Chiara Destri

One strategy in defence of compulsory voting is based on what I call the non-instrumental value of high turnout: the idea that almost-universal participation in elections is valuable per se. This article argues that we do not have democratic reasons to value compelled turnout. First, thanks to an original analysis of the practice of voting, I identify three constitutive rules that make the physical acts of marking and casting a ballot count as proper voting. This preliminary analysis serves to illuminate the fact that the act of voting has democratic value if it is performed in a free and reason-responsive way. Second, I identify political equality and popular control as democratic values that high turnout expresses. Finally, the article rejects the non-instrumental case for compulsory voting because it cannot ensure that people vote in a reason-responsive way and, if they do not, high turnout lacks democratic value.

Contemporary normative theories of democracy generally aim to show that democratic outcomes are legitimate and hence they ought to be obeyed. As it is known, the battlefield is split between two major approaches: instrumentalism and proceduralism. Yet, many philosophers of both approaches seem to overlook one distinction that ought to be crucial in their reasoning - or so I argue in this paper. First, I highlight this distinction between the justification of outcomes on one hand, and their legitimacy on the other. If the justification of outcomes is unachievable given circumstances of pluralism and disagreement, their legitimacy derives from the procedures that bring them about. Hence both accounts present a justification of democratic procedures by reference to a criterion that is independent from the procedures themselves. Second, I propose to distinguish between instrumentalism and proceduralism on the basis of the connection that these approaches draw between the justifying crit...

As is widely recognised, the fact of disagreement has normative relevance for democratic legitimacy. That individuals ought to obey directives they disagree with is considered one of the main anxieties of political life; that democracy is the best solution to this has been fiercely defended by many political theorists since Jean-Jacques Rousseau. More recently, the idea that we disagree not only on the conditions for leading a good life, but also on what justice requires of us, as well as on what rights and duties we have in dealing with others, has been a cornerstone for democratic theory. However, the idea that politics is primarily about justice, although widely shared by liberals, is controversial, as political realists have always contended. Can democratic citizens see their institutions as legitimate even if they are not concerned about justice? This paper argues that they can and puts forward a prudential justification of democracy, which aims to assert its rational acceptabi...

contribution à un site webAu premier tour des élections municipales le 15 mars dernier, le taux d’abstention a atteint un niveau historique, mais peu surprenant au regard de la crise sanitaire, de 55,3 %. Au second tour, le 28 juin, seuls 41,6 % de ceux appelés à voter se sont déplacés aux urnes. [Premier paragraphe

This article argues that political realists have at least two strategies to provide distinctively political normative judgements that have nothing to do with morality. The first ground is instrumental normativity, which states that if we believe that something is a necessary means to a goal we have, we have a reason to do it. In politics, certain means are required by any ends we may intend to pursue. The second ground is epistemic normativity, stating that if something is (empirically) true, this gives us a reason to believe it. In politics, there are certain empirical regularities that ought to be acknowledged for what they are. Both sources are flawed. Instrumental normativity only requires coherence between attitudes and beliefs, and one can hang on to false beliefs to preserve attitudes incompatible with reality. I may desire to eschew power relations, and accordingly I may imagine politics to be like a camping trip. Epistemic normativity, on the other hand, operates critically, striking down existing normative claims. It shows us that politics is nothing like a camping trip, but it doesn’t tell us what we should do about it (beyond abandoning some false beliefs). We conclude by showing that if the two are taken together, they remedy each other’s flaws.

Disagreement among philosophers over the proper justification for political institutions is far from a new phenomenon. Thus, it should not come as a surprise that there is substantial room for dissent on this matter within democratic theory. As is well known, instrumentalism and proceduralism represent the two primary viewpoints that democrats can adopt to vindicate democratic legitimacy. While the former notoriously derives the value of democracy from its outcomes, the latter claims that a democratic decision-making process is inherently valuable. This article has two aims. First, it introduces three variables with which we can thoroughly categorise the aforementioned approaches. Second, it argues that the more promising version of proceduralism is extrinsic, rather than intrinsic, and that extrinsically procedural accounts can appeal to other values in the justification of democracy without translating into instrumentalism. This article is organised as follows. I present what I consider to be the 'implicit view' in the justification of democracy. Then, I analyse each of the three variables in a different section. Finally, I raise an objection against procedural views grounded in relational equality, which cannot account for the idea that democracy is a necessary condition for political legitimacy.

Contemporary normative theories of democracy generally aim to show that democratic outcomes are legitimate and hence they ought to be obeyed. As it is known, the battlefield is split between two major approaches: instrumentalism and proceduralism. Yet, many philosophers of both approaches seem to overlook one distinction that ought to be crucial in their reasoning-or so I argue in this paper. First, I highlight this distinction between the justification of outcomes on one hand, and their legitimacy on the other. If the justification of outcomes is unachievable given circumstances of pluralism and disagreement, their legitimacy derives from the procedures that bring them about. Hence both accounts present a justification of democratic procedures by reference to a criterion that is independent from the procedures themselves. Second, I propose to distinguish between instrumentalism and proceduralism on the basis of the connection that these approaches draw between the justifying criterion and democratic procedures. While for instrumentalism this is contingent and indirect, for proceduralism it is direct and necessary. Finally, I take into account two well-known taxonomies in epistemic democracy, which are provided by David Estlund and Fabienne Peter, and I argue 170 CHIARA DESTRI that both blur the distinction between the justification of outcomes and their legitimacy and are thus unsatisfactory and misleading.