rawls and habermas - The Problem of Consensus in Habermas and Rawls: Rethinking the Basis of Deliberative Democracy

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Abstract:

Much of the deliberative democracy literature (and democratic theory in general) is based on the idea of consensual decision-making – the idea that an argument would be acceptable to all affected if the discussed it long and freely enough. Unfortunately, the idea of consensual decision-making has seriously logical problems, as demonstrated by Rae (1975) in the context of social contract theory. Essentially, if a decision has to be made, there is always an implicit threat that will be carried out if consensus is not reached, and therefore discussion cannot be free. In political context typically a decision has to be made, as even a non-decision is a de facto decision, and may even be some participants favored option. If it were simply the case that an ideal speech situation is practically impossible to obtain, this would not be a problem for theories of deliberative democracy proceeding from Habermas, as the ideal speech situation is a counterfactual. However, if the ideal speech situation is logically impossible (could not exist in any possible world) then it cannot serve as a counterfactual and cannot provide a basis for a theory of deliberative democracy. While I argue that consensus fails as a basis for deliberative democracy, I argue that a theory of deliberative democracy based on majority rule is still possible. Following Nino and Knight & Johnson, I argue that although political decision-making is inevitably coercive, it is still possible to distribute coercive power equitably.

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