Dennis Thompson - founding Director of the Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics, Professor of Public Policy and Alfred North Whitehead Professor of Political Philosophy in the Government Department at Harvard University - and Amy Guttmann - President of and Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania - continue their introductory series. (See part 1, part 2)
The second purpose of deliberation is to encourage public-spirited perspectives on public issues. This aim responds to another source of moral disagreement-limited generosity. Few people are inclined to be wholly altruistic when they are arguing about contentious issues of public policy, such as health care reform or foreign intervention.
Deliberation in well-constituted bioethics forums responds to this limited generosity by encouraging participants to take a broader perspective on questions of common interest. John Stuart Mill presented one of the most cogent accounts of such a deliberative process.
"Participating in public discussions, a citizen is: called upon... to weigh interests not his own; to be guided, in case of conflicting claims, by another rule than his private partialities; to apply, at every turn, principles and maxims which have for their reason of existence the common good..."
Deliberation will not turn self-centered individualists suddenly into public-spirited citizens. Background conditions make a big difference and need to be considered in constituting a commission or any deliberative forum. These conditions include: the level of competence (how well informed deliberators are), the distribution of resources (how equally situated they are), and the open-mindedness of deliberators (the range of arguments they are likely to take seriously).
But all we need to assume in order to urge more deliberation is that most people are more likely to take a broader view of issues, to consider the claims of more of their fellow human beings in a deliberative process that puts a premium on moral argument than in a process in which assertions of political power are more likely to prevail.
