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ID: 107947

Accounting for blind spots: from oedipus to democratic epistemology / Button, Mark E

Button, Mark E	Journal Article
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2011.

Summary/Abstract

This essay is concerned with the challenges that moral "blind spots" create for the presence and endurance of democratic virtues under conditions of pluralism. A moral blind spot refers to the occlusions in individual moral perceptions and the limits that circumscribe moral sympathies owing to our ineluctable partialities as socially embedded beings. Blind spots constitute a tragic feature of human perception and moral judgment that facilitate and undermine human agency at once. Yet, far more problematic from the perspective of democratic epistemology and normative ethics is the denial or willful forgetfulness of their place in our individual and collective lives, and the concomitant failure to account for moral blind spots so as to check their most pernicious effects. Accounting for moral blind spots in practice requires actively planning for their presence through the cultivation of the "pathos of distance" towards ourselves and our collective political identities and social institutions.

Key Words

Social psychology ; Nietzsche ; Oedipus ; Democratic Epistemology

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ID: 162663

Bounded rationality without bounded democracy: nudges, democratic citizenship, and pathways for building civic capacity / Button, Mark E

Button, Mark E	Journal Article
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Summary/Abstract

The behavioral sciences are playing an increasingly important role in the design and implementation of public policy worldwide. While there have been several important critiques of the latest policy revolution linking the behavioral sciences and the state in the pursuit of human behavioral change, few scholars have investigated the potential costs of “nudging” for democratic citizenship and the deliberative capacities upon which democratic self-governance relies. A central purpose here is to consider the possible civic consequences of nudging within the pursuit of otherwise desirable social outcomes (like improved public health, energy conservation, or higher rates of financial saving). Through a critical investigation of the governing philosophy of the “nudging state” and drawing on the policy feedback literature, I argue that the recent behavioral turn in public policy risks overlooking or bypassing the personal capacities and institutional conditions necessary for the meaningful exercise of democratic citizenship. Evidence from the empirical assessment of deliberative democracy shows how liberal societies can fruitfully address bounded rationality while facilitating civic virtues like public practical reason without violating liberty or constraining pluralism.

Key Words

Democratic Citizenship ; Bounded Democracy ; Building Civic Capacity

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