ABSTRACT
A Dilemma for Deliberative Democrats] Philip Pettit
The ideal of deliberative democracy prescribes that those engaged in a democratic process should form their voting intentions in the course of debate with others as to what is best for the group overall and should cast their votes on the basis of their final judgment as to what is for the best. But it says little or nothing about the nature of the process itself, in particular on the way in which votes should be put together to yield a collective decision or judgment. This is not an innocuous oversight, for it turns out that deliberative democrats face a hard choice on the matter of how votes should be put together. They have to choose between two options, each of which has an unattractive aspect to it. My aim in this paper is to explain the di-
The paper is in three sections. In the first, I sketch the ideal itself, in the second I introduce the dilemma, and in the third I show that while other arguments for deliberative democracy fail to give us a lead on how to resolve that dilemma, the republican argument offers strong and persuasive reason for going one particular route. The argument gives us reason to think that, even at the cost of moderating the rule of majority voting, any deliberatively democratic group should be concerned to ensure that the judgments and decisions it collectively endorses are consistent and otherwise rational; it should present itself, not just as a collectivity within which reasoning takes place, but also as a collectivity that relates to others - other individuals and other agencies - in the manner of a reasoning subject.
