Empathetic Understanding and Deliberative Democracy

Hannon, Michael

Abstract

Epistemic democracy is standardly characterized in terms of “aiming at truth”. This presupposes a veritistic conception of epistemic value, according to which truth is the fundamental epistemic goal. I will raise an objection to the standard (veritistic) account of epistemic democracy, focusing specifically on deliberative democracy. I then propose a version of deliberative democracy that is grounded in non‐veritistic epistemic goals. In particular, I argue that deliberation is valuable because it facilitates empathetic understanding. I claim that empathetic understanding is an epistemic good that doesn't have truth as its primary goal.

Citation

Hannon, M. (2020). Empathetic Understanding and Deliberative Democracy. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 101(3), 591-611. https://doi.org/10.1111/phpr.12624

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jun 20, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Jul 22, 2019
• Publication Date: 2020-11
• Deposit Date: Aug 8, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Jul 23, 2021
• Journal: Philosophy and Phenomenological Research
• Print ISSN: 0031-8205
• Electronic ISSN: 1933-1592
• Publisher: Wiley
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 101
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 591-611
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/phpr.12624
• Keywords: Philosophy; epistemology; deliberative democracy; truth; understanding; veritism
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/2406977
• Publisher URL: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/phpr.12624
• Additional Information: This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Hannon, M. (2019), Empathetic Understanding and Deliberative Democracy. Philos Phenomenol Res. doi:10.1111/phpr.12624 which has been published in final form at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/phpr.12624. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions.
• Contract Date: Aug 15, 2019