Legitimation in Votorola practice (reply to Ned)

[Michael Allan]

Hi Ned,

Thanks for your thoughtful reply.

> Then I dumped all the commentary into a wiki page:
> http://www.wiser.org/article/7820a161960fa155bc9eaa9b30018bf0

I see the effort you've put into your answer. I want to reply here to
the heart of the matter. We both accept the discourse principle:

   D. Just those action norms are valid to which all possibly affected
      persons could agree as participants in rational discourses.

I propose a validation practice (validity seeking) based on D. You say
the practice is itself invalid because it involves voting. But I think
you stand on shaky ground here, for two reasons:

   i. Voting is the formalization of agreement

  ii. D depends on agreement

      Therefore the formalization of D depends on voting.

It seems unlikely that we could ever put the discourse principle into
formal practice, e.g. as a societal institution, without relying on
the formal technique of voting.

>  1. Popularity (voting) is one possible public decision mechanism.
>  2. Rational Discourse is another possible public decision mechanism.
>  3. Popularity and Rational Discourse are antithetical. (They produce
>     different outcomes.)
>  4. Rational Discourse is a valid public decision mechanism, by the
>     Discourse Principle.
>  5. Popularity is *NOT* a valid public decision mechanism, by the
>     Discourse Principle.
>  6. Votorola uses popularity as its primary decision mechanism (within
>     each poll).
>  7. Votorola is designed to feed proposals to other ("decisive")
>     public decision systems that use popularity.
>  8. Because Votorola uses popularity itself, and feeds to popularity
>     systems, its use cannot reliably produce norms that are valid by
>     the Discourse Principle.
>  9. THEREFORE, the norm to use Votorola in public decision making is
>     not valid by the Discourse Principle.
> 10. Therefore, those who value the Discourse Principle will choose to
>     not use or support Votorola, and will instead choose to use and
>     support alternative public decision systems that are capable of
>     *reliably* producing norms that are valid by the Discourse Principle.

With one exception, all these points seem to be incorrect. Take 1 for
instance. Popularity is not a decision mechanism. That's a category
error. Popularity alone cannot produce decisions. Similar error in 2.

Only 7 seems to be correct. Sometimes popularity is decisive in
today's elections, for instance, and (yes) Votorola is designed to
feed candidates into those elections via primaries. However Votorola
itself does not support popularity as a rationale for voting.  We
expect people to vote for candidates they personally know and trust.
So.

Turning to normative issues (laws and such), popularity is rarely ever
decisive in legislatures. True, the proposed mechanism of legislative
action (other thread) would depend on changing that. The elected law
maker would be expected to pass bills that are popular with the
electors *as measured* in the legislative primaries that feed bills
into the assembly. This qualification is crucial because the primaries
themselves (run under Votorola) do not support popularity as a voting
rationale. No matter how popular a proposal is, if it's also wrong,
then a single person can oppose it. Nothing can suppress that
opposition and prevent it being seen and heard. If there are also good
reasons for it, therefore, then it will tend to grow in strength. This
is the proposed mechanism of validity seeking. It's intended to move
laws in the direction of greater legitimacy.

If you still feel there's something wrong with this practice of
validity seeking (as proposed), then please give an example of a bad
thing that might happen in consequence. Please be specific.

(Sorry for doctoring the title.  I'm afraid that folks looking at the
Votorola list will think I'm talking to myself. Please CC Votorola in
your replies, if you think about it. ;^)

Mike

Ned Conner said:
> Hi Mike,
> 
> I followed your suggestion and did a closer reading of the "Validity 
> Seeking" section, and then closely read the "Legislative Action" section 
> as well.
> 
> Then I dumped all the commentary into a wiki page:
> http://www.wiser.org/article/7820a161960fa155bc9eaa9b30018bf0
> (Discourse: Seeking Validity Seeking)
> 
> You are absolutely welcome to copy any or all of the text of the wiki 
> page into any other venues of your choosing, including into listserv 
> emails. (Or tell me what you want, and I will do it.)
> 
> If we do bring the discourse to the listserv, we may want to create 
> multiple threads to deal with the multiple sub-topics and 
> sub-sub-topics. Otherwise, the discourse will predictably succumb to 
> "runaway complexity" pretty quickly. (On a listserv, it undoubtedly will 
> anyway, but at least we can try to get it past "dead on arrival".)
> 
> A "CliffsNotes" synopsis of the commentary might be expressed thusly:
> 
>    1. Popularity (voting) is one possible public decision mechanism.
>    2. Rational Discourse is another possible public decision mechanism.
>    3. Popularity and Rational Discourse are antithetical. (They produce
>       different outcomes.)
>    4. Rational Discourse is a valid public decision mechanism, by the
>       Discourse Principle.
>    5. Popularity is *NOT* a valid public decision mechanism, by the
>       Discourse Principle.
>    6. Votorola uses popularity as its primary decision mechanism (within
>       each poll).
>    7. Votorola is designed to feed proposals to other ("decisive")
>       public decision systems that use popularity.
>    8. Because Votorola uses popularity itself, and feeds to popularity
>       systems, its use cannot reliably produce norms that are valid by
>       the Discourse Principle.
>    9. THEREFORE, the norm to use Votorola in public decision making is
>       not valid by the Discourse Principle.
>   10. Therefore, those who value the Discourse Principle will choose to
>       not use or support Votorola, and will instead choose to use and
>       support alternative public decision systems that are capable of
>       *reliably* producing norms that are valid by the Discourse Principle.
> 
> Beyond that synopsis, I will leave it to you to create threads for any 
> sub-topics that you find of interest.