Abstract
I consider whether political deference by a citizen within a liberal democracy to moral experts is morally problematic. I compare and contrast deference in the political and personal domains. I set to one side consequentialist worries about political deference and evaluate its possible intrinsic wrongness, expressed as a worry that deference is inconsistent with the grant to individuals of the power exercised in a democratic vote, just as personal deference is inconsistent with the grant of a power of moral choice. I consider several possible versions of such inconsistency: that a vote to delegate decision-making to experts is self-defeating, that it is unfree, or is blind to the significance of exercising a political choice, or is a denial of democratic equality. I conclude that the worries are ill-founded and that political deference is not in itself morally troubling.
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Notes
I endorse broadly Millian reasons to worry that the exercise of ethical expertise weakens the capacities of citizens to sustain a flourishing democracy, see Archard 2011, 127.
I distinguish between a self-abrogating and a merely self-abridging exercise of freedom (and of democratic voting), see Archard 1990.
References
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