On a Revised Version of the ‘Rule by Philosophers’ Proposal

Opening Post by the Rabbi

On a Revised Version of the ‘Rule by Philosophers’ Proposal

Posted on 26/1/2009

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On a Revised Version of the ‘Rule by Philosophers’ Proposal

As is well known, in our forum we do not deal with politics and current events except from the standpoint of principle. Therefore, with the approaching elections, and as part of fulfilling my civic duty (instead of voting—a step from which I am now close to thinking my most basic civic duty is to refrain), I thought to raise an issue for discussion.

David Frankel, in his article, ‘Postpone the Elections Because of the Online Commenters,’ which as usual is astonishingly amusing (and as usual I identify with almost every word of it, except that this time that applies to everything but the conclusion), once again raises the question of how we grant voting rights to foolish people who lack even a minimal capacity for thought, people who do not know at all what is under discussion. In his terminology: online commenters.

http://news.walla.co.il/?w=/4128/1411508

(Wow, I managed to make a link!).

And thus he opens the article, in his golden style:

Imagine a clinic in whose basement twenty baboons are being kept. Whenever a patient arrives, the doctors go down to the basement and conduct a poll among its inhabitants in order to determine which treatment to choose. Obviously, no sane person would want to be treated in such a place, where judgment is entrusted to a band of animals that not only have no idea about medicine, but are even beyond logical judgment. The same, of course, is true of a garage, a laboratory, or any other professional enterprise. The idea that a herd of monkeys is capable of producing a reasonable solution to a complicated question is so absurd that it would not have been worth wasting words on it, were it not for one fact: this is an almost exact reflection of the democratic system, the one considered the most successful regime tried to date.

His conclusion is that barriers should be created for voters, which would filter them according to abilities and understanding. He further proposes weighting a voter’s ballot according to ability and understanding, so that at times (as in the case of members of the central committee of a large party) a thousand voters would produce one valid vote.

I am not entering into the question of which of his remarks are irony and parody and which are actual proposals; that is not important for our purposes. I wish to raise the principled question: why not? This is a more modern and more rational version (which I myself thought of long ago) of Plato’s rule by philosophers.

I would be glad if we did not enter into technical questions such as who would determine the screening questions, and how we would ensure that they would not be biased, and the like.

The answers to these questions usually revolve around negating the alternatives, or pointing to the mystical power of the collective intelligence of the populace.

But that does not persuade me at all. I usually feel that the aforementioned intelligence approaches (from below) that of 1 kilogram of ground carp. And as a very good acquaintance of mine once said (ask Nadav who he is): a public is not a collection of individuals but a collection of beasts.

But merely for the sake of discussion, let us compare democracy to the rule of an enlightened and wise king. Why is it better, if indeed it is?

Several years ago, when I studied the issue of following the majority, a decisive answer to this question occurred to me—one that does not require any of the foolish arguments above.

From around the 11th century C.E. onward, the question of following the majority in communal institutions began to come before the halakhic decisors (see Professor Soloveitchik’s Responsa as a Historical Source, and also Menachem Elon’s Jewish Law, vol. II, if I remember correctly). This is essentially the democratic-political majority. Many of them cite as a source for this the verse, ‘Follow the majority,’ but consistently they always add further rationales, such as: one cannot live without this (= otherwise life would be impossible for anyone), and the like. The question is why they do not suffice with the determination that Torah law requires following the majority.

When one looks again, one sees that there is indeed a huge interpretive leap here: the law of following the majority in a court is an use of the majority as a revealing mechanism. The majority reveals the correct halakhah. Whether we understand this as Sefer HaChinukh explains—that by reason the majority usually hits upon the truth (and certainly according to Rav Hai Gaon, who holds that one follows the majority of wisdom; incidentally, that is exactly like Frankel’s proposal, except that it was rejected by the halakhah)—or whether we understand it otherwise. By contrast, the democratic-political majority is a completely different kind of majority. Here the majority is supposed to express the view of the public. This is a constitutive majority, not a revealing majority. In other words: the democratic system is not a means of arriving at the ‘correct’ or optimal solution, unlike in a court, but of arriving at the decision that the public wants. The vote reveals what the public wants, not what it is correct for it to want.

From this it follows that the reason we give everyone the right to vote is not because he is wise, or because the decision will be better, but because every citizen has the right to express an opinion and to participate in shaping the society in which he lives. He also has the right to err and to make decisions that will lead to errors. The possibility of voting is not a mechanism for obtaining correct decisions, but a basic right.

Of course, if someone sees that he is surrounded by fools, he has the option of leaving the society in which he lives and not participating in the game. But if he is part of it, he must accept that others have the right to influence matters. And therefore the refined-minded people of Jerusalem would check with whom they were reclining for a meal.

We thus find that the question of rule by philosophers is based on a mistake, and therefore there is no need for any ridiculous answers of the above types. Democracy is indeed not a mechanism that yields the best decisions. Certainly not. It yields the most just decisions—at least in the sense that they reflect the view of the public that is supposed to conduct itself according to them.

If it is at all possible to adduce a source for the law of democratic majority, it is not from the law of following the majority, but from the principle that ‘the majority counts as the whole’ (though it is unclear whether this is derived from ‘Follow the majority’; and I believe the commentators disagreed about this). The meaning of the rule that ‘the majority counts as the whole’ is that the majority imparts its character to the whole aggregate. This is the way to decide what the character of that aggregate is. It is not a clarifying mechanism, like following the majority, but a constitutive mechanism.

You are invited to respond.

Source (forum “Stop Here, People Think”): http://www.bhol.co.il/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=2566147