Knowing and Deciding Responsibly in Democracy

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

How should citizens make political decisions? Can they be selfish, or do they need to limit their thinking to focus only on their fellow citizens? Can they rely upon new technology for help? How can individuals and democratic institutions help constitute citizens as the best and most informed decision makers possible? And how does the capacity of democratic institutions to improve citizens epistemically relate to democracy’s more general justification? This panel brings together four papers in normative democratic theory concerned with these questions and their implications for the theory, practice, and justification of democracy.

Julia Maskivker investigates how the worth and virtue of political participation depends on citizens having “genuine concern” for others. Kevin Elliott and Jeffrey Lenowitz explore what it takes to make decisions responsibly as democratic citizens, highlighting the neglected importance of choices citizens make in the learning process and the surprising lack of focus on this important topic. Matthew Lucky looks at the practically and acceptability of automated voting systems that allow citizens to delegate voting choices to AI assistants, ultimately rejecting them because of their predicted effects on elite behavior. And Justin Pottle offers a new epistemic defense of democracy focusing on its unique ability to secure epistemic justice in ideal conditions and alleviate epistemic injustice in non-ideal ones. Together, these papers tackle new and important questions in democratic theory, made all the more important by rising skepticism of democracy across the political spectrum.

Sub Unit

• Division 3: Normative Theory

Individual Presentations

• Genuine Concern and Voting - Julia Maskivker

• Toward an Ethics of Citizen Decision-Making - Kevin J. Elliott, Yale University; Jeffrey A. Lenowitz, Brandeis University

• Epistemic Justice as a Virtue of Democracy - Justin Pottle, Loyola University Chicago

• Should ChatGPT Vote for You? Automated Voting and Artificial Intelligence - Matthew Lucky, Indiana University Bloomington

Chair

• Emma Saunders-Hastings The Ohio State University

Discussant

• Alexandra Oprea University at Buffalo