Democracy and the Structure of Scientific Knowledge
Democracy should not
be confused with liberty. Liberty, as opposed to
anarchy, encompasses the rule of law,
freedom of speech, the
right to be given a hearing, a
culture of discussion, civil society,
and at least some elements of a
property-owning market economy. It is
indeed only when all these are
substantially in place that the task
of establishing democracy proper can
begin.
Democracy is a particular form of governance,
and is to be contrasted with rule by the rich
or big business, rule by technocrats or the
media or else with paternalistic
administration.
Democracy properly speaking is no more rule
by party functionaries than the rule of law
is the same as the rule of lawyers. A
democracy may be defined as a polity where,
in a formal sense, everyone can have a say.
How that say is registered, weighted, and
aligned with the standpoints of others is a
complex matter, since it concerns how those
who are well-informed and passionate about an
issue are to have their voices weighted
against those who are ignorant or
indifferent.
There is also a perennial conflict between those
who look to the immediate future, and those
whose perspective is long-term or inter-generational,
this conflict being at the root of much contention
about the natue of social & economic justice.
These tensions do not mean that we have to
abandon the ideal of democracy. Other forms of
governance are likely to be more arbitrary, unjust by any
score, and so ultimately lacking in moral authority or
legitimacy. The de facto inequality of voices, i.e. the fact
that people are not all equally qualified to give a considered
opinion, does mean that there is a fundamental problem with
democracy.
The answer is to look to our concept of
knowledge, and in particular to the most uncontroversial and
successful body of knowledge we have, namely science or,
more precisely, the natural sciences of physics,
chemistry and biology.
In essence, over time, all scientists are
given an informal voice in the formation or
confirmation of scientific findings, although their voice is weaker or
stronger depending on the extent of their expertise,
this in turn being measured by consensual methods of
formal recognition and reputation. Sometimes
successful technology provides strong evidence (i.e. for
most observers, persuasive proof) that a theory or
conjecture is correct. But science does not always get
things right. It does, however, have self-correcting
mechanisms. It does not seek consensus for the sake of a quiet
time or to pacify the vanities (or commercial ambitions) of one faction or another; that
is, it does not seek compromise without regard to the truth.
There is of course a whole academic discipline, the
philosophy of science, that addresses these issues, and
there is no need to concern ourselves with
the subtleties and controversies here. The general structure
of what counts as scientific knowledge is well-known
and not seriously in dispute. It is this general
structure that can guide us in determining what democratic
decision-making should ideally look like, and indeed assist
us in designing a democratic constitution.
This said, there is a crucial difference in that the formation and
validation of scientific knowledge is much less formal than a system
of government can be. In particular, the role of
process is very dissimilar.
A democracy may be said, roughly. to be a
form of collective decision-making where a hearing is
given to considered opinions, and where the evaluation
of those opinions is in the hands of well-informed
persons who are representative of the strength of feeling and
strategic judgement of all those affected.
The greatest weakness of the principle of
democracy is that electoral success alone is unlikely to
reflect accurately, or even remotely, the inconsistency of strength of feeling of
voters and the extent to which they are adequately informed.
This weakness is most evident in “winner takes
all”systems, which produce artificial majorities quite
unrepresentative of the electorate. It is in part to correct
this weakness that civil rights must be anchored in
constitutional law such that minorities are not oppressed.
The underlying problem is everywhere that of
filtering opinion so that only those considerations
count that are held sincerely and are well supported by
evidence and argument. In the past, this was one of the
tasks of political parties, alongside their function of vetting
candidates. It is a task which, today, they mostly fulfill
poorly, irrespective of how well they did in earlier times. Electoral
calculations tend to trump rational discourse.
© 2013 - 2020 Paul Charles Gregory
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