Democratic Decisions in a Critical Thinking Crisis

Democratic theory is the study of democratic institutions and their normative value. A wide range of deliberative democratic theorists are committed to the Common Good Claim (CGC):deliberation is valuable because deliberation followed by voting is more likely to produce outcomes that promote the common good than voting alone. While at a theoretical level, deliberation might promote the common good by changing participants’ preferences, by improving their knowledge or reasoning skills, the empirical literature on deliberation gives very inconsistent evidence on these points. One response to this concern is to change the structure of deliberations so that reasoning is central. But even that type of structural change isn't enough to solve the problem. Democratic Decisions in a Critical Thinking Crisis argues that the real underlying issue is that political communities are in a critical thinking crisis. There is a dire lack of critical thinking skills among the general population, and that lack of skill will inhibit high-quality reasoning in public deliberation, even if the deliberative forum is well-constructed. Aidan Kestigian makes use of research in education and psychology on how to fix the reasoning gap to suggest how political and educational interventions can move the needle and move us closer to the deliberative democratic ideal. This book concludes by suggesting educational and policy changes that would elevate reasoning as a centerpiece of democratic decision making.