Rationality and deliberative democracy

Abstract

In this paper I will give a short description of deliberative democracy, its advantages over the aggregative model of democracy and its strategies for overcoming the obstacles which the social choice theory puts before the defenders of democracy. I will continue with the argument that the aim of deliberative democracy should not be reaching the consensus or unanimity, but obtaining preference single-peakedness. For, there is a practical impossibility of consensus reaching and the single-peakedness criterion is sufficient for prevention against the 'paradoxes of democracy'. Through the analysis of the given explanations of the ways in which deliberation can lead to the realization of single-peakedness, I will make an attempt to defend the position which holds that acquiring singlepeakedness, in the impartial conditions of deliberation, is a goal that is as equally unreachable as is reaching of the consensus because of the multidimensionality of the alternative evaluation criterion. However, I will show that even if deliberation does not necessarily lead to a preference single-peakedness, which would prevent Condorcet's paradox from happening, in accordance with Arrow's ethical conditions of democratic choice, it nevertheless reveals why these paradoxes are created in the first place, and it is providing us with an insight into how we can redefine the alternatives so that we can obtain a true single-peakedness of our preferences.