Title：How Does Deliberative Democracy Resolve the Taiwan’s
ECFA Confliction?
科目名稱：Deliberative Democracy Midterm Written Prospectus 授課導師：簡赫琳(Herlin Chien)教授
系級學號：政碩二M966020008
學生姓名：黃盈達(Yin-Dah Huang)
1.Outline
(1)The Republic Can’t Derive The Stable State
Many philosophers suggested that the rule of majority doesn’t provide the stable condition for any states. We can prospect that individual rationality will create collective irrationality. Pettit illustrated these phenomenon with the democratic dilemma.(Pettit2001,2003) In order to avoid the violence of the majority in America, Madison designed the system of check and balance to protect America Constitution from the rule of majority. Then Robert Dahl debates the all kinds of religious, ethic, cultural groups exist in the society and support the systems work adequately.(朱堅章，1978) The ideal of Madison’s republican can combine with the democracy.
Since the society is composed by different groups, can we achieve the social consensus? Although Habermas and Pettit introduce the republican theory to resolve the paradox of the collective action. But many values of the comprehensive doctrine can exclude each other, the republican theory can’t derive a common good from radical societies. According to Harbermas’ communicational theory, the different groups can’t participate the regular political communication. From Kuhn’s paradigm theory, every cultural value represents one paradigm. Every paradigm is incommensurable, because their valued standard builds on the different basis. The society is separated by the radical group, the governmental system isn’t supported on the republican ground. For example, Thailand happens the similar revolution, supporting Thaksin’s group attacked the police and army in Pattaya. The Republican theory has an effect for the homogeneous society, not the heterogeneous society. This is the republican limitation.
Gray suggests the democracy should guide the different groups to get the modus vivendi. Any decision-making is temporary, not forever, to ensure that every group and every interest
can have the access to the political decision. If the society owns the common good itself, the individuals have no free will to make a decision by themselves, and affected by other one. For protecting everyone’s preference, the social condition isn’t stable, but variable. This democracy allowed the rule of the majority, it can make a situation that yesterday was yes, but today is no. The group owned the majority will become an temporary decision-maker, the office-holder is contested in rotation by any groups. But this method can’t resolve the confliction of the plural society and bring about the unstable state.
Finally, Rawls expresses the idea of the overlapping consensus on the book of the Political Liberalism. Under the veil of ignorance, everyone in original position can accept the reason. From Rawls’ view, the person has to distinct two values between political and nonpolitical. Nonpolitical values can’t have the overlapping consensus, these values represent the individual cultural value, religious faith, and social context. Nonpolitical values aren’t admit to enter the political domain. So nonpolitical divergences can exist in the society, but the political domain only exist the stable overlapping consensus. Overlapping consensus comes from every comprehensive doctrine which is respected equally by each other and reflects the contents of its value. Rawls lists the bill of the overlapping consensus where the individual in the society can cooperate mutually. The overlapping consensus can provide us the goal of the stable state and can’t invade another preference. I believe that these ideas can give us the stable state, but republican theory can’t. Because Rawls didn’t presume any certain culture, religious good, ethic value to support political domain, he inferred the political value from the individual in the original position.
This paragraph expresses that the republic needs the background of the social communication, but everyone insisted on his value can’t derive the accepted reason. Even if the state adopts the system of the deliberative democracy, the participators don’t understand another cultural value according to their rationality. I propose that the end of the deliberative democracy is the overlapping consensus, the cooperative society and stable state.
The discursive dilemma represents the generalization of a problem that scholars of jurisprudence have recently called the doctrinal paradox. This is a paradox that arises when a multimember court has to make a decision about some matter on the basis of received doctrine as to the considerations that ought to be taken into account.(Pettit, 2001:2003)
Consider the case of three-member court casting votes as to whether someone is liable in tort. Legal doctrine requires that jurors have to make judgements on the related issues of whether there was harm done and whether there was a duty of care. The matrix follows as:
Matrix 1
Was harm done? Was there a duty of care? Liable? Judge A Yes No No
Judge B No Yes No Judge C Yes Yes Yes
If courts cast simply the vote, we can observe the final result of the vote. But the result is benefit to the criminal, every judge’s rationality forms the collective irrationality. Although Pettit considers the republican theory can resolve this paradox in 2003, he didn’t suggest the idea in 2001. Pettit distinguished the dilemma between the participatory and regulatory questions, he pointed out preciously the problem of the discursive dilemma. But the rule of the majority makes the shortage of the paradox, the deliberative democracy doesn’t. The deliberative democracy in overlapping consensus can provide everyone to discuss equally and examine any causes of the issue. We can’t presume any common good (includes the republican theory) in front of the issue, the presumption will influence other person’s will. If we dismiss the republican theory, do we have the alternatives? Before we answer this question, we understand the meaning of the participatory and regulatory questions.
The implication for the participatory is that no group that supports such a position is forced to track considerations of common avowable interest, as political powers are required to do under the republican ideal. The inconsistency of the judgements maintained means that the group track no single set of considerations or reasons, and no considerations therefore that bear on matters of common avowable interest. (Pettit, 2003)
The implication for the regulatory question is that contestability is best achieved at the individual level, in any case the group, being an entity that continues through changes of membership, is the salient agency that we should want to have in a contestable and conversable role. Since it is only the group that is guaranteed to survive over time- the individual members will come and go- it has to be the group as such that is required to be contestable. (Pettit, 2003)
In order to resolving the dilemma, we don’t need the republican theory, but rely on rationality ourselves. I discover that these discursive dilemma is a agenda-setting problem. If we change these process of the decision by vote, the result of the matrix one is different from above. Then deliberative democracy can provide these variable situations, let us derive the cooperative consensus. According to the prospect theory, the individual rationality isn’t un-changeable. Human can revise their rationality in accordance with the circumstance. Druck-man illustrates the Tversky’s study to analyse how the huDruck-man correct the rationality, this idea combine the theory of the rational choice with the prospect theory.(Druckman, 2004)
Elster suggests that game theory can enlighten many inferences of the individual interaction, we can know that the normal game theory makes the collective irrationality, but the game theory at many time can change this result.(Elster, 2007) Only the deliberative democracy provide us the method to consider the issues carefully and discuss equally. Elster believes that the individual interaction can form the equilibrium of the cooperative action, and create the byproduct of the moral at the same time.
(3)Application for Taiwan’s ECFA confliction
Taiwan’s political confliction comes from the Kuomintang(KMT) and the Democratic Progressive Party(DPP). KMT represents the mainlander’s value, the capitalist’s interest, and unification to the China. But DPP represents the Taiwanese’s value, the labor’s interest, and Taiwan independence’s goal. Because Global Financial Crisis influences the Taiwan econo-mic growth. The Ma’s government hopes to promote Taiwan’s econoecono-mic growth through exchanging with China. The Ministry of Economic Affairs wants to sign the treaty of
Economic Cooperation Framework Agreements(ECFA) with PRC. This policy is boycotted by DPP. Although Tsai Ing-wen invites the President Ma to discuss about ECFA and look for the two parties’ consensus. But the President Ma reject to attend this meeting, this decision-making will strengthen further the two parties’ confliction. We can examine the content of the ECFA in the model of the deliberative democracy, we have to dismiss our values and ideology. Through the individual’s interaction, we can revise the prejudice to make the decision and are not forced to submit any pressure. I will describe this process about applying the deliberative democracy to the Taiwan’s ECFA on the final paper.
2.Literature Review
1. Cohen, Joshua(1997), “Deliberation and Democratic Legitimacy”, Deliberative Democracy Essays on Reason and Politics, Cambridge, MIT Press, pp. 67-92.
2. Dahl, A. Robert(1978)，《民主理論芻議》，朱堅章主譯，幼獅文化事業公司，台北市 3. Druckman, J. N., 2004. “Political Preference Formation: Competition, deliberation, and the (Ir)relevance of framing effects.” American Political Science Review, 98(4): 671-686. 4. Elster, Jon(1989), Nuts and bolts for the social sciences, Cambridge ; New York :
Cambridge University Press.
5. Elster, Jon(1997), “The Market and the Forum: Three Varieties of Political Theory”, Deliberative Democracy Essays on Reason and Politics, Cambridge, MIT Press, pp. 3-34. 6. Elster, Jon(2007), Explaining social behavior : more nuts and bolts for the social sciences,
Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press.
7. Gray, John,（2002），《自由主義的兩種面貌》，蔡英文譯，巨流圖書公司，台北市 8. Habermas, Jurgen(1997), “Popular Sovereignty as Procedure”, Deliberative Democracy
9. Pettit, Philip(2001), “Deliberative Democracy, the Discursive Dilemma”, For Philosophical Issues, Vol 11, pp. 1-36.
10. Pettit, Philip(2003), “Deliberative Democracy, the Discursive Dilemma, and Republican Theory”, Debating Deliberative Democracy, London Blackwell, pp. 138-162.
11. Rawls, John (1993), Political Liberalism, 1 edition, New York: Columbia University Press.
12. Rawls, John(1997), “The Ideal of Public Reason”, Deliberative Democracy Essays on Reason and Politics, Cambridge, MIT Press, pp. 93-130.
13. Rawls, John (2005[1971]), A Theory of Justice, original edition, Harvard University Press.
