Empathetic Deliberative Democracy

An aspect of the theory of democracy focuses on deliberative democracy. Simply put, deliberative democracy posits that political decisions should be the result of reasonable, fair discussion and debate among citizens. Some claim the primary benefit of deliberative democracy is its ability to arrive at the truth about an issue or a problem. Deliberative democracy promotes truth and accuracy, in other words.

Generating empathy

Michael Hannon, however, is developing another aspect of deliberative democracy. In a recent paper, he suggests that the primary objective of deliberation should be the production of empathy. He does not denigrate the significance of truth seeking but says that developing understanding among citizens may be even more important than truth seeking.… Read the rest