The conceptual foundations of decision-making in a democracy

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The Conceptual Foundations of Decision-making in a Democracy

Peter Pappenheim

Website: www.project-democracy.com

 

Barjesteh van Waalwijk van Doorn & Co's Uitgeversmaatschappij

Rotterdam 2003

[pagina IV]

Published and produced by Barjesteh van Waalwijk van Doorn & Co's Uitgeversmaatschappij,

PO.box 42518, 3006 DA Rotterdam, the Netherlands,

e-mail: barjesteh@planet.nl

 

© Copyright 2003 by Peter Pappenheim and Barjesteh van Waalwijk van Doorn & Co's Uitgeversmaatschappij.

 

ISBN 90-5613-072-2

 

This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, by photocopy or print or any other means, without written permission from the publishers.

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CONTENTS OF VOLUME ONE

INTRODUCTION
A) Background + objective, intended audience and standards	1
B) The structure of this book	5
C) Conclusion: democracy must be earned	8
1) PART ONE: THE DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY AND ITS NORMS
1.1) Norms in general	11
1.2) What is democracy?	15
1.3) Decisions in a democracy	19
1.4) Norms in a democratic society	23
1.5) Democracy is a culture, including ethics and morals	26
1.6) Truth and justice in a democracy	28
2a) PART TWO: LIFE AND INFORMATION, A) WHAT IS LIFE
2a.1) Introduction	31
2a.2) The main features of living beings	31
2a.3) The language of life	33
2a.4) Life is a process with a direction	34
2a.5) How does life do it?	40
2a.6) Evolution is now	43
2a.7) Some remarks about functionality	44
2a.8) Steps in evolution	46
2a.9) Living/inert versus organic/inorganic	48
2b) PART TWO: LIFE AND INFORMATION, B) INFORMATION
2b.1) What is information?	51
2b.2) An illustration of the subjectivity of information	55
2b.3) Subject, object and the notion of ‘I’	61
2b.4) Communication	65
2b.5) The holistic nature of life and information	67
2b.6) Parallel versus sequential information processing; reason and rationality	72
2b.7) Holarchy	74
2b.8) Knowledge versus information	78
3a) PART THREE: TRUTH and KNOWLEDGE, A) KNOWLEDGE
3a.1) Introduction	83
3a.2) Can knowledge be objective?	86
3a.3) Private versus social knowledge	96
3a.4) Science and culture	97

 

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3b) PART THREE: TRUTH and KNOWLEDGE, B) SCIENTIFIC THEORIES
3b.1) Introduction	99
3b.2) Induction: the rationality of learning from experience	99
3b.3) Scientific theories	103
3b.4) The testability of scientific theories	108
3b.5) A demarcation criterion for empirical scientific theories	113
3b.6) Comparing empirical scientific theories	115
3b.7) The axiomatisation of scientific theories	119
3b.8) Summary and conclusions of truth in social decision-making	123
4a) PART FOUR: JUSTICE, A) THE THEORY
4a.1) What is justice?	127
4a.2) Justice as a function and a tool	131
4a.3) Subjective/conventional is not synonymous with arbitrary/capricious/random/irrational	133
4a.4) Justice is a matter of authority. To preserve our autonomy, we must establish its priority and fight for it	135
4a.5) Some remarks on the culture of individualism and rationalism	137
4a.6) Justice: man's alternative to instinct	140
4a.7) Individualism, autonomy and freedom	142
4a.8) A pure contract theory of justice	148
4a.9) The principles of justice in pure contract theory	150
4a.10) Three types of procedural justice	151
4a.11) Justice versus efficiency	153
4a.12) Getting the contract signed	155
4a.13) From theory to practice	157
4b) PART FOUR: JUSTICE, B) A JUST INCOME DISTRIBUTION
4b.1) The issues and some definitions	165
4b.2) The libertarian income distribution	167
4b.3) The egalitarian income distribution	177
4b.4) The two boundary conditions of a democratic income distribution	182
4b.5) A grey area: common goods	184
4b.6) Functions which the state has to fulfil	191
4b.7) Financing state functions	192
4b. 8) Enter economics	195
4b.9) The democratic income policy	200
4b.10) Capital and inheritance	206
4b.11) Social security	210
4b.12) The right to work	215
4b. 13) Conclusions and remarks	217

 

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5) PART FIVE: DEMOCRATIC ARGUMENTATION
5.1) Introduction	219
5.2) The need of procedures for establishing facts	219
5.3) Logic and mathematics: shared conventions to establish relations between facts	220
5.4) The rhetoric of democratic argumentation: conviction, not persuasion	223
5.5) The social context	225
5.6) Towards democratic argumentation	226
6) PART SIX: DEMOCRACY MUST BE EARNED.
6b.1) Introduction	231
6b.2) The institutionalisation of the establishment of facts	233
6b.3) The social responsibility of science	237

 

CONTENTS OF VOLUME TWO

JUSTIFICATIONS AND ADDENDA (J&A)
(The number between brackets is the number of the corresponding chapter in volume one)
J&A TO PART ONE: ‘THE DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY’
Philosophers on norms and morals(1.1)		245
J&A TO PART TWO: ‘LIFE AND INFORMATION’
Nurture versus nature (2a.4)		249
Evolution as an explanation of the origin of species (2a.6)		250
The quantification of information (2a.9)		252
a) The potential of information		252
b) The efficiency of information processing tools		253
More than physics and chemistry (2a.9)		255
Meaning: Michael Polanyi. (2b.1)		259
Subjective and functional have no connection with selfish (2b3.3)		265
Sense and Referent: Frege (2b.4)		267
JUSTIFICATIONS AND ADDENDA TO PART THREE: ‘TRUTH’
Truth and falsity (3a.1.2)		273
Freeman on Objective knowledge (3a.2)		278
Against Feyerabend's anarchy (3b.1)		279
	Summary	279
	Feyerabend's arguments do not justify radical anarchism	279
	New theories often lack testing methods	283
	No rules are absolute	284
	The incommensurability of scientific theories	285

 

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Popper's non-solution of Hume's problem of induction and rationality (3b.2)			287
	Hume's problem of induction		287
	Only a functional concept of rationality can solve Hume's problem		289
Popper on scientific theories (3b.3)
	Why Popper's demarcation criterion is not adequate		291
	Popper on stochastic theories		292
	The role of initial conditions in evaluating tests		293
Against the autonomous existence of Popper's world three objects (3b.3)			296
Lakatos: Research as a program (3b.3.2)			304
The context of the evaluation of scientific theories (3b.8)			307
ADDENDA TO PART FOUR A/B: ‘JUSTICE’ AND ‘A JUST INCOME DISTRIBUTION’. (These do not refer to specific chapters)
Kant's legacy			311
	Introduction		311
	Autonomy		313
	Freedom		316
	Categorical imperative versus subjective equality		317
	Who can claim a right?		321
	Concluding remark		321
Locke/Nozick			321
	Summary		321
	Locke		322
	Nozick		324
		The foundation of a society antedates the emergence of rights	325
	Locke's and Nozick's theory rests on an atrophied concept of man and society		327
		More concrete objections	329
		Nozick's weakness is his professional modesty	331
Rousseau			332
Conclusions of our historical review of contract theory			337
Rawls
	Summary		338
	Introduction		339
	Justice as fairness		340
	A contract theory can be based only on one principle: autonomy.
	The original position is at best a heuristic devise, and never can be a justification for any principle		341
	The original position does not lead to all of Rawls' conclusions		344
	Rawls' original position is not the state of nature		345
	Justice can refer only to decisions		346

 

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	In contract theory, justice is uncompromising. Okun's conflict between justice and efficiency is self-created through an erroneous concept of justice, as is Rawls' problem with compliance		346
	Rawls' view of society is not very clear and seems one-sided		347
	The difference principle is not unequivocal		348
	Rawls' reflective equilibrium is an interesting concept		349
Buchanan: a pure but ‘asocial’ contract theory			352
Roskam Abbingh: the ethics of income distribution			355
CAPITA SELECTA
Body and mind			361
	Introduction		361
	The identity theory: Herbert Feigl		362
	Duality of body and mind: John Eccles		365
Paradoxes: a sure sign of an error of thought			373
	The liar: misunderstanding the information process		373
	Achilles and the tortoise: assumes the autonomous existence of world three objects		375
Determinism versus free will			377
	Introduction		377
	Determinism		377
	Own will versus free will		381
Marx and Hegel and democratic decision-making			387
	Marx		387
	Hegel. 1) Hegel's Spirit		389
		2) Dialectic and Antinomies	393
Wittgenstein			399
Knowledge and human understanding as a social venture			401
	1) Stephen Toulmin: Human understanding		401
	2) Incommensurability of conceptual systems and scientific research programs: Collingwood/Kuhn		407
	3) The social responsibility of scientists: Ravetz		410
Order, disorder and chaos as applied to living systems			419
The confusion about reality			423
	1) Quantum theory		423
	2) Philosophical postmodernism and its guru Rorty		427
BIBLIOGRAPHY			436