressing your desire for x's existence.3

It has to be admitted, however, that the nature of the alleged supporting relation between anti-objectivism and democracy is rather elusive. There are, I will suggest, two ideas which could explain the tenacity of the belief that there is some such relation. But neither of these allows us to believe that anti-objectivism is an essential premiss in a good policy-neutral pro-democratic argument.

The first idea is that anti-objectivism about values weakens a certain anti-democratic argument. The argument is as follows. Democracy needs freedom of speech and organisation in order to function properly, and therefore also needs freedom of thought. Suppose however that it is non-instrumentally good to believe that p if and only if p is true, and that there are certain true beliefs which

3 For similar over-rapid moves against the idea that anti-objectivism about values in general somehow supports liberalism, see Sandel (1984), p.1 and Mendus (1989), p.78. According to Sandel, 'Toleration and freedom are values too, and they can hardly be defended by the claim that no values can be defended...The relativist defence of liberalism is no defence at all...' Mendus goes even further. In her view, moral non-objectivism is incompatible not just with the cogency of proliberal argument, but with the actual doctrine of liberalism itself. 'Liberalism contains a commitment to the rejection of scepticism (at least in its cruder forms), since liberalism affirms what scepticism denies, namely that some values are better than others-notably the values of freedom and toleration.'


130 N. M. L. NATHAN

are not held by everyone but are such that some people who do not hold them can be brought to do so by censorship and indoctrination. Then it is good, in one respect, to restrict freedom of thought, and democracy, because it requires this freedom, is in one respect bad. Anti-objectivism about values strengthens this argument because on objectivist assumptions there are more truths which people can fail to believe than there are on anti-objectivist assumptions. Objectivists, unlike anti-objectivists, believe that value-judgments do sometimes express truths. But obviously this can't help the proceduralist, even if anti-objectivism is true. It is one thing to employ anti-objectivism in order to attack an argument against democracy, another to construct an argument for democracy in which anti-objectivism is an essential premiss.

The second idea is at first sight more promising. Consider this dialogue:

A: Different people favour different policies. Why should my view have any more weight than anyone else's? Democracy, in which each person has just one vote, does at least give each person's view an equal weight.

B: Your view should have more weight because it is true.

The idea is that anti-objectivism about values supports democracy because if it is true, and A's political view has accordingly no truth-value at all, then B's otherwise plausible objection to A's pro- democratic argument falls to the ground. And, moreover, if B's objection can be met only if anti-objectivism is true then the latter would in fact be an essential premiss in a properly expanded versiofn of A's argument.

Here is one possible sceptical response. We begin by agreeing with B that true evaluative beliefs, if there are any, should have more weight than false ones. But then we point out that true non-evaluative beliefs should also have more weight than false non-evaluative beliefs, and that even if anti-objectivism is correct, and there are no true evaluative beliefs, it may still be that A's disagreement with his opponents is in fact entirely non-evaluative. It may be that both A and his opponents have the same ultimate ends, and differ only in their beliefs about which policies are in fact more conducive to these ends. If this were the case then even if anti-objectivism is correct, one could reply to A that his view about


DEMOCRACY 131

means to the agreed ends should have more weight than those of his opponents simply because his view is true. And that A's view is true is hardly something with which A himself is in a position to disagree. Cases are of course also possible in which the disagreement between A and his opponents is entirely about ends, or in which there is both evaluative and non-evaluative disagreement. But we can already see that anti-objectivism about values will not automatically rescue A's argument.

This strikes me as a rather superficial response, for reasons which emerge when we disambiguate A's highly elliptical initial argument.

There are in fact two ways to interpret A's argument. On what we can call the anti-arbitrariness interpretation A is assuming that it is bad for like cases not to be treated alike. His argument is this. Democracy gives all views an equal weight. So, given that there is no reason to give some views more weight than others, democracy

does at least avoid one kind of badness. On the other hand, A may be advancing one of the two egalitarian arguments for democracy that I examined in the previous section. He may mean either that democracy is good because it gives each person an equal say, and thus makes for an equal distribution of the chances of having a kind of want-satisfaction. Or he may mean that democracy is good because it makes in this way for an equal distribution of the chances of a kind of evaluative belief-fulfilment. One difference between the anti-arbitrariness argument and the egalitarian arguments is that the former gives no positive value either to having a say or to different people having an equal say, whereas the egalitarian arguments assume that having a say is positively good, and that there is a further positive good in different people having an equal say.

Suppose that A is advancing an egalitarian argument. Then I think that, even on the assumption of objectivism about values, B' s reply fails. For according to the egalitarian arguments there is a good, which should be equally distributed, either in want satisfaction or evaluative belief fulfilment, and this whatever the content of the want or evaluative belief in question, and whatever the truth-value of the evaluative belief. If want-satisfaction is what A values, then even as an objectivist about values, who thinks that his

own political view is true, and the views of his opponents false, he can still think that there would be a good in his opponents' having


132 N. M. L. NATHAN

the satisfaction of seeing the policies selected that they wanted to be selected, just as there would be a good in his own knowledge that the policies had been selected which he favoured himself. Or, if it is evaluative belief-fulfilment rather than want-satisfaction that A values, he can even as an objectivist about values still think that there would as much of this evaluative belief-fulfilment good in the fulfilment of the false belief of one of his opponents as in the fulfilment of his own true belief. The good which A wants to be equally distributed and which can't be equally distributed if his own view has a special weight is a good whose existence does not in the least depend on the truth or falsity of A' s own view; and so it is not necessary for A to accept anti-objectivism, and deny that his own view is true, in order to withstand B's objection.

Suppose alternatively that A is advancing, not an egalitarian argument, but the anti-arbitrariness argument, the one which assumes that it is bad for different cases to be treated differently. On this assumption, it is not so totally beside the point for B to object that A's view should have more weight because it is true. If A's view is indeed true, then certainly there is a difference between A's case and that of his opponents. Does the question of whether anti-objectivism about values would enable A to meet B's objection now depend after all on whether B's disagreement with his opponents is really at least partly evaluative, and not just a non- evaluative disagreement about means to an agreed end? I think not. For even if anti-objectivism is true, and even if A's disagreement with his opponents is purely evaluative, so that A's case cannot be distinguished from that of his opponents on the-grounds that A's view is true, it is still possible for B to find another relevant difference between A's case and that of his opponents. The difference, B could say, is just that in A's case X is the policy favoured; it is precisely this that prevents it from being bad for A's view to have more weight. The point here would not be that A's attitude may have more weight because it is specifically A's. The point is rather that because of its content the attitude which happens to be A's attitude may have more weight. It is hard to see how A himself, if genuinely and unselfishly in favour of policy X, would be in a position to disagree.


DEMOCRACY 133

IV

Policy-based arguments. The proceduralist maintains that whatever the value of the policies selected in a democracy, democracy is still in certain respects better than its rivals. His

position can be contrasted with one of a policy-based kind. Here the claim is either that democracy tends more than its rivals to select

good policies or that it tends less to select bad ones.4 Nelson ignored procedural arguments for democracy. And I suggested that his case against democracy would not have been weakened even if he had taken them into account. But I also think that there are various more or less truistic negative policy-based arguments that do undermine his case. Here are some of them.

(1) In a democracy, governments tend not to select unpopular policies. And among those policies some would be unpopular enough to provoke bloody resistance rather than mere discontent. There are then policies, bad in one respect by any standard, which democracy tends not to select. Nor would such policies have been less bad in their bloody effects even if they had been democratically selected.

(2) The longer any particular clique of rulers remains in power, the more likely it is to select what by any standards are corrupt and oppressive policies. But, given the general fickleness of electorates, the tenure of cliques constitutionally obliged to submit themselves to re-election is liable to be fairly short. So again some bad policies which would be bad whether or not democratically selected tend not to be democratically selected.

(3) Invoking liberal premisses, Brian Barry comes close to producing a third negative policy-based argument. 'Why should

4 Someone who thinks that democratic procedures are good only because they give everyone an equal say may still have to think that democracy tends more than its rivals to select good policies,just because good procedures lend value to the policies they select. Equally, good policies lend value to the procedures by which they are selected. In order to ensure that proceduralists and policy-based defenders of democracy are not committed to each other's positions, we should perhaps say that according to proceduralists democracy is better than its rivals even when the policies selected have no value other than that which they derive from the procedure by which they are selected, while policy-based democrats think that democracy tends more than its rivals to select policies which would have been good even if non-democratically selected, or tends less than its rivals to select policies which would have been bad even if democratically selected.


134 N. M. L. NATHAN

these particular people rule?' Once the idea of the natural equality of man has got about there is, according to Barry, just one intelligible and determinate answer to this question which has any chance of being widely accepted, namely that these particular people were democratically elected. Measures to restrain criticism and opposition are therefore only to be expected from rulers who cannot give this answer to the question when it refers to them.5 Perhaps we can say that for this reason democracy has less of a tendency than its rivals to select policies which limit freedom of speech and organisation. And if we assume that such illiberal policies are bad whether or not democratically selected, we have another negative policy-based argument.

(4) Barry's point was that in a non-democracy the rulers, with no

answer available that most people will actually accept to the question of why they are entitled to rule, have more reason than democratically chosen rulers to restrict freedom of speech and organisation. It could also be argued that democracy cannot actually

function without these freedoms, and that bad illiberal policies are less likely once we have a democracy, simply because a democracy

tends to perpetuate itself. Perhaps we can even add something of the positive policy-based

kind. Part of Nelson's case against democracy was that it is not

contingently true that majorities know enough and love justice enough to prefer good policies when voting on a range of

alternatives. He did not consider whether democracy may still indirectly lead governments to implement good policies. It could be argued that since democracy cannot function without freedom to criticize, democratic governments have some incentive to pre- empt criticism which could impress even a majority which does not really understand it.

Some institutions can be justified only by reasons inadequate actually to motivate the individual actions on which the functioning of the institution depends. They may accordingly be able to function only with the help of illusions on the part of their participants about the real value of this participation. Consider for example de Tocqueville's attitude to juries: 'I do not know whether a jury is

5 Barry (1989), pp.54-60.


DEMOCRACY 135

useful to the litigants, but I am sure that it is very good for those who have to decide the case, I regard it as one of the most effective means of popular education at society's disposal' .6 As Elster points out,7 general acceptance of de Tocqueville's argument as the sole justification of the jury-system would be incompatible with the actual survival of the system itself: who would serve on a jury if he thought that the only point of the proceedings was the self- improvement of the jurors? And there would, according to Elster, be something similarly self-defeating in exclusive reliance on the analogous educational argument that de Tocqueville offered for democracy: 'It is incontestable that the people often manage their public affairs very badly, but their concern therewith is bound to extend their mental horizon and to shake them out of the rot of ordinary routine' .8 The question arises of whether the democrat also defeats himself if he relies exclusively on the mainly negative policy-based arguments which are the only ones I have been able to recommend. Maybe every pro-democratic argument is self- defeating unless it insists falsely that the majority can generally be relied on when voting to select the best. I am inclined, however, to think that voters anxious above all to keep the electoral system going in order to avoid bloodshed, corruption and loss of liberty are a much more viable species than jurors or electors bent solely on their own self-improvement.

You will have been reminded of Popper's negative doctrine of democracy. Given the practical influence of this doctrine, so potent in post-war Western Germany and perhaps already to be felt in Eastern Europe, wouldn't it be as well simply to register one's support? I'll end with some reasons for not adopting Popper's formulations.

According to Popper, we should not try to justify democracy in the sense of rule by the people, because democracy in that sense does not and never will exist: 'although "the people" may influence the actions of their rulers by the threat of dismissal, they never rule

6 de Tocqueville (1969), p.275.

7 Elster (1983), p.96.

8 de Tocqueville (1969), p.243. Cf. E.P.Thompson's defence of anti-nuclear demonstrations, also cited by Elster: 'Chartism was terribly good for the Chartists, although they never got the Charter'.


136 N. M. L. NATHAN

themselves in any concrete practical sense'.9 We can, however, justify general elections and representative government, mistakenly supposed to be manifestations of rule by the people, on the grounds that at least in the presence of widespread traditional distrust of tyranny, they are 'reasonably effective institutional safeguards against tyranny'.l0 Popper thinks that the question of how to organize political institutions so that bad or incompetent rulers can be got rid of without bloodshed or prevented from doing too much harm should in fact replace the traditional question of who should rule. Those who believe that the traditional question is fundamental assume mistakenly that political power is sovereign or essentially unchecked.11 And (here Nelson provided a cue12) all answers to the traditional question are in any case paradoxical. If for example you hold that the majority should rule, you should oppose tyranny even if the majority has decided in its favour, and yet you should accept any decision of the majority even if it is a decision to surrender power to a tyrant.13 Finally Popper suggests that we should use the term 'democracy' not in the sense of rule by the people, but rather as a short-hand label for the type of government which we can get rid of without bloodshed-for example, by way of general elections.'4

These proposals seem rather exaggerated. If, as Popper says, it is a mistake to suppose that political power is ever entirely unchecked, why can't the people still have some political power, and still to some extent rule, even though only through general elections? And if general elections and representative government are justified because they prevent bad rulers from doing too much damage and enable them to be got rid of without bloodshed, why don't we have here an argument for democracy in the sense of rule by the people? Nor do I see that someone who defends rule by the people by means of some such negative policy-based argument is placed in a hopelessly paradoxical position by the possibility that the people will choose to transfer their power to an autocracy. If we

9 Popper (1962), p. 1 25.

10 ibid.

11 op.cit., p.121.

12 Popper (1962), Vol.1, p.265 n.lO. 13 op. cit., p.123.

14 op.cit., p.124.


DEMOCRACY 137

say that necessarily a policy is good if and only if selected by the people then if the people opt for autocracy, we will have to admit both that autocratically chosen policies are good and that policies are good only if democratically chosen. But the contradiction is surely only apparent. Indirectly, you choose what your chosen agents choose. So when autocracy is democratically chosen, a subsequent autocratically chosen policy is the indirect democratic choice. And anyway, negative policy-based arguments are not premised on the kind of necessary relation between goodness and democratic origin, acceptance of which is supposed to produce the paradox. They claim only that democracy has a contingent tendency not to select bad policies.

Department of Philosophy University of Liverpool P.O.Box 147 Liverpool L69 3BX

REFERENCES

Barry, B. 1989: 'Is Democracy Special?' in Democracy, Power and Justice (Oxford: Clarendon Press)

Elster, J. 1963: Sour Grapes (Cambridge: University Press) Jones, P. 1983: 'Political Equality and Majority Rule' in D.Miller and L.Seidentop

(eds.) The Nature of Political Theory (Oxford: Clarendon Press), pp.1 55-182 Mendus, S. 1989: Toleration and the Limits of Liberalism (Basingstoke:

Macmillan) Nelson, L. 1928: 'Democracy and Leadership' in Politics and Education (London:

Allen and Unwin) Popper, K.R. 1962: The Open Society and Its Enemies 4th.ed. (London:

Routledge) Sandel, M. (ed.) 1984: Liberalism and Its Critics (Oxford: Basil Blackwell) Struve, W. 1973: Elites against Democracy (Princeton: University Press) de Tocqueville, A. 1969: Democracy in America (New York: Anchor Books)


1.nathan, n.m.l.- democracy

Documents