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A Resolution of Wollheim's Paradox

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 April 2010

Sven Ove Hansson
Sven Ove Hansson
Affiliation:
Uppsala University
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Extract

Richard Wollheim (1962) provided an acute formulation of the problematic situation of an outvoted democrat. We are invited to consider an individual who endorses the democratic procedure, or ‘democratic machine’. Furthermore, this person prefers policy A, and has voted for it. “He chooses A or prefers A to B, because he thinks that A is the best policy, is the policy that ought to be enacted, or, alternatively, that A is a better policy than B or ought to be enacted in preference to B” (pp. 77–78). Now, how does this person react when it turns out that the democratic decision was in favour of B? “How can the citizen accept the machine's choice, which involves his thinking that B ought to be enacted when, as we already know, he is of the opinion, of the declared opinion, that A ought to be enacted?” (p. 78).

Type
Articles
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 32 , Issue 4 , Fall 1993 , pp. 681 - 688
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1993

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