What’s the point of democratic deliberation?

Rowan Cruft (University of Stirling)

Abstract: What’s the point of democratic deliberation? This paper argues that a range of accounts of the value of enabling and allowing a person’s participation in democratic deliberation – as epistemically valuable for that person and others, or as valuably respecting that person’s equal status perhaps by giving them an equal ex ante chance to wield political power – miss out something important: the value to the individual’s autonomy of their being part of the ‘group mind’ that makes democratic decisions. I will try to clarify the autonomy value of participating through deliberation in group political decisions – and clarify what such ‘deliberative participation in group decisions’ means.