Measuring Moral Acceptability in E-deliberation: A Practical Application of Ethics by Participation

摘要

Current developments in governance and policy setting are challenging traditional top-down models of decision-making. Whereas, on the one hand, citizens are increasingly demanding and expected to participate directly on governance questions, social networking platforms are, on the other hand, increasingly providing podia for the spread of unfounded, extremist and/or harmful ideas. Participatory deliberation is a form of democratic policy making in which deliberation is central to decision-making using both consensus decision-making and majority rule. However, by definition, it will lead to socially accepted results rather than ensuring the moral acceptability of the result. In fact, participation per se offers no guidance regarding the ethics of the decisions taken, nor does it provide means to evaluate alternatives in terms of their moral "quality."