Feminism and Nietzsche

Posted on December 1, 2015 by Sarah Shugars

It is no secret that Friedrich Nietzsche wrote a lot of problematic things about women.

Of course, he is hardly alone in this, but Nietzsche’s pointed and ironic style make many of his comments particularly brutal. He plays into many typical tropes about women:

“Women are all skilful in exaggerating their weaknesses, indeed they are inventive in weaknesses, so as to seem quite fragile ornaments to which even a grain of dust does harm,” Nietzsche writes in The Gay Science. Women are manipulative, dangerous creatures who only feign weakness in order to beguile man and “defend themselves against the strong and the ‘law of the jungle.'”

And, of course, women are not capable of real connection with others; they are shallow creatures. “Woman’s love involves injustice and blindness against everything that she does not love…Woman is not yet capable of friendship: women are still cats and birds. Or at best cows…,” he writes in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Or, if you prefer: “Everything in woman is a riddle, and everything in woman has one solution—that is pregnancy. For the woman, the man is a means: the end is always the child.”

Thanks, Nietzsche.

Yet, none of this is a reason to throw out all of Nietzsche – he does make some more meaningful arguments – and some feminist scholars have even embraced his works.

In the collection of essays, Feminist Interpretations of Friedrich Nietzsche, Kelly Oliver and Marilyn Pearsall explain why a feminist would read Nietzsche in the first place:

How do feminist reconcile his apparent woman-hating aphorisms with the plethora of female figurations that ‘haunt’ his writings? Far from evading and ignoring femininity and maternity, as other canonical philosophers do, Nietzsche seems compelled to speak of them. His texts abound with references to women and the feminine, and specifically to feminists themselves. He continually deploys women as a trope – for life, for art, and for truth.

This argument is somewhat problematic in its own right: feminists should study Nietzsche because while other philosophers show their misogyny by ignoring women, Nietzsche at least has the decency to display his misogyny directly. But, it’s not quite as simple as that.

Oliver and Pearsall go on to describe the two approaches feminists take to reconciling with Nietzsche. The first approach, which seems to me to be the most pervasive, is to generally write Nietzsche off as the terrible misogynist he portrays himself to be. A feminist philosopher might still salvage some worthwhile remarks from other portions of his works, but these readings all must start with outrage over his “privileging of masculinity and denigrating of femininity.”

The other approach – which I find myself drawn to – is to consider Nietzsche’s comments with irony as part of his esoteric approach. These feminist philosophers “view his sexual dualism with the context of Nietzsche’s anti-essentialism and anti-dualism. They cite his ironic treatment of an ‘eternal feminine’ or essential woman. They see his perspectivism as questioning the fixity of sexual difference in favor of social constructionism.”

At worst, this approach finds Nietzsche, as Maudemarie Clark argues, caught in a contrast between his philosophical beliefs and his own misogynistic sentiments.

At best, this approach credits Nietzsche with – rather than expressing his own misogynistic beliefs – exposing the misogynistic beliefs of society.

That last reading is perhaps too kind, but I find myself intrigued by the idea nonetheless.

When Nietzsche writes about women, I rarely read him has writing about women. From his work, I’m not sure he has every actually met a woman – rather it seems as though he looked the term up in a dictionary and found a social construct that would serve as a perfect foil for his ubermench.

Did Nietzsche really think such terrible things about women? Perhaps, though as feminist philosophers have noted many of his comments are dissonant with his deeper beliefs. But, one thing I am confident of is that Nietzsche did not invent these images of women.

He writes about women as beguiling, as shallow and manipulative, as weak but somehow strong in their weakness. These are tropes that have been oppressing women for centuries. Nietzsche’s writings bring them to light – and, as modern reader – seem to mock them.

Nietzsche writes like a little boy having a tantrum. But beneath all the pomp and circumstance, beneath his exhausted peacocking, Nietzsche strikes me as deeply ironic in all that he writes.

Words have the power to create, not simply reflect, Nietzsche argues, but his words create a dark reflection of society’s misogyny indeed.

Behavioral Responses to Social Dilemmas

Posted on November 18, 2015 by Sarah Shugars

I had the opportunity today to attend a talk by Yamir Moreno, of the University of Zaragoza in Spain. A physicist by training, Moreno has more recently been studying game theory and human behavior, particularly in a complex systems setting.

In research published in 2012, Moreno and his team had people of various age groups play a typical prisoners dilemma game: a common scenario where an individual’s best move is to defect, but everyone suffers if everyone defects. The best outcome is for everyone to cooperate, but that can be hard to achieve since individuals have incentives to defect.

Playing in groups of 4 over several rounds, players were matched by a variable landscape – one group existed on a traditional lattice, while in another incarnation of the game players existed in a scale-free network.

As you might expect from a prisoner’s dilemma, when a person’s neighbors cooperated that person was more likely to cooperate in later rounds. When a person’s neighbors defected, that person was more likely to defect in later rounds.

Interestingly, in this first version of the experiment, Moreno found little difference between the lattice and scale-free structure.

Postulating that this was due to the static nature of the network, Moreno devised a different experiment: players were placed in an initial network structure, but they had the option to cut or add connections to other people. New connections were always reciprocal, with both parties having to agree to the connection.

He then ran this experiment over several different parameters, with some games allowing players to see each others past actions and other games having no memory.

In the setting where people could see past action, cooperation was significantly higher – about 20-30% more than expected otherwise. People who chose to defect were cut out of these networks and ultimately weren’t able to benefit from their defecting behavior.

I found this particularly interesting because earlier in the talk I had been thinking of Habermas. As interpreted by Gordon Finlayson, Habermas thought the result of standard social theory was “a false picture of society as an aggregate of lone individual reasoners, each calculating the best way of pursuing their own ends. This picture squares with a pervasive anthropological view that human beings are essentially self-interested, a view that runs from the ancient Greeks, though early modern philosophy, and right up to the present day. Modern social theory, under the influence of Hobbs or rational choice theory, thinks of society in similar terms. In Habermas’ eyes, such approaches neglect the crucial role of communication and discourse in forming social bonds between agents, and consequently have an inadequate conception of human association.”

More plainly – it is a critical feature of the Prisoners Dilemma that players are not allowed to communicate.

If the could communicate, Habermas offers, they would form communities and associate very differently than in a communications-free system.

Moreno’s second experiment didn’t include communication per se – players didn’t deliberate about their actions before taking them. But in systems with memory, a person’s actions became part of the public record – information that other players could take into account before associating with them.

In Moreno’s account, the only way for cooperators to survive is to form clusters. On the other hand, in a system with memory, a defector must join those communities as a cooperative member in order to survive.

Civic Rituals

Posted on November 10, 2015 by Sarah Shugars

In Nina Eliasoph’s excellent book Avoiding Politics, she explores, as the subtile indicates, “how Americans produce apathy in every day life.” For this thoughtful, sociological study Eliasoph embedded herself with numerous civic groups – including volunteer, recreational and activist organizations. Through her detailed observations, she notes many factors that impede successful civic and political activity.

This morning I was struck by a passage on civic rituals – practices which are seemingly good for civic life but which ultimately discourage public-minded discussion in the public sphere.

Reflecting on numerous special events organized around various community concerns, Eliasoph observes:

The practice of ritual production was one of the most important messages of the rituals. This sporadic and indirect method of showing concern made “care for fellow humans” seem to be a special occasion, something that could happen just a few times a year, easily incorporated into a busy commuter’s schedule without changing anything else.

Lest this point be misinterpreted coming on the eve of Veterans’ Day, I do think it’s important to mention – and Eliasoph agrees – that civic rituals are not inherently bad.

Voting is, arguably, a civic ritual. It is definitely habitual, with prior voting being a strong predictor of future voting behavior. While one ought to do far more than vote to be civic, I think it’s still important to have this ritual in one’s civic life.

But, I think about rituals like Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. The topics of racial justice surfaced around that holiday are deeply important and critical for us to collectively tackle in our communities. But too often, the day becomes little more than a day for pontificating by public officials. An opportunity for us each to dedicate one day to racial equality, feel good about our commitment to diversity, and then continue to go through life discriminating and blindly committing microaggressions.

In this case, the civic ritual is indeed problematic. We give the issue just enough attention to check it off our list without ever really taking the time to tackle the hard work of confronting it.

Arguably, it’s better to have something than nothing – having no days to acknowledge the realities of racial injustice would indeed be a travesty. But if we didn’t have these simple, ineffective rituals to satisfy our morality – would we then be more likely to tackle the issue more fully?

Feminist Data Visualization

Posted on November 4, 2015 by Sarah Shugars

I just had the opportunity to attend a talk by Lauren Klein of Georgia Tech on Feminist Data Visualization: Rethinking the Archive, Reshaping the Field.

Her work, she argued, is feminist not because it includes the works of female data scientists – though it does – but because it seeks to examine the cultural and critical dimensions of data visualization.

Data visualization has the ability to call attention to the scholarly process, and a feminist perspective on data visualization highlights the presence or absence of certain modes of scholarly thought.

Klein began her lecture by exploring the work of Elizabeth Peabody. Quietly at the center of America’s Transcendental movement, Peabody was the business manager of The Dial, the main publication of the Transcendentalists, and is credited with starting the nation’s first kindergarten. She was friends with Emerson and Thoreau. Nathaniel Hawthorne and Horace Mann were her brother in laws.

An educator herself, Peabody’s work probed the question: who is authorized to produce knowledge?

Through the creation of elaborate mural charts, Peabody captured complex tables of historical events as aesthetic visualizations intended to provide historic “outlines to the eye.”

Her charts were challenging to create and to decipher – but that was an intentional pedagogical technique. Peabody believe that through the act of interpreting her work, a viewer would create their own historical narrative – they would have a role in generating knowledge.

Her large mural charts, intended to be physically be spread out on the floor, each took 15 hours of labor to create. Klein commented that this work is reminiscent of quilting – “a system of knowledge making that was considered women’s work and so has been excised from history.”

Klein compared Peabody’s work to that of William Playfair. Widely considered “the father of data visualization,” Playfair is credited with wth creation of the bar chart and the pie chart. His works are recreated by aspiring data artists and new data tools use his work to demonstrate what they can do.

Playfair’s work is beautiful and easy to read.

But, Klein asked, are we losing something by unquestioningly accepting that approach as the standard?

Klein pointed to the work of one other data visualizer – Emma Willard – who created a beautiful graphic, Temple of Time in 1846.

Her work is explicitly framed from the viewers perspective. The viewer stands at the fore as the history of time recedes into the past.

Willard’s work makes the implicit argument that data visualization is inherently a subjective process. While we take our bar charts and graphs to be unquestionable factual – Willard argues that data is inherently subjective.

In that way, we are indeed losing something by neglecting this alternative forms of data visualization and by not questioning the perspectives we take in interpreting data.

Let’s Stop Parent-Shaming

Posted on October 29, 2015 by Sarah Shugars

Nearly every mother I know has described herself as a terrible mother.

I find that disconcerting.

Not that these mothers actually are terrible mothers – oh dear, you finally caved to your crazy toddler’s demands and let them watch tv so you could get a moment of rest? – rather, I find it concerning that so many mothers have the self-perception of failing.

To be clear, I imagine there’s a similar phenomenon for fathers, though I don’t have the personal experience to validate that. I also get the sense that this is a gendered issue which disproportionally effects women.

Interestingly, when I tried to find data on this, I mostly found self-help articles geared towards helping women be better mothers. So, that’s telling. Also, there’s an interesting study from the UK that found “70% of mothers are left feeling like the ‘bad cop’ while fathers become the centre of attention and known as the ‘fun one’ in family.”

But while some of the sense of “terribleness” may arise from such inner family dynamics. I don’t think that’s the only source of this phenomenon.

I cringe a little when I read one of those stories about a family handing out goodie bags before a flight with their infant.

Let’s be clear: you are rearing a small person; you don’t have to apologize to me.

I imagine much of this “bad parent” anxiety comes from idealized images of the 50s. After all, we all know that everything was just hunky-dory then.

But I’m not convinced that challenge gets the rest of us off the hook.

That is to say – imagine a parent: she thinks she’s a terrible mother because she thought it would be possible to “have it all” if she was good enough. She thought she would never get mad at her child whom she loves so much. She thought with a little patience and care, she could easily raise a child who was always polite and reasonable.

Even a woman has this misguided and idealized vision of what parenthood should be – why are the rest of us playing into that?

Shouldn’t we all be working to dispel those myths?

I’m impressed by any person who takes on the challenge of raising a child. It is hard, exhausting, and trying work. There will be food in your hair and too many sleepless nights. I am amazed by anyone who can handle all that and still get out of bed in the morning. …Even if you only got up because your child, who insisted on sleeping with you, somehow kicked you in the face.

So parents, don’t feel guilty when your kids cries on the train or throws groceries around in the store. You are doing something harder than anything I will ever do, and you are amazing at it.

I just wish there was some universal hand sign that could convey all that to the next frazzled mother I see nearing the point of break down because her toddler refuses to listen to reason.

Don’t worry: you’re doing great.

Moral Deliberation

Posted on October 26, 2015 by Sarah Shugars

As I’ve waded through the literature on deliberative theory, I’ve been struck by two disparate schools of thought: some authors focus their attention on political deliberation while others focus on moral deliberation.

The difference in focus is not trivial. Consider Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson’s explanation of where deliberation thrives:

In politics, disagreements often run deep. If they did not, there would be no need for argument. But if they ran too deep, there would be no point in argument. Deliberative disagreements lie in the depths between simple misunderstanding and immutable irreconcilability.

Gutmann and Thompson do write extensively about moral deliberation, but this passage hints at incentive for avoiding moral discussion in politics: moral disagreements seem more intractable.

Two people of opposing beliefs may never find common moral ground on an issue, but that doesn’t neccessarily preclude the possibility of reasonable having productive political debate on an issue.

To what extent, though, is it possible to disentangle moral and political interests?

On the topic of abortion, for example, even if people tried to restrict their comments to the political issues of funding and access, I suspect that most dialogues would still find their way to a fundamental, moral impasse.

Perhaps not all issues are so morally charged, though – in discussions of education, healthcare, and the environment are morality and politics so inseperable? Either way, I’m actually more interested in the related question: in general, should morality and politics be so intertwined?

Our political sensibilities seem to say no – as good citizens, we ought to have rousing debates over politics while also embracing the pluralistic nature of our fellow citizens’ views.

Yet separating morality from politics seems undesirable, even if it were possible. Discussing the environment without discussing environmental justice is inauthentic and unproductive. Discussing education without tackling the moral issues raised by deep, educational inequality fails to get to the heart of the mater.

The personal is indeed political and the political is fundamentally moral.

This brings me back to the excellent work of Diana Mutz in Hearing the Other Side.

Mutz illustrates an inherent tension in political theory: should a citizen’s social network be composed of people who are “politically like-minded or have opposing views?” While the ideals of political theory seems to indicate that the answer should be “both,” Mutz shows that this is not possible.

We must choose, she argues, between a homogenous network of people who agree politically or a heterogenous network of people who are apolitical:

A highly politicized mindset of “us” versus “them” is easy so long as we do not work with “them” and our kids do not play with their kids. But how do we maintain this same favor and political drive against “them” when we carpool together?

Her analysis is compelling, but I find myself fighting against believing it. I don’t want to think that political agency requires self-sorting into like minded groups and I don’t want to think that political action is impossible in heterogenous groups.

One thing I struggled with as I read her work is exactly what it means to be “like-minded.” I have many productive debates with my equally liberal friends. We agree – but we don’t agree. Does that that make us like-minded?

This idea of political “difference” here can perhaps be better understood as one of different moral views. That is, we can have productive political debate among people of different views, as long as they are morally “like-minded.”

Again, this may provide incentive for avoiding moral debate – just as Mutz demonstrates that social interaction across political difference must be apolitical. That would be a depressing conclusion – although, perhaps, an inevitable one.

But if taking morality out of politics lessens the value of political dialogue, we must find some way overcoming that challenge. Or, at least, as Mutz argues, we must greatly rethink our ideals of deliberation.

Hearing the Other Side

Posted on October 19, 2015 by Sarah Shugars

I recently finished reading Diana Mutz’s excellent book, Hearing the Other Side: Deliberative versus Participatory Democracy.

Tracking people’s political action and political deliberation Mutz comes to a disconcerting conclusion: the two are not readily compatible. On the one hand:

In studies of mass behavior, partisans are typically the “good guys.” They are the ones who always score highest on political knowledge tests, who vote most frequently, volunteer their time and money for campaigns, and basically embody everything that social scientists say they want all citizens to be.

But these hyper-partisans are sorely lacking in other civic areas. Most notably, as Mutz documents, they are significantly less likely to have productive political conversations with people who have different opinions. Why would they, when they already know they are “right”?

The strength of a person’s partisanship may have direct implications for their ability to interact with those who are different. As Mutz explains:

A highly politicized mindset of “us” versus “them” is easy so long as we do not work with “them” and our kids do not play with their kids. But how do we maintain this same fervor and political drive against “them” when we carpool together?

This is the crux of her argument – that a person cannot simultaneously maintain a diverse political network and a robust social network. We each must choose: be political and talk to those who agree with us or be apolitical and interact with people of many views.

The challenge she raises is an important one, and, I agree, one that has generally been overlooked by political theorists and deliberative theorists alike. Reconciling these two types of “ideal citizens” is no small task, but it is not, I believe, an impossible goal.

Mutz sees it as a flaw that our political system asks citizens to be both advocates and thoughtful observers; but – I wonder if the flaw is that we set these traits up as opposites.

Our socialization tells us that in polite company we ought to avoid such contentious topics as politics. But is it really so hard to imagine that with well-developed social skills people could regularly have engaging conversations across difference?

I’m not sure that is so impossible as Mutz imagines.

Certainly, as social beings we are likely to avoid engaging in irreparable fights with our friends and family. And it may be easier to be apolitical in social settings, but it is far from required.

Perhaps this dilemma points to another debate about deliberation – ought it to end in consensus?

If you assume that political talk needs to end in agreement, then debate among partisans who are not of like mind becomes nearly impossible indeed. By definition, each partisan is entrenched in their own view and the requirement of consensus leaves little room for anything but persuasion.

But two partisans, fully embracing an “us” versus “them” mentality, are unlikely to agree.

Modern trends in deliberation shy away from this consensus requirement. While many still see this as the ideal outcome of deliberation, there are theorists and practitioners who equally embrace deliberation as a tool for building understanding, not agreement.

Here, then, the nature of partisan deliberation may become quite different. Rather than (fruitlessly) trying to change each other’s minds, partisans could use the opportunity to better understand each other and to sharpen their own thinking (without necessarily changing their own minds).

Such deliberation is certainly no small task, and it rubs against how we’ve been socialized and how we’ve self-segregated into like minded groups. But it is, I think, possible to be both a partisan and fully open to genuinely hearing the other side.

Confidence

Posted on October 14, 2015 by Sarah Shugars

I am not sure, but I think I may be developing a sense of confidence.

I came to this conclusion through a somewhat different observation: I’ve started to spend a not insignificant amount of time concerned that I sound like an a-hole.

I’m pretty sure that’s what confidence sounds like.

And before you start to offer any words of encouragement, let me clear – this post is hardly about me. There has been much research done around imposter syndrome, especially its disproportionate impact on women. As a study by Pauline Rose Clance & Suzanne Imes describes:

Women who experience the impostor phenomenon maintain a strong belief that they are not intelligent; in fact they are convinced that they have fooled anyone who thinks otherwise….In our clinical experience, we have found that the phenomenon occurs with much less frequency in men and that when it does occur, it is with much less intensity.

Recently, the clinical diagnosis of “imposter syndrome” has been generalized and popularized as the confidence gap – perhaps not a pathological condition, but still a challenge that many – if not most – women face.

I myself have always been skeptical of the solution that those who lack confidence should simply work to develop it. Particularly given the gender discrepancy of the problem, this solution reads more plainly as an argument that women should just be more like men – a problematic argument in itself which is only further weighed down by the stereotypes of a gender binary.

The real question, then, is how much confidence ought a person properly have?

The answer is trivial if you assume a transparent, universal metric for one’s ability: a person ought to be confident in the skills and knowledge they have mastered, and not confident in the skills and knowledge they do not.

Of course, life is not that easy. There is no universal metric and my perception of what I haven’t mastered may be quite different from your perspective of what I have mastered.

Certainly, there are tests and reviews and other accomplishments that may help us put our own ability into a standardized context. But all such metrics seem strangely unsatisfactory. It is well documented, for example, that test score correlate to parental income, so while a high test score may indicate that you’ve had lots of opportunity, it doesn’t intrinsically follow that you have lots of ability.

I think of this challenge partially in terms of Wittgenstein’s concerns over the inaccuracies of language in conveying a unique experience:

If I say of myself that it is only from my own case that I know what the word “pain” means – must I not say the same of other people too? And how can I generalize the one case so irresponsibly? Now someone tells me that he knows what pain is only from his own case!

No matter how many proxies indicates we surround ourselves with, we cannot determine an appropriate level of confidence because ultimately, there is no way to accurately determine our competence.

One might assume that a good person will do their best to have a level of confidence appropriate for their capacity to tackle the task at hand, but the inescapably reality indicates that we will inevitable err – either on the side of under confidence or over confidence.

From there I can go no farther. I do not have a perfect solution, and even if I did, I would not be so bold as to assume it would be perfect for everyone.

Perhaps it is best to err on both sides equally – averaging out your moments of overconfidence with appropriate bouts of under confidence.

Perhaps it is fine to just embrace under confidence – accepting the feeling without letting it hold you back.

I am most skeptical of always erring on the side overconfidence. It may get you far in life, but – I’m pretty sure that’s what makes you an a-hole.

On Politeness and Harassment

Posted on October 5, 2015 by Sarah Shugars

I saw a meme the other day that said, “women do not need to be polite to someone who is making them uncomfortable.”

Perhaps I found that particularly memorable since hours after reading it I found myself sitting at a train station at night, politely but firmly telling a man over and over again that I wasn’t interested.

“…Yeah, but do you like me?” He’d ask in response.

Sigh.

I would never claim that (all) women need to do anything, much less be polite, but perhaps it was that remark which got me to notice my own persistent politeness, especially in the face of such an undeterred interlocutor.

And then this morning I found myself feeling badly for being particularly brusk with a gentleman who seemed somewhat desperate to make my acquaintance. And by brusk, I mean I still returned his hello.

To be clear, I don’t think I felt badly because of any outdated ideas as to how a woman ought to behave in society – but rather…it seemed a shame for civil society.

I am a big proponent of talking to strangers. Of course, most of the strangers who talk to me are creepy random guys on the street, but in general – I think there’s a lot we can learn from interacting with others outside our set social circle. I think society can benefit a lot from those unexpected civic encounters.

But its hard to maintain the energy for them. Most of the women I know actively avoid these encounters which, if I had to venture a guess have a 95% creep to 5% civic ratio. Any reasonable person would plug in their headphones and tune out with those numbers.

But it seems a shame. I’d like our communities to be better than that.

Perhaps the interesting thing here is that there’s still a certain politeness to headphones. Oh sorry, I couldn’t hear you.

And there’s a certain safety in politeness – you never know when a stranger will fly off the handle if they think you’re being rude.

But none of those are convincing arguments for politeness. It should be more than a defense mechanism.

In Japan, they taught us to yell if someone groped us on the train – the publicity was usually enough to make someone stop. In the States, we’re bombarded by the idea that we can yell if we want to, but no one will care.

So, no, women don’t have to be polite. They don’t have to be anything.

But how a woman reacts to a person who’s harassing her – well, that’s hardly the problem, is it?

Theories of Deliberation

Posted on September 21, 2015 by Sarah Shugars

While deliberative theorists generally agree that, as John Dryzek writes, “democratic legitimacy resides in the right, ability, and opportunity of those subject to a collective decision to participate in deliberation about the content of that decision,” there continues to be much disagreement around exactly what constitutes ideal deliberation.

The word “deliberation” itself has multiple interpretations: Joshua Cohen argues that deliberation “focuses on debate on the common good.” Jane Mansbridge defines it as “mutual communication that involves weighing and reflecting on preferences, values and interests regarding matters of common concern.”

Regardless of the precise definition used, perhaps the more fruitful discussion is around what standards deliberation should be held to. That is, if we are to judge the health of a democracy by the quality of its deliberation, it begs the question: what constitutes high quality deliberation?

Earlier theorists such as Jürgen Habermas and John Rawls held what Mansbridge considers the “classical” model of deliberation, with an ideal of “deliberation to consensus on the common good.” This model, Mansbridge argues, “implied a relatively unitary conception of the common good, contested but discoverable through reason.”

Mansbridge sees modern theories of deliberation – “evolved” theories as she calls them – as better embracing pluralism of our diverse world. While she considers the classical ideal to rely on a collective discovery of the “common good,” she sees modern deliberation as still having value “when interests or values conflict irreconcilably.” In these cases “deliberation ideally ends not in consensus but in a clarification of conflict and a structuring of disagreement, which sets the stage for a decision by nondeliberative methods, such as aggregation through the vote.”

It’s not clear, though, that other deliberative scholars accept Mansbridge’s delineation between classical and evolved theories. Mansbridge considers Cohen, a student of Rawls, as a classical theorist though he himself might dispute the term.

While Cohen does continually consider deliberation as an exploration of the common good, he also plainly embraces pluralism, arguing: “A deliberative democracy is a pluralistic association. The members have diverse preferences, convictions and ideals concerning the conduct of their own lives. While sharing a commitment to the deliberative resolution of problems and of collective choices, they also have divergent aims, and do not think that some particular set of preferences, convictions or ideals is mandatory.”

Regardless of which theorists are “classical,” though, this divide raises important practical and theoretical questions about the nature of civil society and the ideal outcomes of deliberation.

While Cohen sees deliberation as a critical tool for shaping “the identity and interests of citizens in ways that contribute to the formation of a public conception of the common good,” theorists such as Mansbridge question whether a “common good” is attainable or even desirable.

This theoretical dispute, then, raises the more practical question – should deliberation culminate in a decision?

In what she sees as a break from “the definitions given by various other theorists,” Mansbridge intentionally leaves decision making out of her own definition, highlighting that “communities concerned with the quality of citizen participation seem to find deliberation an increasingly helpful concept in contexts unconnected with binding decisions.”

In contrast, Dryzek names “decisiveness” as one of the core elements of good deliberation, insisting that deliberation ought to be “consequential in influencing the content of collective decisions.” He does give a nod to non-decisive deliberation, pointing to worthwhile discussions in South Africa and Northern Ireland, and commenting that “deliberation also can play a part in healing.”

Here to, though, Dryzek sees a certain type of decisiveness at play. “These exercises yield not consensus interpreted as universal agreement on a course of action and the reasons for it but rather an agreement to which all sides can reflectively assent—if for different reasons (including fear of what might otherwise happen),” he writes.

While not explicitly restricting his definition to include decision making, Dennis Thompson, on the other hand, does take a particular interest in “deliberation that leads directly to binding decisions.”

Thompson thoughtfully articulates why decision-making deliberation is special: “Structuring a discussion that in effect asks participants, ‘What do you, as an individual, prefer?’ begins to resemble the aggregative democracy (adding up the well-informed preferences of individuals) that deliberative democrats criticize. Discussions framed by asking participants, ‘What action should we, as a group, take?’ come closer to the deliberative democracy (creating a genuinely public opinion) that they favor.”

Cohen has a similar approach, defining deliberation in terms of its role within a democracy. He contrasts two approaches to democracy: the aggregative and deliberative. The aggregative conception requires “equal consideration for the interests of each member…along with a ‘presumption of personal autonomy’—the understanding that adult members are the best judges and most vigilant defenders of their own interests.”

Cohen, though, prefers the deliberative approach which has at its core “the idea that decisions about the exercise of state power are collective.” He goes on to add that the virtues of the deliberative view “are allied closely with its conception of binding collective choice.”

While reflecting deeper discussions about the nature of the common good in a pluralist society, this debate about decision-making surfaces another normative theory implicit in the deliberative literature: good deliberation has a positive effect not only on a community, but on individual participants.

This positive impact on the individual is inextricably linked to deliberation’s benefit to the community, and is often overshadowed by that broader narrative.

Both Thompson and Cohen articulate deliberation as a process of creating a shared understanding of the common good. People may enter deliberation with various beliefs, but they leave transformed, having co-created a shared understanding which had not existed prior to deliberation.

As Cohen says, “the relevant conceptions of the common good are not comprised simply of interests and preferences that are antecedent to deliberation. Instead, the interests, aims and ideals that comprise the common good are those that survive deliberation.”

Even Mansbridge seems to agree on these points, adding “epistemic value, or better knowledge” as the newest standard for good deliberation.

She sees communal epistemic value as being canonical to deliberation – which must, by her definition be “mutual” – but she leaves room for deliberation to be of directly value to the individual participants. “Although any mutual deliberation will include deliberation within the minds of the individuals involved,” she write, “the word mutual requires some two-way communication.”

Furthermore, Mansbridge has argued strongly for the inclusion of self-interest in deliberation – two elements which are classically considered to be in opposition. In a paper co-authored with some of today’s leading deliberative theorists (James Bohman, Simone Chambers, David Estlund, Andreas Føllesdal, Archon Fung, Cristina Lafont, Bernard Manin and José luis Martí), Mansbridge argues, “even in a deliberation aimed at consensus on the common good, the exploration and clarification of self-interests must play a role.”

Yet, the impact of deliberation on an individual is a vastly underexplored topic, as scholarship to date has focused largely on deliberation as a democratic process for collective decision-making.