Democracy

5. The use of democracy

Other justifications for democracy are possible. One standard device for justification, for many areas, is utilitarianism (see Utilitarianism). Something is justified if it promotes general happiness or utility. It can be asked of a form of government, just like anything else, whether it does tend to promote this. The answer, at least of the classical utilitarians such as Bentham (§6) and James Mill, is that democracy does.

This argument is expressed most simply in James Mill’s short essay, Government (1820). He starts with an evaluative and a factual premise. The evaluative premise is utilitarianism. Actions are right in so far as they promote the general happiness. The factual premise is universal self-interest. People seek those things which promote their own interests. The problem is to find the form of government in which both of these premises can be true together, to find the form in which people seeking their own interest will nevertheless do those things which promote the general happiness. It is not difficult to show that representative democracy is the answer. Kings will promote the interest of kings, dictators of dictators, oligarchies of oligarchies. In all cases the interest promoted is that of the ruling group, not that of the people as a whole. However, if the people as a whole are put in charge, they will promote the interests of the people as a whole. Seeking their own interests, they will produce general happiness. Hence both premises are satisfied simultaneously.

It is perhaps unsurprising that the greatest happiness of the greatest number results if the majority (the greatest number) are put in charge. However the answer does depend upon certain presuppositions. It assumes that people act in their own interests. Even if this is what they generally intend to do (which might be disputed), it does not follow from this that they are successful. For they may not know their interests. For example, it is often held that people discount the future too severely, so they prefer less important immediate interests to more important long-term interests. If this is so, then democratic decisions will lead to too short-term results, which are not even in the interests of those voting (see Needs and interests; Public interest).

A related point is that this model takes preferences as they are, without allowing them to be changed by the democratic process. Yet if people are ill informed about what is good for them, it would be better to operate on the preferences before counting votes. Democracy treats all votes equally. But people may not be equally informed about their interests. So the result may be that some interests are catered for better than others. Analogously, treating votes equally means that strongly held and weakly held views are considered of equal importance. Yet if the goal is to maximize utility, it may be wrong to follow the weakly held view of a majority rather than the strongly held view of a significant minority. If the utility of getting something is supposed to be roughly proportional to the strength of the desire for it, then it could be that the total of less people multiplied by a greater utility per person is higher than the total of more people multiplied by less utility per person.