The Place of Self-Interest and the Role of Power in Deliberative Democracy*

2010 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Mansbridge ◽  
James Bohman ◽  
Simone Chambers ◽  
David Estlund ◽  
Andreas Føllesdal ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Deliberative Democracy ◽  
Self Interest

scholarly journals Bleaching preferences: Why deliberative procedure should include self-interested preferences

2011 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 71-93
Author(s):  
Ivan Mladenovic
Keyword(s):  
Deliberative Democracy ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Public Deliberation ◽  
Standard Account ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Desirable Feature ◽  
Open Debate ◽  
The Common

Someone might vote for an option that on his or her view best promotes his or her self-interest. But, someone might vote for an option that promotes what he or she sees as a common good. The point is that there is no necessity here. Empirically oriented investigations showed that people vote both for self-centered and prosocial reasons. On the standard account of deliberative democracy public discussion is oriented towards achieving the common good. In this paper I shall argue that there is no necessity in supposing that public deliberation will lead to consensus over the common good. If consensus over the common good is neither realistic, nor desirable feature of public deliberation, then the most that practically oriented deliberative democrats might hope for is an open debate which may influence post-deliberative voting. Or so I shall argue. On this account, deliberative democracy makes more probable that outcome of the voting procedure will reflect concerns over the common good. According to this conception the appeal to selfinterest is not ex hypothesi excluded. The role of public deliberation is to bring to the fore both self-centered and prosocial concerns, and eventually to show why prosocial concerns should override private concerns. But there is no necessity here. The most important thing is to have sound procedure for weighting the reasons that speak both for and against self-interested concerns.

scholarly journals The Role of Self-Interest in Deliberation: A Theory of Deliberative Capital

2021 ◽  
pp. 003232172098149
Author(s):  
Afsoun Afsahi
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Deliberative Democracy ◽  
Deliberative Process ◽  
Participant Engagement ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Facilitation Techniques

How do successful deliberations unfold? What happens when they unravel? In this article, I propose that we think of the dynamics of participant engagement within deliberation as series of self-interested and reciprocal investments in and divestments from deliberative capital. This article has three parts. First, I draw on the literatures on deliberative democracy and social capital to outline a theory of deliberative capital. I highlight the important role self-interest plays in the process of those initial investments – instances of engagement in positive deliberative behaviours. Second, drawing from my experience as a facilitator, I give an account of the particular indicators of investments and divestments that we might expect to see in a given deliberative engagement. Third, I briefly outline two innovative facilitation techniques that can be utilized at the beginning or during a deliberative process that trigger self-interest, which incentivizes investments and discourages divestments.

On Sacrifice

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moshe Halbertal
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Life ◽  
Moral Value ◽  
Hierarchical Relationship ◽  
Ritual Violence ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Political Ideal ◽  
Self Transcendence ◽  
Political Associations ◽  
The Relationship

The idea and practice of sacrifice play a profound role in religion, ethics, and politics. This book explores the meaning and implications of sacrifice, developing a theory of sacrifice as an offering and examining the relationship between sacrifice, ritual, violence, and love. The book also looks at the place of self-sacrifice within ethical life and at the complex role of sacrifice as both a noble and destructive political ideal. In the religious domain, Halbertal argues, sacrifice is an offering, a gift given in the context of a hierarchical relationship. As such it is vulnerable to rejection, a trauma at the root of both ritual and violence. An offering is also an ambiguous gesture torn between a genuine expression of gratitude and love and an instrument of exchange, a tension that haunts the practice of sacrifice. In the moral and political domains, sacrifice is tied to the idea of self-transcendence, in which an individual sacrifices his or her self-interest for the sake of higher values and commitments. While self-sacrifice has great potential moral value, it can also be used to justify the most brutal acts. The book attempts to unravel the relationship between self-sacrifice and violence, arguing that misguided self-sacrifice is far more problematic than exaggerated self-love. Through the book's exploration of the positive and negative dimensions of self-sacrifice, it also addresses the role of past sacrifice in obligating future generations and in creating a bond for political associations, and considers the function of the modern state as a sacrificial community.

The mediating role of medical professionalism on financial self-interest GPs

2018 ◽  
Vol 68 (suppl 1) ◽  
pp. bjgp18X697193
Author(s):  
David McCaffrey ◽  
Chris O’Riordan ◽  
Felicity Kelliher
Keyword(s):  
General Practitioners ◽  
Financial Resources ◽  
Medical Professionalism ◽  
Fiscal Constraints ◽  
Policy Initiatives ◽  
Mediating Role ◽  
Documentary Analysis ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Fluid Interpretation

BackgroundWhile no normative definition exists, medical professionalism emphasises a set of values, behaviours and relationships that underpin public trust in a physician. The empirical setting for this study is the Irish health care system where GPs receive income through a unique mix of private fee income and state funded capitation. GPs’ income per patient has fallen by 33% under state schemes between 2008 and 2013 due to changes in health policy and national fiscal constraints.AimThis paper examines how general practitioners conceptualise and operationalise medical professionalism and financial self-interest in the Irish healthcare system.MethodTo address this research aim, a historical documentary analysis (2009–2016) of national and medical newspapers was used to investigate GPs’ expressions of medical professionalism and financial self-interest.ResultsThe vagueness of language in differing definitions of medical professionalism may lead to a GP having a fluid interpretation depending on the situation. While general practitioners expressed core humanistic values, such as empathy and compassion, the expression of altruistic values were limited when practitioners indicated there was constraint on the financial resources of a practice.ConclusionCentral to the analysis of a medical practitioner’s treatment of patients and receipt of fee income is the tension between medical professionalism and financial self-interest. Developing an understanding of this tension has implications for those undertaking healthcare policy initiatives and the recruitment and retention of general practitioners in primary care.

Development as Self-Interest

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Blodgett Bermeo
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Developing Countries ◽  
Foreign Aid ◽  
Climate Change Adaptation ◽  
Trade Agreements ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Adaptation And Mitigation

This chapter introduces the role of development as a self-interested policy pursued by industrialized states in an increasingly connected world. As such, it is differentiated from traditional geopolitical accounts of interactions between industrialized and developing states as well as from assertions that the increased focus on development stems from altruistic motivations. The concept of targeted development—pursuing development abroad when and where it serves the interests of the policymaking states—is introduced and defined. The issue areas covered in the book—foreign aid, trade agreements between industrialized and developing countries, and finance for climate change adaptation and mitigation—are introduced. The preference for bilateral, rather than multilateral, action is discussed.

scholarly journals HOW SHOULD WE RECONCILE SELF-REGARDING AND PRO-SOCIAL MOTIVATIONS? A RENAISSANCE OF “DAS ADAM SMITH PROBLEM”

2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 80-102
Author(s):  
Natalie Gold
Keyword(s):  
Adam Smith ◽  
Crowding Out ◽  
Private Interests ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Intrinsic Motivations ◽  
Social Motivations ◽  
Motivation Crowding ◽  
Wealth Of Nations ◽  
Selfish Agents

Abstract“Das Adam Smith Problem” is the name given by eighteenth-century German scholars to the question of how to reconcile the role of self-interest in the Wealth of Nations with Smith’s advocacy of sympathy in Theory of Moral Sentiments. As the discipline of economics developed, it focused on the interaction of selfish agents, pursuing their private interests. However, behavioral economists have rediscovered the existence and importance of multiple motivations, and a new Das Adam Smith Problem has arisen, of how to accommodate self-regarding and pro-social motivations in a single system. This question is particularly important because of evidence of motivation crowding, where paying people can backfire, with payments achieving the opposite effects of those intended. Psychologists have proposed a mechanism for the crowding out of “intrinsic motivations” for doing a task, when payment is used to incentivize effort. However, they argue that pro-social motivations are different from these intrinsic motivations, implying that crowding out of pro-social motivations requires a different mechanism. In this essay I present an answer to the new Das Adam Smith problem, proposing a mechanism that can underpin the crowding out of both pro-social and intrinsic motivations, whereby motivations are prompted by frames and motivation crowding is underpinned by the crowding out of frames. I explore some of the implications of this mechanism for research and policy.

Democratic education in the fourth generation of deliberative democracy

2021 ◽  
pp. 147787852110171
Author(s):  
Kei Nishiyama
Keyword(s):  
System Theory ◽  
Deliberative Democracy ◽  
Democratic Education ◽  
Fourth Generation ◽  
Deliberative System

While the discussion on education for deliberative democracy is increasingly gaining prominence, there is a deep gap between the theories of deliberative democracy and democratic education with respect to what deliberative democracy is and ought to be. As a result, theories and practices of democratic education tend to be grounded in a narrow understanding of the meaning of deliberative competencies, students’ deliberative agency, and the role of schools in deliberative democracy. Drawing on the latest theorization of deliberative democracy – deliberative system theory – this article aims to question and revise these assumptions. The article suggests that meta-deliberation is a key practice that can reconcile the gap between the two theories.

scholarly journals A militant defence of democracy: A few replies to my critics

2020 ◽  
pp. 019145372097472
Author(s):  
Cristina Lafont
Keyword(s):  
Deliberative Democracy ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
The Core ◽  
Difficult Question ◽  
Proper Role

In this essay, I address some questions and challenges brought about by the contributors to this special issue on my book ‘ Democracy without Shortcuts’. First, I clarify different aspects of my critique of deep pluralist conceptions of democracy to highlight the core incompatibilities with the participatory conception of deliberative democracy that I defend in the book. Second, I distinguish different senses of the concept of ‘blind deference’ that I use in the book to clarify several aspects and consequences of my critique of epistocratic conceptions of democracy and their search for ‘expertocratic shortcuts’. This in turn helps me briefly address the difficult question of the proper role of experts in a democracy. Third, I address potential uses of empowered minipublics that I did not discuss in the book and highlight some reasons to worry about their lack of accountability. This discussion in turn leads me to address the difficult question of which institutions are best suited to represent the transgenerational collective people who are supposed to own a constitutional project. Finally, I address some interesting suggestions for how to move the book’s project forward.

How Can Economic Interests Influence Support for Free Trade?

2012 ◽  
Vol 66 (2) ◽  
pp. 311-328 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin O. Fordham ◽  
Katja B. Kleinberg
Keyword(s):  
Trade Policy ◽  
Free Trade ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
Policy Attitudes ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
Direction Of Causation ◽  
Complete Account

AbstractRecent research on the sources of individual attitudes toward trade policy comes to very different conclusions about the role of economic self-interest. The skeptical view suggests that long-standing symbolic predispositions and sociotropic perceptions shape trade policy opinions more than one's own material well-being. We believe this conclusion is premature for two reasons. First, the practice of using one attitude to predict another raises questions about direction of causation that cannot be answered with the data at hand. This problem is most obvious when questions about the expected impact of trade are used to predict opinions about trade policy. Second, the understanding of self-interest employed in most studies of trade policy attitudes is unrealistically narrow. In reality, the close relationship between individual economic interests and the interests of the groups in which individuals are embedded creates indirect pathways through which one's position in the economy can shape individual trade policy preferences. We use the data employed by Mansfield and Mutz to support our argument that a more complete account of trade attitude formation is needed and that in such an account economic interests may yet play an important role.1

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