M
AJORITARIAN: To start with, majority rule maximizes the number of persons who can exercise selfdetermination in collective decisions. Given the boundaries of a particular political system, the composition of the demos, and the need for a collective decision on some matter, the strong principle of majority rule ensures that the greatest possible number of citizens will live under laws they have chosen for themselves. If a law is adopted by less than a majority, then the number who have chosen that law will necessarily be smaller than the number of citizens who would have chosen the alternative. Likewise, if more than a majority were required in order for a law to be adopted—let's say 60 percent—then a minority of 40 percent (plus one vote) could prevent a majority of 60 percent (less one vote) from adopting its preferred alternative. As a result, the alternative preferred by a minority would be imposed on the majority. 3
C
RITIC: I don't disagree with your argument, but let me make two observations. First, the justification you've just presented depends on the assumption that the freedom expressed through selfdetermination ought to be maximized in collective decisions. Isn't an argument of that kind too abstract to appeal to anyone except a
philosopher? Are you saying that the acceptability of majority rule requires people to read and understand Rousseau or Immanuel Kant?
M
AJORITARIAN: Of course not. While my justification may seem abstract I suspect that it implicitly underlies how lots of people think about majority rule. I can easily imagine an ordinary citizen saying something like this to his fellow citizens:
Look, we have to reach a decision on this matter. Some of us don't like the one option before us, and some don't like the other. We've tried as long and as hard as we can to find a solution we could all agree on, or, failing that, a solution more of us could agree on than seems to be the case with the alternatives before us. But we haven't turned up any better alternatives. So now we have to choose between the two best alternatives we've managed to put before us. Whichever way the decision turns out, some of us aren't going to like the law, though we'll all have to obey it anyway. So let the majority have its way. At least then more of us will live under the law we want than if we let the minority get what it wants. Isn't that the only right thing to do?
C
RITIC: I can see how such an argument would appeal to many people. So let's pass on to my second observation. At the beginning of our conversation I agreed to
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assume that some collective decisions were necessary and that the boundaries of the collectivity were fixed. I now see that by doing so I may have given the store away. Those assumptions each conceal what might be called a boundary problem. The assumption that collective decisions are required presupposes a boundary between matters that require collective decisions and matters that don't. The assumption that the boundaries of the collectivity are fixed rejects the possibility that a collective unit with different boundaries—smaller, more local, more homogeneous, let's say, or larger and more heterogeneous—might be better.
M
AJORITARIAN: If we try to consider all the problems of democratic theory and practice at the same time, we'll never get anywhere. Can't we treat your boundary problems later?
C
RITIC: I yield.
M
AJORITARIAN: Meanwhile, you do concede, do you not, that if the members of an association need collective decisions to achieve their ends, and the boundaries of a democratic unit are taken as given, then majority rule is required for maximum selfdetermination?
C
RITIC: Yes. I'm quite willing to pass over my reservations for the moment, but I'll want us to come back to them later on.
M
AJORITARIAN: As you wish. But the problems you pose must surely be distinguished from the problem of majority rule, must they not?
C
RITIC: Perhaps I see the problems as more interdependent than you do.
Majority Rule As a Necessary Consequence of Reasonable Requirements
M
AJORITARIAN: My second justification is somewhat analogous to the first. But the argument is a bit more detailed and rigorous. Roughly stated, the argument is that, if you accept four reasonable criteria that ought to be met by a decision rule in a democratic association, then logically you must agree that the principle of majority rule, and only that principle, can satisfy those criteria. This proposition was nicely demonstrated in a simple, straightforward, and rigorous proof by a mathematician, Kenneth May, in 1952 (May 1952). If you will indulge me, I'd like to summarize his argument.
C
RITIC: Please do.
M
AJORITARIAN: First, we've already agreed that a democratic decision rule should be decisive. If the demos is confronted by two alternatives, x and y (as we've assumed to be the case), then the decision rule must definitely lead to one of three outcomes: either x is chosen, or y is chosen, or neither is chosen. Second, a democratic decision rule should not favor one voter over another. May calls this the requirement of anonymity: The outcome shouldn't depend on which specific persons favor or oppose an alternative.
C
RITIC: Since what he calls anonymity is also implied by one of the criteria of the democratic process—voting equality—I find it an entirely reasonable assumption. The third requirement?
M
AJORITARIAN: A voting procedure should also be neutral with respect to the
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Page 140 alternatives. That is, it shouldn't favor or disfavor one alternative more than another. If there are two alternatives on the agenda, A and B, the decision rule should not have any builtin bias in favor of either. For example, suppose A is a proposal to adopt a new policy, while B means simply leaving the existing policy in place. The alternatives are to change the status quo in some respect or to preserve it. Neutrality requires that the decision rule shouldn't give any special advantage either to the proposed change or to the status quo.
C
RITIC: A Burkean conservative might contend that the status quo should be given a builtin advantage. 4
M
AJORITARIAN: The status quo always has so many builtin advantages that surely it doesn't need the additional advantage of a biased decision rule! Since the point is immensely important, let me pursue it for a moment. Let's suppose, as once was the case in every country that is now democratic, that children are permitted to work in mines and factories. Being permitted to work, poverty drives them to do so. Let's suppose further that a referendum is scheduled in which voters may vote for or against a proposal to prohibit child labor in mines and factories. (Employing a referendum, you'll notice, allows us to set aside the question of representation, as we've been doing so far.) Call the proposal to ban child labor A. To vote against A in effect means voting for B, which is the status quo. If you want to abolish child labor, you support A; if you don't want it abolished, you support B, which means that child labor will continue to be allowed. I ask you, why should a decision rule favor the status quo over change, that is, favor child labor over its abolition? Suppose the constitution of a country requires that no law to regulate labor in mines and factories can be adopted in a referendum except by a two thirds vote. So let's now suppose that 66 percent of the voters support the abolition of child labor, while 34 percent oppose it. Child labor can't be abolished! Is there any earthly reason why the status quo should be so privileged?
C
RITIC: In choosing the example of child labor, you've managed to make a highly persuasive argument. Still, I can't help thinking that in some circumstances a minority might justifiably insist that certain matters, not necessarily so offensive to our contemporary sense of justice as child labor, should be made immune to ready change.
Are you saying that the criterion of neutrality would necessarily prevent the adoption of a special decision rule for dealing with these matters? If so, I'm not fully convinced that neutrality is invariably a good criterion. However, I'm happy to set aside my reservations so that you can lay out the full argument.
M
AJORITARIAN: Thank you. May's last assumption may strike you at first as rather finicky, but it does make sense. He proposed that a decision rule should be positively responsive, by which he meant the following. Suppose the members of a demos are initially indifferent between A and B. They have no preference for one over the other. Then (perhaps as a result of discussion or further reflection) one citizen comes to prefer A to B, while no citizen comes to prefer B to A. Surely, May reasoned, the decision rule must now lead to the selection of A.
C
RITIC: I don't quite grasp the need for that assumption.
M
AJORITARIAN: Let me see if I can give it some intuitive force. Imagine a
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decision rule that meets the three criteria I mentioned earlier. It's decisive, neutral with respect to citizens (May's anonymity criterion), and neutral with respect to issues. But it specifies that the policy to be adopted is the alternative preferred not by the majority but by the minority. Perversely making the minority the winner would certainly violate May's notion of positive responsiveness. Or consider a less obvious case. Suppose no one cares whether A is adopted or B is adopted. I suppose the citizens could then choose by tossing a coin if they felt a decision had to be made. But if just one citizen, Robinson, now decides that A really is better than B, it seems fair that Robinson's choice should tip the scales. No one else cares; Robinson does. Having A adopted rather than B matters to her; it doesn't harm anyone else. So shouldn't A be adopted? To go back to the previous argument, selfdetermination would be maximized. To jump ahead to a utilitarian perspective, one person would be more satisfied with the outcome, and no one would be any worse off. So reasonableness dictates that A should be selected.
C
RITIC:Put that way, I'm inclined to agree.
M
AJORITARIAN: Well, if you accept that and the other three as reasonable criteria, then, May demonstrated, only one decision rule could satisfy all four criteria. As I said earlier, that unique decision rule is nothing other than the strong version of majority rule. Since each of the axioms seems highly reasonable—all the more so to anyone committed to the democratic process—May's demonstration provides a rational justification, and one of very considerable intellectual power, for the adoption of majority rule in its strong form.
C
RITIC: I've indicated my reservations about the assumption of neutrality with respect to all issues, but otherwise I find the argument impressive. You have several others, I believe.
More Likely to Produce Correct Decisions
M
AJORITARIAN: Yes. My third justification for majority rule is that under certain conditions it is more likely than any other to lead to correct decisions. As you'll recall, it was Aristotle's view that the pooled judgments of many different persons are likely to be wiser on the whole, and certainly less subject to gross error, than the judgments of one person or a few. I think some such view is really rather common. In fact, one rather like it can be found in parts of Mill's celebrated defense of freedom of ideas. The justification for a trial by a jury of one's peers rests on the same notion.
C
RITIC: Are you saying that truth is whatever a majority decides is true?
M
AJORITARIAN: Not at all. What I'm saying is that under certain conditions the best test we have of whether an assertion is true, or correct, is whether a majority of those who are familiar with the evidence judge it to be true or correct.
C
RITIC: If we looked carefully at your qualifier—"under certain conditions"—it might prove to be a can of worms.
M
AJORITARIAN: To explain my argument I'm going to make use of a demonstration advanced in the eighteenth century by the French philosopher and mathematician the Marquis de Condorcet. 5 Let's assume that in some situations a citizen's
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Page 142 choice may be right or wrong, as when a member of a jury decides whether or not the defendant is guilty of a criminal charge. Let's also suppose that, over a number of such decisions, while every citizen is sometimes right and sometimes wrong, more often than not each citizen makes a correct choice. Then the probability that a majority will make the correct choice is greater than the probability that a minority will do so. Consequently, the judgment of the majority, not the minority, ought to prevail, shouldn't it?
C
RITIC: I suppose so, provided the only alternatives are majority rule or minority rule.
M
AJORITARIAN: Fine. But Condorcet showed something even more interesting. The probability that the majority is right increases dramatically the larger it is. Suppose the probability of each member's being right is only a trifle better than chance, say 0.51. Then in a group of 100 the probability of a majority of 51 being right is a modest 0.52. But if the majority increases to 55 the probability of its being right rises to almost 0.60. For a majority of 60, the chances of its being right are nearly 70 percent! Likewise, as the probability that an individual citizen is correct goes up, even by small amounts, the probability that the majority is correct rises very swiftly.
Take the same starting point as in the example I just gave: In a group of a hundred, where the chance of each member's being right is only 0.51, the probability that the majority will make the right judgment is only 0.52. But if the chance of a member's being right is 0.55, then the probability of the majority's being right is 0.60. 6 C
RITIC: Bravo! But on Condorcet's showing, shouldn't we insist on supermajorities—a twothirds rule, say, or even a rule of unanimity?
M
AJORITARIAN: No, for this reason. If the probability that a majority is right is greater, the larger it is, then the smaller the minority the lower the probability that it is right.
A rule requiring a supermajority necessarily means that a minority could block a majority. But, the larger the supermajority the rule requires, the smaller the minority that would be sufficient to veto and so to impose its judgment. But, the smaller the minority, the greater the probability that it is wrong.
C
RITIC: Let's not forget that your whole argument depends on the dubious assumption that the average voter is more likely right than wrong. If I reject that assumption, then your proof would point in the opposite direction—toward replacing strict majority rule with a supermajority rule. And if I recall correctly, Condorcet himself went on to show that majority voting can get into deep difficulties if there are more than two alternatives. We really ought to get on to those problems.
Maximizing Utility
M
AJORITARIAN: Before we do, I want to present my fourth justification, a utilitarian argument based on assumptions about costs and benefits. 7
Maintaining the simplifying assumptions we initially agreed on, let's suppose that the demos votes directly on the laws. Now let's also suppose that, on any proposals supported by a majority, if the proposal is adopted then each citizen in
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the majority will gain at least as much benefit (or utility, or satisfaction, or whatnot) as each citizen in the minority will lose. On this assumption, majority rule would necessarily maximize the average benefit of the laws among all citizens.
C
RITIC: Given your assumption, your conclusion obviously follows. What isn't at all obvious is the validity of your assumption.
M
AJORITARIAN: I accept that. Nonetheless, I'd like to drive my point home with an extreme case. I'm going to assume that the net benefit to each member of the majority and the net loss to each member of the minority is exactly the same—just one unit of satisfaction. Even if only 51 citizens in a demos of 100 favor a law and 49 oppose it, the net gain under the majority principle would be, let's say, two units of satisfaction. No alternative decision rule could do as well. Let me push the point even further. If we assume that the boundaries of the system can't be changed, then in the extreme case where the same citizens are in the majority or in the minority on all issues decisions by majority rule would be superior to every alternative. Brutal and unjust as such a political system would surely seem to the permanent minority, given the boundaries of that particular system any alternative to majority rule would necessarily be worse.
C
RITIC: Here we are, back to the boundary problem again. I think we really must confront that problem squarely.
M
AJORITARIAN: I agree. But notice once again that, if a permanent minority were to secede and establish its own independent democratic system, and if my assumption about relative gains and losses were still valid, then the best decision rule for the new system would still be the majority principle.
C
RITIC: Yes, but your assumption seems to me arbitrary. Anyway, how could one ever know? You realize as well as I that we can't really measure relative satisfaction.
Your units of satisfaction—the famous "utiles" of the classical utilitarians—are a fiction.
M
AJORITARIAN: That may be. Yet we do nonetheless constantly make such judgments about relative costs and gains. I'd guess that, most of the time when we reach a judgment as to whether or not something would be in the public good, our judgment is essentially utilitarian. Despite all the wellknown difficulties, we try to arrive at a rough estimate of overall costs and benefits. Precisely because of the wellknown difficulties, we can't determine them at all precisely. As a rule of thumb, therefore, we conclude that a policy ought to be adopted if more people gain than lose; it shouldn't be adopted if more people lose than gain. Judgments like these may be too soft and fuzzy to convince a philosopher or a social choice theorist. But since these folks have never been able to tell us how we can really measure utility or satisfaction in a hardnosed way, most of the time we really have no alternative to soft and fuzzy judgments. Going back to my previous justification for majority rule, in making these difficult judgments I think a majority is more likely to be right than a minority.
C
RITIC: Perhaps so. But your utilitarian justification seems to me to be much weaker than the others. Unless you've more to say I'd like to explain why.
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Dalam dokumen
Robert A. Dahl - Democracy and Its Critics-Yale University Press (1989)
(Halaman 137-143)