moral and practical consequences based upon our democratic intuitions, empirical evi-
dence when available, and informed speculation. The set of all considered judgments
about preferred institutions might then be denoted I’ = {i
p1,
i
p2,
i
p3...,
i
pn
} I. With the
growth of social knowledge, these considered judgments come to rely more upon evi-
dence and become less speculative.
4. Compare the set of institutions I’ that emerges from this process of considered judg-
ment to a full set of conceptions of democracy, D = {D
1
, D
2
, ...., D
n
}, again using pair-
wise comparisons among the elements of D. If, for example, I’ is dominated by the single
alternative “the majority party should decide” then there is a close fit between considered
judgments about institutional arrangements and one particular conception: minimal de-
mocracy.
5. If, on the other hand, I’ does not fit well with any single element of D, then we attempt
to reduce the gap and improve the fit recursively by:
5a. Altering D by adding additional conceptions of democracy or refining the conceptions
already in it to better match our considered judgments, thus returning to step 4. Or
5b. Altering I’ to identify institutional arrangements that better match the conceptions of
democracy by either (i) modifying I’ by selecting other institutional arrangements i
pi
in I
(thus returning to step 3) or (ii) expanding the I by adding additional institutional alterna-
tives and then modifying I’ (thus returning to step 2).
Reflective Equilibrium in Democratic Theory — Draft Only!
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