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Democracy as Equality.md

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---
bibtex: @book{
        author={Estlund,David M.},
        year={2002},
        title={Democracy},
        publisher={Blackwell Publishers},
        address={Malden, MA},
        volume={4.},
---

Democracy as Equality

Thomas Christiano

"Society is organised by terms of association by which all are bound. The problem is to determine who has the right to define these terms of association." p31

There is a problem of incompatibility between conceptions of liberty and the problem of trade offs between interests. p31

Individual preferences are the result of social interaction. Democratic theory ought to have something to say about the formation of these preferences. p32

Interests differ from preferences. "an interest is something that is a component of a person's overall well-being" p32

"Judgments can be correct or incorrect, whereas interests are not correct or incorrect; they are simply attributes of a person." p32

"if we take the standpoint of considering each person's life as a whole, we see no relevant reason for treating anyone's interests unequally." p33

"Majority rule is a genuinely egalitarian rule because it gives each person the same chance as every other to affect the outcome" p33

"If nothing else, democracy is a deeply egalitarian method of organizing social decision making." p34

"There are four steps in the basic argument that democracy is defensible in terms of a principle of egalitarian justice." p35

  • "justice requires that individuals be treated equally with regard to their interests."
  • "there is a special category of interests that are deeply interdependent, so that what affects one, affects all."
  • "these interests can generally only be served through a collectively binding procedure."
  • "the principle of equal consideration of interests requires equality of means for participating in deciding on the collective properties of society."

Democracy ought only concern collective properties of society. "A property of individuals' lives in a society is a collective property or feature if and only if in order to change one person's welfare with regard to this property one must change all or almost all of the other members' welfare with regard to it." p36

These must be: pp36-37

  • nonexclusive
  • public
  • inevitable
  • alterable

"However, in modern society there is substantial conflict over what collective properties to bring about." p39

We can't accurately judge changes in well being but we can judge changes in political resources.