A Quick Introduction to “Deliberative
Democracy” and Democratic Education
Copyright © 2023 Bruce W.
Hauptli
In a pluralistic society where moral disagreements are
commonplace the demands faced by democratically-inclined citizens are incredibly
difficult. In their
Democracy and Disagreement: Why Moral
Conflict Cannot Be Avoided In Politics, and What Should Be Done About It Amy
Gutmann and Dennis Thompson maintain that
there are better and worse ways
of living with moral disagreements, and among the better is political democracy.
Democracy seems a natural and reasonable way since it is a conception of
government that accords equal respect to the moral claims of each citizen.
If we have to disagree morally about public policy, it is better to do so
in a democracy that as far as possible respects the moral status of each of us.[1]
As Gutmann says in her Democratic Education:
…citizens and their accountable
representatives owe one another justifications for the laws that collectively
bind them. A democracy is
deliberative to the extent that citizens and their accountable
representatives offer one another morally defensible reasons for mutually
binding laws in an ongoing process of mutual justification.
To the extent that a democracy is not deliberative, it treats people as
objects of legislation, as passive subjects to be ruled, rather than as
citizens who take part in governance by accepting or rejecting the reasons they
and their accountable representatives offer for the laws and policies that
mutually bind them.
Deliberative democracy underscores the importance of
publicly supported education that
develops the capacity to deliberate among all children as future free and equal
citizens. The most justifiable
way of making mutually binding decisions in a representative democracy—including
decisions not to deliberate about some matters—is by deliberative decision
making, where the decision makers are accountable to the people who are most
affected by their decisions.[2]
Of course, Gutmann wants to focus our attention on
educating citizens so they can sustain a deliberative democracy over time—thus
she is especially concerned with educating
future citizens:
if democracy includes the right
of citizens to deliberate collectively about how to educate future citizens…the
enforcement of any moral ideal of education, whether it be liberal or
conservative, without consent of citizens subverts democracy.[3]
A democratic theory of education
recognizes the importance of empowering citizens to make educational policy and
also of constraining their choices among policies in accordance with these
principles—of nonrepression and nondiscicimination—that preserve the
intellectual and social foundation of democratic deliberations.
A society that empowers citizens to make educational policy, moderated by
these two principled constraints, realizes the democratic ideal of education.[4]
As Gutmann and Thompson see it,
citizens who reason reciprocally
can recognize that a position is worthy of moral respect even when they think it
morally wrong. They can believe
that a moderate pro-life position on abortion, for example is morally
respectable even though they think it morally mistaken.[5]
For them, making deliberative democracy work requires that
each citizen must treat every other citizen
reciprocally—that is as
a political equal worthy of respect.
When this attitude is present each “side” in a disagreement can work
deliberatively to address, and potentially resolve the issue.
Even where this is not successful, it can yield
understanding
the principles of accommodation
are based on a value that lies at the core of reciprocity and deliberation in a
democracy—mutual respect. It is
what makes possible cooperation on fair terms.
Like toleration, mutual respect is a form of agreeing to disagree.
But mutual respect demands more
than toleration. It requires a
favorable attitude toward, and constructive interaction with, the persons with
whom one disagrees. It consists in
an excellence of character that permits a democracy to flourish in the face of
fundamental moral disagreement.
This is a distinctively deliberative kind of character.
It is the character of individuals who are morally committed,
self-reflective about their commitments, discerning of the differences between
respectable and merely tolerable differences of opinion, and open to the
possibility of changing their minds or modifying their positions at some time in
the future if they confront unanswerable objections to their present point of
view.
Mutual respect not only helps sustain a moral community in the face of
conflict but also can contribute toward resolving the conflict.[6]
Note the ‘can’ in the above.
They don’t claim that reasoning reciprocally
guarantees understanding (or
agreement), instead they claim it can lead to
respect!
For them:
the distinctive characteristics
of moral argument in politics—most notably reciprocity—support the
possibility of resolution. If
citizens publicly appeal to reasons that are shard or could be shared, by their
fellow citizens, and if they take into account these same kinds of reasons
presented by similarly motivated citizens, then they are already engaged in a
process that by its nature aims at a justifiable resolution of disagreement.[7]
We reach some resolutions, but
they are partial and tentative. The
resolutions do not stand outside the process of moral argument prior to it or
protected from its provocations. We
do not begin with a common morality, a substantial set of principles or values
that we assume we have, and then apply it to decisions and policies.
Nor, for that matter, do we end with such a morality.
Rather,
the principles and values with which
we live are provisional, formed and continually revised in the process of making
and responding to moral claims in public life.[8]
The perspective of deliberative
democracy, then, does not require a consensus on public policy or even on
constitutional law. At its center
stands instead an appreciation of principles that set the conditions of
political discussion—reciprocity and its companions publicity and
accountability. This shift in focus
of what democratic citizens should share is significant, theoretically and
practically. Theoretically, a
deliberative perspective expresses as complete a conception of a common good as
is possible within a morally pluralistic society.
Recognizing that politics cannot be purged of moral conflict, it seeks a
common view of how citizens should publicly deliberate when they fundamentally
disagree. Practically, this
perspective encourages the cultivation of a set of civic virtues that can guide
citizens through the maelstroms of moral controversy in a pluralistic society.
It can help citizens resolve moral conflict with fairness and, when they
cannot resolve it, enables them to work together in a mode of mutual respect.
This is the counsel of the principles of accommodation, and ultimately
the sense of reciprocity.[9]
Gutmann and Thompson develop a theory which requires
citizens to reason respectfully with one another regarding political
disagreements on moral and religious topics with respect and toleration
hopefully producing understanding and some tentative agreements on laws!
They also want to develop a theory which can be applied to our current
social situation and, so, we need to consider whether their proposed version of
democracy could bridge the gap between theory and reality which we all
recognize. Above, in introducing
their theory I noted that deliberative democracy requires that each
citizen treat every other citizen reciprocally—that is as a political equal
worthy of respect. While this is
clearly a theoretical good, is it a practicable requirement?
Could the good deliberative democracy arise if a large
proportion of the citizens exemplified the trait?
Could a “simple majority”
be sufficient? Suppose a
significant majority had the recommended character trait, might that produce a
better democracy that we have at present?
This set of questions needs to be considered both in thinking of “normal
political situations” and in considering the education of children.
Here, one suspects “moral disagreements” are going to be much harder to
resolve with “toleration,” let alone
mutual respect.
Many parents want to be personally and directly involved in
their children’s education in a manner which disinclines them to tolerate or
accept democratically-determined educational policies.
This explains the prevalence of religious schools, private schools, and
charter schools in America today.
Indeed, it is perhaps difficult to imagine that without the possibility of
sending children to such alternative schools public schools currently could to
be models of institutions whose curricula and policies could be set by a
deliberative and democratic process!
Here, I think we come to understand something John Dewey said in his
Democracy and Education [1916]:
a democracy is more than a form
of government; it is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint
communicated experience. The
extension in space of the number of individuals who participate in an interest
so that each has to refer his own action to that of other, and to consider the
action of others to give point and direction to his own, is equivalent to the
breaking down or those barriers of class, race, and national territory which
kept men from perceiving the full import of their activity.[10]
However one answers these above questions as to whether
deliberative democracy could be possible if a large proportion of the
citizens, or a simple majority,
or a significant majority exemplified the necessary traits, it is clear that the
more a democratic society ignores
“the importance of publicly supported education that develops the capacity to
deliberate among all children as future
free and equal citizens”[11],
the more democracy is imperiled.
Here Martha Nussbaum’s “Political Soul-Making and the Imminent Demise of Liberal
Education” may be relevant. In this
article she maintains that
one thing that a society based
upon equal respect needs to do most urgently is to teach young citizens that
their society contains may religions and ethnicities, and that we are all
committed to the fair treatment of all of them….Understanding this commitment is
an essential prerequisite for citizenship….[12]
She criticizes Kwame Appiah’s discussion of
Mozert v. Hawkins “…the case in which
a Baptist mother requested an exemption for her children from a series of
primary school readers that presented children with pictures of different
American ways of life, appealing to them to imagine these different lives.”[13]
As Nussbaum sees it, Appiah pays too little attention to
society’s good and allows too much
freedom for autonomy.
She argues this most strongly in the case of racism:
the constitution forbids
discrimination on the basis of race.
So our schools should not simply teach that we have antidiscrimination
laws; it should actively bring up small
children as nonracist citizens, in the variety of ways that is familiar to
us in daily life, since this is one thing our schools have learned to do pretty
well: by not racializing the classroom; by strong opprobrium directed at racist
behavior and speech in the classroom; by good teaching about the history of
race, teaching that is in no way neutral, but which inculcates anger at racial
injustice and hope for a world of racial harmony.
Small children will, as they so often do, put on plays in which some of
the pretend to be people forced to sit in the back of the bus.
They will see how they feel when they sit back there, and those emotions
will be a topic of classroom discussion….[14]
…students are going to become
citizens in a pluralistic society, so they had better learn about the existence
of other ways of life, and they had better be encouraged to imagine those other
ways The mother’s claim that the
truths contained in the Bible were all her children needed to know is just not
reasonable from the point of view of citizenship and….If she does not accept the
constitutional principles, then we do not have to give her equal treatment I
framing the curriculum, any more than we need to give the racist equal
treatment.[15]
Clearly, Nussbaum believes in “publicly supported education
that develops the capacity to deliberate among all children as future free and
equal citizens.” I believe she would not
characterize such learning as “indoctrination” however.
Instead, the education future citizens receive should democratically
foster values of reciprocity, political equality, and mutual respect.
Nussbaum contends that while many ascribe high importance
to the role of colleges and universities in providing “civic education” for
democracy:
…it was always my view that these
values need to be cultivated appropriately by primary and secondary education.
Colleges will not get very far, unless students have begum much earlier.
Three values, I urge are particularly crucially to citizenship in such a
nation….first is the capacity for Socratic self-criticism and critical thought
about one’s own traditions.[16]
Secondly she discusses the ability “to see oneself as a
member of a heterogeneous nation,” and finally she emphasizes the importance of
“narrative imagination.” Nussbaum
contends, however, that these three abilities are being taught less and less in
primary and secondary schools and this has fearful consequences for democracy.
Her Cultivating Humanity: A
Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education maintains
we do not fully respect the
humanity of our fellow citizens—or cultivate our own—if we do not wish to learn
about them, to understand their history, to appreciate the differences between
their lives and ours. We must
therefore construct a liberal education that is not only Socratic, emphasizing
critical thought an respectful argument, but also pluralistic, imparting an
understanding of the histories and contributions of groups with whom we interact
both within our nation and in the increasingly international sphere of business
and politics.[17]
In a section of her
Political Emotions: Why Love Matters for Justice titled “Patriotism in the
Schools: Content and Pedagogy” Nussbaum, discusses the development of democratic citizens
(though the whole chapter is needed to provide a fuller picture).[18]
Both these books, like much of what I am most familiar
with, focuses attention of the post-secondary context for civic education.
Throughout the past 30 years individual states (and groups of states)
have developed detailed “Core Standards” and “benchmarks” for their primary and
secondary schools, and have devised methods to test how well instruction is
meeting these standards. States,
school districts, and educational organizations and associations, have developed
curricular resources linked to these standards.
These often result in comparative grades being given to individual
schools or districts.
To gain more information regarding civic education in the
primary and secondary context examination of the following resources provides a
helpful first step (here I focus on the context in Maine, but each State’s
Department of Education surely has such WebPages):
Here is the overview of Maine’s
“Core Standards” and “benchmarks” for the
Civics and Government Strand of its Social Studies Standards, and here are
the
2019 Learning Results by Grade Level for his strand.
While there was an intention to develop the highest
national curricular standards for the core educational curricula, there have been
considerable changes to many of the standards, benchmarks, and tests over the
years. Moreover there have been
some negative implications of these initiatives and changes.
So I also recommend Kathleen Hall Jamieson’s “The
Challenges Facing Civic Education” from the Spring 2013 edition of
Daedalus which discusses the
situation in
“civic education:”
Abstract:
This essay explores the value and
state of civics education in the United States and identifies five challenges
facing those seeking to improve its quality and accessibility: 1) ensuring that
the quality of civics education is high is not a state or federal priority; 2)
social studies textbooks do not facilitate the development of needed civic
skills; 3) upper-income students are better served by our schools than are
lower-income individuals; 4) cutbacks in funds available to schools make
implementing changes in civics education difficult; and 5) reform efforts are
complicated by the fact that civics education has become a pawn in a polarized
debate among partisans.
Jamieson notes that
as the states have revised their
standards over the years, benchmarks have proliferated to the point that even
the most skilled teacher would have difficulty meeting them within the available
class time. In short,
rather than improving the state of civic
education, the standards movement may in some ways have undercut it.
As the
Guardian of Democracy report notes,
“in social studies standards
revisions…most states have added to the amount of material to be covered, rather
than developing fewer and clearer standards that encourage an understanding of
the vital importance of citizen engagement in our democracy.”[19]
For all the concerns and criticisms of our nation’s efforts
to educate future democratic citizens, however, I see significant progress
throughout our life time. I believe
there has been a significant increase the capacity of our younger generations to
deliberate as future free and equal citizens.
Indeed it seems to me that the very strong recent political backlash
against this development is a testament that something was working so well that
it motivated the less democratically-inclined citizens to action.
As Jamieson notes at the beginning of her essay, Dewey contended that
“Democracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife.”
The fuller passage from this oft repeated aphorism is drawn is:
only through education can
equality of opportunity be anything more than a phrase.
Accidental inequalities of birth, wealth, and learning are always tending
to restrict the opportunities of some as compared with those of others.
Only free and continued education can counteract those forces which are
always at work to restore, in however changed a form, feudal oligarchy.
Democracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its
midwife. Moreover, it is only
education which can guarantee widespread community of interest and aim.
In a complex society, ability to understand and sympathize with the
operations and lot of others is a condition of common purpose which only
education can procure.[20]
Though this was written a hundred years ago, and the
challenges to democracy were different from (yet similar to) those we now face,
I share Dewey’s optimism, but also his belief that we must all become
“educational midwifes.”
[1]
Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson,
Democracy
and Disagreement: Why Moral Conflict Cannot Be
Avoided In Politics, and What Should Be Done
About It (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1996), p.
26.
I used this work in a Course I taught on
Political Compromise
and Democracy for Midcoast Senior
College in the Spring of 2019 and there are more
extensive supplements available on that course’s
webpage.
[2] Amy
Gutmann,
Democratic Education (Princeton: Princeton
U.P., [1987] 1999), p. xii.
Emphasis (bold) added to passage at
several points.
[3]
Ibid.,
p. 14.
[4]
Ibid.
[5] Gutmann
and Thompson,
Democracy
and Disagreement,
op. cit.,
pp. 2-3.
[6]
Ibid.,
pp. 79-80.
Emphasis [bold] added to the passage.
[7]
Ibid.,
p. 25.
Emphasis [bold] added to the passage.
[8]
Ibid.,
p. 26.
Emphasis [bold and italics] added the passage.
[9]
Ibid.,
pp. 93-94.
Emphasis [bold] added the passage.
[10] John
Dewey,
Democracy and Education (NY: Macmillan,
1916).
It is revised and reprinted in
John
Dewey:
The
Middle Works, v. 9.
A selection appear in
John
Dewey: The Political Writings, ed. Debra
Morris and Ian Shapiro (Indianapolis: Hackett,
193) and this passage is found there on p.
110-111.
[11] Amy
Gutmann,
Democratic Education op. cit, p. xii—part of
the second citation at the beginning of this
piece.
Selective emphasis [bold] has been added
to the passage.
[12] Martha
Nussbaum, “Political Soul-Making and the
Imminent Demise of Liberal Education,”
Journal
of Social Philosophy v. 37 (2006), pp.
301-313, p. 307.
[13]
Ibid.
[14] Ibid.,
p. 306.
Emphasis [bold] added to the passage.
[15]
Ibid.,
p. 308.
[16] Ibid.,
p. 309.
[17] Martha
Nussbaum,
Cultivating Humanity: A Classical Defense of
Reform in Liberal Education (Cambridge:
Harvard UP., 1997),
295.
[18]
Cf.,
Martha Nussbaum,
Political
Emotions: Why Love Matters for Justice
(Cambridge: Harvard UP., 2013), pp. 204-256.
[19] Jamieson
cites Jonathan Gould, ed.,
Guardian
of Democracy: The Civic Mission of Schools
(Philadelphia: The Leonore Annenberg Institute
for Civics of the Annenberg Public Policy Center
at the University of Pennsylvania, and the
Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools,
2011),
http://civicmission.s3.amazonaws.com/118/f0/5/171/1/Guardian-of-Democracy-report.pdf.
pp. 29-30.
Emphasis [bold] was added to the
citation.
[20] John
Dewey, “The Need of an Industrial Education in
an Industrial Democracy” first published in
Manual
Training and Vocational Education v. 17
(1916).
Reprinted in
John
Dewey: The Political Writings, eds. Debra
Morris and Ian Shapiro,
op. cit.,
pp. 121-124, p. 122.
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Last revised: 02/06/23