TY - JOUR
T1 - Aristotle and the judgment of the many
T2 - Equality, not collective quality
AU - Schwartzberg, Melissa
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 by the Southern Political Science Association. All rights reserved.
PY - 2016/7
Y1 - 2016/7
N2 - Aristotle's doctrine of the wisdom of the multitude (DWM) has become a canonical reference for political theorists, particularly supporters of epistemic approaches to democracy. Yet the excessive focus on the collective capacity of the many has obscured a more promising defense of democracy within Aristotle's work. Despite Aristotle's infamous arguments defending unequal merit and hierarchical relationships, his account of citizenship is strikingly egalitarian: he argues that citizenship, properly distributed, reflects an equal capacity for judgment. On this basis, an Aristotelian justification of democracy emerges, one quite distinct from the DWM-inflected defense of collective judgments.
AB - Aristotle's doctrine of the wisdom of the multitude (DWM) has become a canonical reference for political theorists, particularly supporters of epistemic approaches to democracy. Yet the excessive focus on the collective capacity of the many has obscured a more promising defense of democracy within Aristotle's work. Despite Aristotle's infamous arguments defending unequal merit and hierarchical relationships, his account of citizenship is strikingly egalitarian: he argues that citizenship, properly distributed, reflects an equal capacity for judgment. On this basis, an Aristotelian justification of democracy emerges, one quite distinct from the DWM-inflected defense of collective judgments.
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U2 - 10.1086/685000
DO - 10.1086/685000
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84983349239
SN - 0022-3816
VL - 78
SP - 733
EP - 745
JO - Journal of Politics
JF - Journal of Politics
IS - 3
ER -