Abstract
This final chapter clarifies certain aspects of the conciliatory conception of democracy, such as the epistemic authority of democratic decision-making over citizens, the general ambitiousness of its epistemic claims, and recapitulates how the argument for the conciliatory conception embeds an epistemic claim in the normative framework of deliberative democracy. Furthermore, it discusses how the ideal of conciliatory democracy can bear on non-ideal circumstances. In a concluding remark, it shows how the conciliatory conception produces congruence between the normative and epistemic dimensions of democracy and thus constitutes an answer to both the normative and the epistemic significance of political disagreement and a solution to the meta-problem of democratic theory.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Hume (1994): p. 247.
- 2.
Rosenblum (2008): p. 140.
- 3.
Ibid.; She quotes from: Hume (1994): p. 206f.
- 4.
Rosenblum (2008): p. 139.
- 5.
- 6.
Rosenblum (2008): p. 142.
- 7.
Hume (1994): 206f.
- 8.
As we have seen, the disciplines of political science and economics have long moved passed the idea that rational choice approaches should be thus limited.
- 9.
Waldron (1987): p. 128.
- 10.
One way of specifying this idea is to say that it is instantiated when “all who are engaged in cooperation and who do their part as the rules and procedure require, are to benefit in an appropriate way as assessed by a suitable benchmark of comparison [i.e., of equality]” (Rawls 1996: p. 16).
- 11.
The conclusion refutes the claim that the role of deliberation is limited to the exchange of information with the aim of improving the quality of outcomes; cf. Michelman (1997) and Christiano (1997).
References
Christiano, T. (1997). The Significance of Public Deliberation. In J. Bohman & W. Rehg (Eds.), Deliberative Democracy Essays on Reason and Politics (pp. 243–279). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Hume, D. (1994). Political Essays. In K. Haaknossen (Ed.), Hume: Political Essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Michelman, F. I. (1997). How Can the People Ever Make the Laws? A Critique of Deliberative Democracy. In J. Bohman & W. Rehg (Eds.), Deliberative Democracy Essays on Reason and Politics (pp. 145–173). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Rawls, J. (1996). Political Liberalism (2nd ed.). New York: Columbia University Press.
Rosenblum, N. L. (2008). On the Side of Angels: An Appreciation of Parties and Partisanship. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Waldron, J. (1987). Theoretical Foundations of Liberalism. The Philosophical Quarterly, 37(147), 127–150.
Whelan, F. (1985). Order and Artifice in Hume’s Political Philosophy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Ebeling, M. (2017). Connecting the Dots. In: Conciliatory Democracy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57743-6_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57743-6_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-57742-9
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-57743-6
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)