<p>Zach Broderick</p><p>3 Nov 2007</p><p>Phil 20A – Teuber</p><p>Paper Topic III</p><p>Deliberating Democracy</p><p>Picture the United States of the near future, when Baby Boomers are retiring in droves and beginning to experience the medical complications that accompany old age. </p><p>The healthcare infrastructure is overburdened and Social Security is drying up. </p><p>Apartment complexes are being converted into nursing homes to accommodate increasing demand. The most pressing problem of all, however, is a shortage of healthy organs. Tens of thousands of Boomers are dying each year due to organ failure, a crisis that could easily be prevented by an adequate supply of organs. Congress has made this their top priority, and is working on a national policy to address it.</p><p>One young representative proposes what he calls the “Survival Lottery,” in which every citizen is entered into a lottery; if they “win,” they are killed and their organs are used to save at least 5 other people, due to the considerable demand for organs. A national battle over this proposal is heating up, forming two groups who support and oppose the policy. We will call the supporters of the policy the Utilitarians, who are made up primarily of the Baby Boomers, the people who need the organs the most. The opposing faction will be called the Kantians, and is made up of pretty much everyone else. Though the Utilitarians are the smaller group, they are made up of society’s senior members, and are thus very wealthy and wield considerable political influence. 2</p><p>The question this paper seeks to answer is “Would a deliberative democracy be better suited to addressing this problem than our current system?” I would maintain that yes, it would, and in the following we will play out this scenario under both. In the first section we will see how our current democracy might handle this policy decision that involves the public good. Then, we will observe how a more deliberative form of our democracy might fare. The ultimate goal of this exercise is to demonstrate the benefits of making our democracy more deliberative, by contrasting it with the failings of our current system.</p><p>We return then to our two competing groups. The Utilitarians favor the lottery proposal because, being Baby Boomers, they are the ones most likely to need the organs; such a policy would increase their chances of survival. They realize though that this is rather selfish and will not be a good justification to the undecided public, whose support they need to enact the policy. In order to win the hearts and minds of their fellow citizens they pool their considerable wealth and form a powerful lobbying and PR organization: the AARP. The AARP launches an extensive media campaign, paying pundits and radio hosts to talk up the policy and endlessly repeat the sound bite “The Lottery saves lives!” </p><p>They also demonize their opponents, the Kantians, calling them selfish and callous. Many citizens who are uninformed about the issue and are not Baby Boomers nevertheless end up supporting the lottery after hearing such rhetoric on their favorite talk show.</p><p>Despite having greater numbers, the Kantians are less successful in garnering opposition to the lottery. They oppose the lottery because they do not want to give up their organs, even if it would save 5 people, and because they are less prone to organ failure, they see no need for the policy. This of course is also a motive that will not likely 3 be respected by the public, and so they decide to push the idea that the lottery involves killing innocent people. They too launch a modest media campaign, with the slogan “The lottery is murder!” and “You could be next!”</p><p>The lobbying and PR of the Utilitarians ultimately proves superior, and Congress passes a law implementing the lottery. The Supreme Court, however, quickly strikes it down as unconstitutional, as it violates several provisions of the Bill of Rights. Thus the lottery is never implemented, and the country still suffers from a sever organ shortage. </p><p>Let us now assume we are in a more deliberative version of our democracy, and the </p><p>Utilitarians and the Kantians are forced to sit down and debate the merits of this policy, and attempt to compromise.</p><p>The Utilitarians and the Baby Boomers again realize that they cannot use their selfish motives in this forum, nor can they use their sound bites in this more formal setting. They are forced then to present their proposal in a way that appeals to everyone. </p><p>They argue “The lottery will save more innocent lives than it takes, and is thus beneficial to all of us. Being picked in the lottery is just as tragic as being randomly picked by nature for organ failure—but in the former case, less tragedies result overall. Why does it matter who the agent of tragedy is? Also, keep in mind—this program is in everyone’s self interest. The chances of one of you having organ failure are far, far greater than the chances you will be selected in the lottery. You have a better shot winning millions of dollars in the actual lottery. This policy will increase the likelihood of survival for all of us.” A percentage of citizens watching this debate, who are not Baby Boomers, are again convinced that they should support this policy. Only this time, they have been educated properly on the issue and legitimately believe that it is in their self interest. 4</p><p>The Kantians must now respond. They cannot simply claim that they don’t want to give up their organs, and the argument that “murder violates the categorical imperative” will not appeal to the Utilitarians either. They are then forced to make an argument that can be universally accepted: “In a purely logical sense, your argument may be correct. But consider human nature—despite the microscopic odds of winning millions in the state lottery, people still by tickets, convinced that someday they will win. Why would the Survival Lottery be any different? However irrational, people would constantly fear this “Lottery of Death”, both for themselves and their loved ones. High profile selections of sympathetic people—say, a young bride who has just been married with a promising future, or a famous actor or politician, or even a child—who’s to say we can justly exclude any of these people on moral grounds? The public outcry and fear would be considerable after these incidents. Think of the unpopularity of the draft as well. </p><p>Agency does matter. People cannot punish nature for taking their lives, but they can sure go after the government.”</p><p>The Kantians sway much of the public, and the Utilitarians quickly realize they must compromise in order to maintain enough support for their policy. They propose: </p><p>“What if, then, we amend the policy so that it is voluntary. If people want to be eligible to receive organs from the lottery, they must themselves participate in it. But they certainly don’t have to, but if their organs fail, they will be out of luck. In this way, everyone in the lottery has actively chosen to participate, and we thus eliminate the fear and outcry resulting from public sympathy. The “innocence” factor is lost.”</p><p>“Fair enough” respond the Kantians, “but you will still be faced with problems. </p><p>There is a reason we cannot contract ourselves into death or slavery in this country. 5</p><p>People have a tendency to change their minds when faced with death, and to hold a person, kicking and screaming, to their contract is likely to arouse the same resentment among the masses as if the person had not consented initially. If joining the lottery is the only way to get organs, people will feel compelled to join it and take their chances. But once they are picked, you will find yourself with the same fear and public outcry, with many ‘winners’ attempting escape. People will no doubt see themselves in the person fleeing death and being hunted down by US soldiers. This is a situation we do not want.”</p><p>The Kantians propose another compromise: “Currently, a significant portion of our citizens do not opt to be organ donors when they renew their driver’s licenses. Yet these same selfish people are allowed receive organs from those who do. There is currently no benefit beyond altruism to being an organ donor, and hence we are left with a shortage of organs. If we were to make one small modification to this current policy, where only organ donors were eligible to receive organs, people would be more likely to sign up as donors in the event of their death. There would be a far greater supply of organs overall, hopefully enough to mitigate the current crisis.”</p><p>The Utilitarians agree, and thus a compromise is reached, and the organ problem is at least partially solved, without any of the horrific side effects mentioned. Both sides were forced to use broadly appealing arguments to sway the other side and the people. </p><p>Observing citizens were educated on the issue and were able to make informed opinions on the matter. Mutual respect was observed, and while no one got everything they wanted, the outcome was at least considered legitimate by all. This is in stark contrast to the non-deliberative outcome. 6</p><p>There are numerous possible objections to my argument and to deliberative democracy in general. I will attempt to address the two I feel are the strongest. </p><p>Comparing my two theoretical scenarios, many would ask why the dialogue in the deliberative example would be any less coarse, any less tainted by expensive PR campaigns by powerful, interested parties than the other? That is certainly the case now; what changed in the deliberative democracy that made the debate suddenly so very considerate and virtuous?</p><p>I did not delve into detail about the particulars of my deliberative America and its institutions, as that is a whole other discussion. Instead I presented vision of how deliberation itself could help a democracy. The institutions of deliberation, if designed properly, could be made to resist such tendencies as this degeneration of dialogue. A formal, national debate, complete with research, rules, and neutral moderation, could be the model institution by which citizens are educated about the issue, and can then have their own private debates. Our current political discourse is devoid of any such rigorous institution, and thus the public is left without a reliable source of the intricacies of a given policy.</p><p>Another objection may arise from the same assertion that my example is too idealized. Such compromises, some critics may say, are rare in our society—deadlock is the more likely outcome on issues such as abortion. If that is the case, won’t deliberation be largely ineffective at policy decisions, compared with our current procedural system?</p><p>I concede that there would be many deadlocks in a deliberative system, especially in the early stages when the public does not yet have the “deliberative” mentality. </p><p>However, I don’t propose we get rid of our old institutions for decision making. In the 7 end, we still need some form of voting to decide what will become policy. We would still need our courts to stop abuses of personal liberties by a tyrannical majority. Even if the deliberation does not arrive at a universally accepted compromise, it will at the very least properly inform voters of the issues. The number of votes necessary to enact a policy could even be increased over a simply majority, in order to further encourage compromise.</p><p>Finally, critics of deliberative democracy might point out here that the desired outcome was reached in both of my examples. Both forms of democracy rejected the lottery in its original form. So why then is deliberation superior? I would claim though that only half of the desired outcome was reached under our current system—there was still no solution to the organ problem. Our democracy is adversarial; only one side wins, and wins totally. In my first example, the Kantians won completely, yet that decision was made by the small, elite institution that is the Supreme Court. The process itself was also undesirable: selfish motives were hidden behind coarse dialog, people were supporting a policy not in their own self interest due to misleading information, and a minority with wealth, influence and power was able to subvert the will of the majority.</p><p>So in conclusion, I would maintain that deliberation would improve our democracy. Using the example of the survival lottery we have seen that, even though they lead to similar outcomes, the process of deliberation yields a more legitimate result as opposed to our current system.</p>