Comment by wat10000
3 hours ago
Who determines what's "sufficiently democratic"? Do most moral philosophers really believe that being one vote out of many thousands to choose one representative to send to a legislative body of dozens is sufficiently democratic to obligate me to follow a pointless law that was written long before I was even born?
Not that it's going to change my view, but I'm curious if that's really the position they take.
Yes, that is absolutely the mainstream position. See John Rawls "A Theory of Justice" which is the basis for a lot of applied ethics today.
And "sufficiently democratic" basically means freedom of political speech, adult citizens can vote, representatives are chosen by majority rule, elections are fairly conducted and not rigged, and laws are passed by majority rule.
Obviously you can always quibble over details such as unicameral vs bicameral legislatures, single-member district vs. multi-member district representation, gerrymandering, judicial review, and so forth.
But if people are allowed to freely debate and the franchise is universal and elections are free and fair and elections and decisions are based on majority rule, then those are the basic conditions. So the US and France and the UK are sufficiently democratic; Russia and Iran and China are not (despite holding elections).
What can I say but: people continue to baffle me.