Democracy as a Public Method of Searching

(Bernard J. F. Lonergan, Insight, A Study of Human Understanding. London, 2^nded. 1958, p. xiii)

The present communication will develop the theme of the conference “Christian Europe and Liberal Democracies”, and will emphasize the characteristics of the democratic method in direct and in representative democracies. Its objective is to show that this method makes possible a sound public search for the true and the good, so that it has not only its roots but also a future in a Christian Europe.

It will be appropriate to precede the analysis of the democratic method with some notes on the theoretical presuppositions of this communication. These are the methodological analyses of the Canadian philosopher and theologian Bernard J. F. Lonergan (1904-1984)[1], which still are little known in Europe. To my knowledge, Lonergan did not expressly treat the theme of democracy, although his profound democratic convictions inspired the whole range of his productions. These convictions were behind his efforts to work out an economic theory during the Second World War, which were directed to constructing a model of the dynamics of the economy that would solve the questions left unsolved by Schumpeter and thus permit economic theory to move out of the tight circle of specialists. Thirty years later, the ideal of also democratically diffusing theological knowledge led him to the formulation of a theological method that had spreading the message (communications) as a recurring component. In parallel, he proposed a method for the human sciences. This method includes discussing and working out foundations, determining objectives (policy) and working out plans (planning), all on the basis of studies of the historical and social situation, in order to be able to intervene responsibly in that situation.[2] In his first period, Lonergan was moved by the conviction that a mature democracy needs to bring everyone to understand the economic mechanisms on which society is built; in the second he was moved by the still broader objective of making the achievements of theology and the human sciences the working patrimony of all of society.

Contrary to the position expressed by the title of this paper, a current opinion holds that democracy assumes it is impossible to arrive at objective and universal truth.[3] The following pages are intended to demonstrate that truth is reachable, and sometimes is reached, and that the democratic method finds its justification in the fact that it assists in the pursuit of truth in the context of public action. At the same time they will answer an objection that is often repeated in the context of Catholic culture, i.e., that for the purpose of reaching the truth, the vital part of democratic process that consists in majority decisions is not to be trusted.

Speaking of the pursuit of truth means that we have introduced the gnoseological problem: “In what does knowing consist?” According to Lonergan, in the history of philosophy the answer to the question, whether implicit or explicit, of what knowledge is has influenced the answers to the further questions “What is known?” and “What makes knowing knowing?”; these are the metaphysical and critical conclusions of every philosopher.

The Socratic dialogues showed how difficult it is to define even the most familiar notions. Nothing is more familiar than knowledge, but knowledge about knowledge has created problems throughout the subsequent twenty-four centuries of philosophy. Lonergan explained this apparent paradox, the co-presence of familiarity and lack of knowledge, by distinguishing between consciousness and knowledge. Consciousness is a first moment in knowledge, but it is not yet knowledge. Contrary to common expectations, human knowledge is not a simple activity or a multiplicity of operations that have similar criteria and characteristics. It is a structure that develops intelligently and reasonably, composed of complementary activities that are conscious and intentional and have different characteristics. In the technical terms employed by this Canadian philosopher and theologian, knowledge is a conscious and formally dynamic intentionality structure[4] that develops on three levels of consciousness.

The human infant starts out with operations whose object is what we call the immediate (the “already out there now”), and these operations are present all through life. Hence we spontaneously, but misleadingly, conceive of knowledge by analogy with this kind of operation. The eyes see, and seeing is an act in which the subject-object relation is indisputable; knowledge will thus be considered tendentiously on the model of seeing. If one then notes the presence of an intellectual, rational, and moral knowledge, the false analogy will propose a spiritual kind of seeing, i.e., intellectual, rational, and moral intuitions that will have their criterion in the immediacy of their relation to the object, as in ocular vision. But this assumption and similar ones are misleading, because knowledge develops on three levels, but only the first level has as its criterion the immediacy of its object. In the other two levels the relation to the object is immediate only in questions, while in the answers to those questions it is mediated by the meaning the answers express. Through these answers, subjects enter into a much broader world than the world of immediacy, a world mediated and constituted by meaning, which is the historical world of culture and institutions. The world of meaning will have the structure of the conscious and intentional activities that have constituted it. The correspondence (isomorphism) between knowing and its object is, for Lonergan, the starting point for a methodological reflection on every field of human knowledge and activity.

Cognitional structure develops on three levels of consciousness, and is impelled not by an unconscious mechanism but by the subject’s intelligence and reasonableness. The first level is that of sensible operations or, better, since sensations do not appear in isolation, it is the level of experiential patterns of activity that combine the individual sensible operations. The actuation of this first level of consciousness provides the data on which the human desire to know will operate and thereby promote the actuation of the following levels. The desire to know is the basis of the questions, expressed or unexpressed, that initiate inquiry. It is questions that prompt the following levels of consciousness: questions for understanding (“what is it?”, “how?”, “why?”) introduce the level of intelligence (on which insights, concepts, hypotheses, and theories are developed) and questions for reflection (“is it true?”, “is it so?”, “does it exist?”) introduce the following level of rationality (the level of judgment).[5] Each level presupposes the preceding one. Questions for reflection presuppose the answers to questions for understanding, and these questions in turn presuppose the contents of experiential patterns of activity.[6]

The subject is the operator that serves as the conscious and intentional link between the various levels. It is the subject that intelligently inquires into the data and then reasonably ascertains the correctness of the understanding it has reached. Each level of the subject’s consciousness reveals a different dimension of the object that was not reachable at the previous level. Only at the third level, the level of reflection that is expressed in judgment, is the object fully known. But it is fully known only if the subject has been faithful to the requirements of each level. Contrary to the expectations of intuitionism, even knowledge of knowledge itself is achieved according to this structure. Since the three levels of knowledge are conscious, their being conscious is the experience on which are built the understanding and then the judgment that make knowledge of knowledge possible. This structure explains why, on the one hand, everyone knows what is referred to when knowledge is spoken of, since we are conscious of having knowledge, while, on the other hand, after two thousand years of philosophy the difficulty persists of saying what knowledge is, because of gaps either on the level of understanding or on the level of reasonable verification.

Each level introduces its own criterion of objectivity. At the first level the criterion is simply the givenness of the data. The other criteria of objectivity are consciously operative in the dynamism that prompts questioning: indeed, in questioning the conditions for the answer sought are already conscious and operative. In the case of questions for understanding, Lonergan calls the criterion the normativity of intelligence. This means that intelligence itself recognizes, after many partial insights, that it has reached the insight it is seeking (this is the normativity) into the relations among the data, without neglecting any relevant datum or any relevant aspect of the data. It should be noted that “relevant” does not apply to the content of the data as they emerge at the first level, but as they become the object of the normativity of intelligence, which seeks in them their “relevance for insight”, i.e., their intelligibility. In the case of questions for reflection, the criterion is the virtually unconditioned, i.e., the unconditioned as a matter of fact. The virtually unconditioned is a conditioned whose conditions are realized, so that it becomes unconditioned. The requirements for a judgment of fact can be formalized in terms of a syllogism in which the major premise is the link between the conditioned and its conditions in experience, the minor premise is the givenness of the conditions in experience, and the conclusion is the affirmation of the judgment of fact. The conditioned expressed by the major premise becomes an unconditioned whenever the minor premise is actually realized. This syllogism expresses in logical form the process that human reason goes through spontaneously at the level of reflection.

In the judgment, which has a crucial place in the Lonerganian system, we know the real, or being. In it the criteria for the three levels of knowing are combined: the givenness of the data, the normativity of the insight, and the absoluteness of the virtually unconditioned. Kant’s error was in thinking that our knowledge of the real is based only on the criterion for the first level of knowledge, intuition (Anschauung). The error of idealism was in thinking it is based only on the criterion for the second level (the normativity of intelligence), and that of rationalism in thinking it is based only on the criterion for the third level (necessity, which is one of the characteristics of the virtually unconditioned). Only a knowledge of the entire operative structure allows us to see that each of these positions was right in what it affirmed, but wrong in what it excluded. In different ways, they posited a truncated subject.[7]

A judgment can be about fact or about value. Judgments of fact and of value presuppose the actuation of the preceding levels of consciousness, the empirical and the intellectual for a judgment of fact, and also the rational for a judgment of value. Indeed, without sufficient data one cannot have an adequate insight, without an adequate insight one cannot arrive at a reasonable judgment, and without a reasonable assessment of the situation (through judgments of fact) there cannot be a responsible evaluation.

The judgment of value takes place by an expansion of the same conscious intentionality that reaches the judgment of fact, which then goes on to pose the further question of the relation of the facts to the subject. Questions for evaluation (“is it good?”, “is it better?”, “is it worth the trouble?”) no longer concern only the object, but also involve the subject itself and its action. The virtually unconditioned is the common criterion for judgments of fact and judgments of value, but while the judgment of fact remains confined to the realm of knowledge, the judgment of value prepares for the movement from the realm of knowledge to the realm of action. With it, the subject defines itself objectively. The judgment of fact is the fruit of the cognitive self-transcendence of a subject which, by arriving at the virtually unconditioned, has succeeded in knowing something that no longer depends on it. The judgment of value is also the fruit of self-transcendence. This time the self-transcendence is moral because with it the subject begins to determine itself on the basis of its cognitive self-transcendence. But this self-transcendence is only initial because in the judgment of value it is only intentional. It becomes full in the subsequent decision and action.

Lonergan speaks of three levels of knowledge and four levels of intentional consciousness, treating the fourth (moral) level as being in perfect continuity with the three other (cognitive) levels. This terminology has caused disputes. Lonergan probably used it because he wished to maintain a terminological distinction between the objectifying moment of the first three levels of the conscious intentional process and the more existential moment, in which the subject’s attention to the object (the possibility of action) puts that subject and its future into play. In any case, this terminological distinction has no relevant implications for the structure of theological method or for the parallel structure he outlined for the human sciences. These have, at the fourth level, two functional specializations (dialectic and foundations) that concern the subject’s need and ability to make judgments of value.

Lonergan’s intentionality analysis leads to some important results. The first result is the priority of insights (which are concrete and evolving) over concepts (which are abstract and unchanging, if they are not referred to insights). The second result is critical realism, the assertion that the real is all that can be intelligently grasped and reasonably affirmed and only that, in opposition to intuitionism, idealism, relativism[8], and rationalism. The third result is that the ultimate criterion of objectivity resides in authentic subjectivity: the absolute that the subject grasps in the virtually unconditioned of judgment enables the subject to transcend its own subjectivity when it affirms that something “is so”. A correct judgment (of fact or value) presupposes faithfulness to the criteria for each level. Hence the transcendental precepts for the conscious and intentional subject are: be attentive, be intelligent, be reasonable, be responsible. The fourth result is a clarification of the relation between facts and values. Both are reasonable insofar as both are the fruit of a judgment. For the same reason, both are absolute, i.e., without conditions, insofar as their conditions are verified. But beyond the judgment of fact, the judgment of value also asserts, in the verified conditions, the conformity of the object to the requirements of the subject. Besides being reasonable, this judgment is also responsible.

The affirmation of the four levels of consciousness is not subject to revision: “for it to be possible for a revision to take place certain conditions must be fulfilled. For, in the first place, any possible revision will appeal to data which the opinion under review either overlooked or misapprehended, and so any possible revision must presuppose at least an empirical level of operations. Secondly, any possible revision will offer a better explanation of the data, and so any possible revision must presuppose an intellectual level of operations. Thirdly, any possible revision will claim that the better explanation is more probable, and so any possible revision must presuppose a rational level of operations. Fourthly, a revision is not a mere possibility but an accomplished fact only as the result of a judgment of value and a decision… It follows that there is a sense in which the objectification of the normative pattern of our conscious and intentional operations does not admit revision.”[9]

The movement from one level to another and faithfulness to the requirements of each level are the conditions for development, but development is only a possibility. In fact, faithfulness to the requirements of development becomes more improbable the longer the development goes on. Therefore, development can be accompanied by decline. Decline will have opposite characteristics from development: it will be a fruit of inattention, incomprehension, unreasonableness, and irresponsibility, and it will employ for its own justification ideologies in terms of “realism”, “good sense”, etc. These ideologies will seem more plausible as the decline renders the situation more incomprehensible, unreasonable, and irresponsible. There are no shortcuts for overcoming this decline; it is necessary to discover where the requirements of attentiveness, intelligence, reasonableness, and responsibility have not been met.

If only developments within the intentionality structure of the individual subject were considered, every person would start over at the dawn of history. But no-one considers himself a primitive; rather, each of us is modified by culture and society. Historical development is assured by the particular application of the intentionality structure that makes collaboration possible, both in knowledge and in action and the accumulation of results. This particular application of the structure is commonly indicated by the terms “trust” and “belief”. Nobody checks the carrying capacity of a floor or a bridge that has already been tested, before stepping onto it; no mathematician personally repeats all the calculations that would be needed to prove that the table of logarithms he uses is correct; before starting out on a trip, nobody does all the surveys needed to prove that the map is right; nobody checks that the foods he buys are edible; and no scientist takes the trouble to repeat personally all the experiments that have been performed in his field, but only concentrates on those experiments that he thinks may further his research. To indicate this attitude within our intentional behavior Lonergan uses the term “belief”, a belief that is different from religious faith and the belief connected with it, which will not be considered here.

Belief originates with a person who proposes something to be believed, and it presupposes that that person has reached the virtually unconditioned. By reaching the absoluteness of the unconditioned, he has transcended the conditioning of what he wants to communicate that comes from his own subjectivity. That is a requirement for all communication, and communication is at the origin of belief. Though communication presupposes the unconditioned, the content of the unconditioned that is communicated can have to do with all four levels: data, insight, facts, and values. The virtually unconditioned of an original judgment can be accepted by others through three intermediate steps: two judgments and the consequent decision to believe. The first step is a judgment of general value. “It approves man’s division of labor in the acquisition of knowledge both in its historical and in its social dimensions. The approval is not uncritical. It is fully aware of the fallibility of believing. But it finds it obvious that error would increase rather than diminish by a regression to primitivism.”[10] The second step is a judgment of particular value concerning the credibility of the source. “The point at issue in each case is whether one’s source was critical of his sources, whether he has reached cognitional self-transcendence in his judgments of fact and moral self-transcendence in his judgments of value, whether he was truthful and accurate in his statements.”[11] This checking is not only direct, about the source’s credibility hic et nunc [here and now], but also indirect, through the innumerable confirmations that come from others concerning either the object to be believed or the multiple consequences connected with it. Finally, the decision to believe leads to considering the original judgment of fact or value to be true, and to accepting the contents on which it turns with regard to data, insights, facts, or values.

The repetition of this process of belief leads to the establishing of a common fund of knowledge and values that the individual can draw from and to which he can contribute with the knowledge and the valuations that he personally generates. This fund is at the origin of community. A community, indeed, is a product of the intentionality of a multitude of subjects, and has a structure that reflects the intentionality structure of the individual subject. There is a community when there is a common field of experience, a common or complementary way of understanding things, common judgments, and common goals. Without a common field of experience, subjects are out of touch with each other; without a common understanding, misunderstandings are born and suspicion, mistrust, hostility, and violence take over; without common judgments, people live in different worlds; without common goals, conflicting objectives are pursued and the community is divided.

The structure of belief also brings us to an understanding of the two notions of power and authority, and with these we leave behind our direct appeal to Lonergan’s thought. Power over things is proportional to knowledge. Thus, power increases when knowledge not only is personally generated, but also has at its disposal the great resources that come from belief. It increases even more remarkably if it results from the collaboration of many subjects who, through common or complementary knowledge and decisions, coordinate their actions in a single project or in complementary projects. Finally, power can even be power over persons, i.e., authority. In this case, collaboration is coordinated by authority.

Belief is at the root of authority. The acceptance of anyone’s judgment is a recognition that the person who issued it has some elementary authority, though it may be limited to that judgment. It is true that the already established fund of knowledge and values is often based on the original authority of anonymous people. But with every increment to this fund, this elementary relationship of authority arises again. The relationship of authority can become fixed when someone’s guidance is habitually accepted in some field. It can also become fixed when there is agreement to undertake a project that requires complex coordination, so that one or more persons must be allowed to issue normative judgments on matters related to the accomplishment of that project. The relationship of authority can arise both in the field of knowledge and in the field of action. Given the link between knowledge and action, there is often an admixture of the two types of authority. Finally, the relationship of authority may be subject to a norm that specifies the holder, the conditions, and the duration of that authority, as well as the extent of its competence, and with that the institution is born. The norm may be spontaneous or conventional, transitory or stable. When it becomes a written norm, as in present-day democracies, it can more easily be stated and controlled.[12]

There are different ways in which a citizen delegates his free choice in a direct democracy and in a representative democracy. In a direct democracy, unless there is unanimity, he delegates it to the majority. In a representative democracy the right to decide is delegated to a group of representatives. In general, these representatives will decide by majority vote, as in a direct democracy.

The remaining two sections will examine the characteristics of direct and of representative democracy and the main problems raised by the kind of delegation that each employs.

These two sections are not intended to be a thorough treatment of democracy, in part because not much has changed since Thomas Nagel stated a few years ago that: “We do not yet possess an acceptable political ideal, for reasons which belong to moral and political philosophy.”[13] We shall only examine some features that are considered characteristic of democracy, in order to examine their compatibility with the requirements of the conscious intentionality structure of a person as outlined above. It will be clear that a real or theoretical democracy is to be avoided or, if one prefers, is antidemocratic to the extent that it departs from the aforementioned requirements of attending to the data, understanding them, reasonably affirming the facts, and evaluating responsibly. Two characteristics of direct democracy will be examined, in order to assess how well they conform to the requirements for pursuing the true and the good: freedom of thought and expression, and majority rule.

Direct democracy has not yet arisen if a society is at a stage where it does not feel, or rarely feels, the need for coordination by authority, even if decisions happen to be made that we would call democratic. A group of hunters or warriors can act in a coordinated way without the presence of any stable authority, but it will not be a direct democracy. Institutions arise when a stable authority is recognized, even if only by custom, and direct democracy is such an institution. Stable authority is vested in the decisions made by all members of the group, usually by majority rule, as long as freedom of thought and expression, as well as freedom to vote, are guaranteed. Therefore direct democracy is the result of a significant cultural development in the formation and exercise of authority.

Freedom of thought and expression is needed so that the common fund of knowledge that nourishes the community will be as widely available as possible. Each member can then offer his contribution to common decisions so that they will be as responsible as possible. It is important to note that freedom of expression also includes freedom to persuade, since communication also concerns values. A classic and precise description of the requirements of such freedom can be found in the arrangements that preceded the Council of Trent’s third session, which opened in 1562. Under these arrangements an invitation to participate in the Council was directed not only to the German Protestants, but also to “each and all who are not in communion with us in matters of faith, from whatever kingdoms, nations, provinces, cities and places they come”, offering safe conduct to and from the Council and freedom there “to propose and offer in writing or in speech as many points as they shall choose … and hold debate without any violent abuse or invective.”[14] As can be seen, the possibility of expression is extended as widely as possible, both ideologically and geographically, and the freedom to “propose and offer”, which today would be called propaganda, is also assured. The only exclusion concerns behaviors that might jeopardize that very freedom of dialogue.

Even if that broad invitation to participate gained very limited acceptance, it is interesting to ask whether its complete openness to proposals, discussion, examination, criticism, and propaganda was appropriate or not. The main objection would seem to derive from the very nature of a Council. In it the bishops meet to judge questions of faith and morals, or to make disciplinary decisions. If it is up to them to judge and decide, why should they worry about the opinions of others who may be prejudiced and hostile? Indeed, why give these others a chance to influence the members of an assembly that, moreover, enjoys infallibility? Wouldn’t it be more fitting to follow the model of a conclave that meets to elect a pope, which eliminates every outside influence?

A comparison of the procedures of a conclave with those of a Council leads us to surmise that their different and even incompatible structures can be justified by their different situations and purposes. Without trying to make a profound comparison of these two procedures, one may suppose that in the progress of a Council two different moments can be discerned: acquiring knowledge about the matters needed for a decision, and the decision itself. The decision must be made in total tranquillity, in conditions that perhaps are closer to those of a conclave. But in order for it to be responsible, it has to be informed, and in order for it to be informed, we have seen that operations on the three cognitive levels must be carried out. For this reason, in every Council there has always been a period of discussion among the participants before a decision, during which it was possible to consult experts. That period could be long, and in extreme cases even a suspension of the work of the Council was not out of the question. In the case at hand, the Council fathers wanted to give a reply both to the rightful need to reform the Church and to the doctrinal questions raised by the Reformers and others. What could be better than to let the interested parties speak directly and present their requests themselves? Through their participation it would have been possible to bring to light all aspects of the problems at hand, advance new solutions, overcome misunderstandings, correct and perfect judgments, and modify evaluations. In this way the best conditions would have been created for making the resulting decisions responsibly. These were the premises for a proper direct democracy, clearly not in the environment of the Europe of that time, but in the much more restricted environment of the conciliar assembly.

The second aspect of direct democracy that will be examined is majority decision. It should be noted that the Catholic Church has made the majority, under certain conditions, the infallible criterion of the truth,[15] while in political democracies decisions made by the majority can be revised generally and repeatedly and serve a practical purpose. But given the irresponsibility of practical choices that are not based on ascertaining the truth, democratic politics must justify the principle of letting the majority make the choice by demonstrating the connection between that principle and the pursuit of truth. In the first place, we must try to indicate when majority decision is acceptable. Then, we must consider how to resolve the possible conflict between the majority’s choice and the convictions of someone who is left in the minority. Finally, we must bring out the crucial problem of competence to make decisions in a modern direct democracy.

“Majority” is understood here in an indeterminate way. Since the term is employed in contrast to “unanimity”, mathematically it can range from unanimity minus one to one-half plus one. Concretely, many variations are possible based on the criterion used to select voters and to assign weights to the votes of different voters. Even if the right to vote has been extended to all who wish to vote and only to them, and the weights of their votes have been determined in a reasonably acceptable way, delegating a decision to the majority still is not always acceptable. Indeed, there is a limit that derives from the principle of subsidiarity. This principle seizes on the main feature of the relationship of authority, which is delegating to others the right to make a decision. If this delegation is not to be an evasion of responsibility, one cannot hand off to someone else the task of making an evaluation that one has already made or can readily make. That would mean preferring the uncertain to the certain. The purpose of the delegation that is at the root of authority is to improve the subject’s chances of judging rightly and acting responsibly, not to put them at risk.

We have seen that it is irresponsible to delegate to others one’s free choice about something one can decide for oneself, thereby preferring the uncertain to the certain (the principle of subsidiarity). A choice may be delegated only if it concerns initiatives that individual members of the group could not carry out by themselves, or could not carry out as well. In such cases the sayings are valid, for the most part, that the better is the enemy of the good and that something is better than nothing. The desirability of not postponing decision, together with the recognition that unanimity is not attainable, can make it reasonable to be content with the expedient of a majority vote.[16] It may be appropriate not to postpone decision, either because delay would be too onerous or because it would be useless since no further information relevant to the decision is foreseeable and all responsible measures for reaching unanimity have been tried without success. In cases in which it is appropriate to make a choice without unanimity the criterion is that, all things being equal, it is more likely that the majority has grasped the truth than that the minority has, assuming equal competence on the part of all voters. Hence, the adoption by the group of the rule of majority vote can be reasonable and responsible.[17]

The second problem is the possible conflict between the decision of the majority and the evaluation made by someone who is in the minority. Delegating the decision to the majority seems to raise a grave objection: how can one responsibly agree to the possibility of being put into the minority, i.e., how can one commit to accepting the majority’s choice whenever one is in the minority and that choice runs counter to one’s wishes, perspectives, or principles? It would seem to be irresponsible to let oneself become involved in a future choice that one may not agree with. But with the principle of subsidiarity, the problem of disagreement by the minority is drastically reformulated. The majority’s choice may not be the best one, but in most cases whatever one gains from it is more than individuals acting alone could have obtained. Therefore, it is not unreasonable or irresponsible to accept the probability of sometimes being in the minority, provided that the unrenounceable condition is met that the majority must never make the individual do something he considers immoral. Here the distinction between permitting and collaborating is fundamental. When it is impossible to obtain a better result, it is morally acceptable to permit something that one considers an evil. But nobody can responsibly agree to participate in a decision process with the expectation that he will have to act against his conscience, even in collaboration with others. Hence the possibility of conscientious objection is implicit in any responsible delegation of a decision.

The third problem is that of the competence of the group. As has been indicated, a condition for any democratic decision is freedom of thought and expression. This is a remote condition; it is necessary, but not sufficient, for the group’s competence, since it cannot guarantee that the majority that makes a decision will be adequately prepared. The principle of subsidiarity has also been indicated, as a limit on the competence of the group as a whole in relation to its individual members. It has been shown that in the group’s decisions, letting the majority decide can be a responsible way to achieve results that otherwise are not achievable. Now we must consider the positive competence possessed by a group that is called upon to make a decision by majority vote.

The group that decides in this way must be formed of persons who are competent in the issues to be decided, and among those persons there must be a certain equality of competence that justifies giving equal weight to each vote. The requirement of competence appears in the standards for being allowed to vote. Even in our day it is generally accepted that non-citizens, minors, and certain restricted groups do not have that right. The problem of the level of competence needed by voters in political contexts is complex. The group allowed to perform a medical consultation is selected, for the most part, on the basis of specific competence in medicine, but in a direct political democracy those who participate in voting are not chosen for their specific competence, but for their involvement in the action of the group. In a representative democracy they are chosen for their fitness to represent the interests and values of those who will be involved in the group’s action. It is obvious that being involved in some project or being ideologically allied to someone who is involved is not the same as being competent in all the technical, economic, and moral problems connected with that project.

Hence, in the voting of a group of doctors the majority is a majority of experts, but the same cannot be assumed in the case of a political democracy. Something more is needed to make it responsible to take on the obligation of accepting the decisions of the majority. The difficulty increases with the size of the group that has to decide and with the complexity of the decisions that have to be made. This is why, even though one might argue over whether direct democracy worked well in the Athens of the Golden Age, in a modern state it cannot be proposed as the usual method, even if it were possible for every citizen to find on his computer every day the issues he had to decide. In fact, in modern democracies decisions are made by a majority of all citizens only when they are electing their representatives and in a few exceptional situations that are addressed by referendum. And it would be irresponsible to abuse the referendum by using it constantly.

In the complexity of the modern world, the general competence of honest persons may not be enough even if they are provided with good education. Hence forms of collaboration (whether by consultation or by delegation) must be instituted with society’s specialized structures of knowledge and evaluation. The need to involve all of a society’s resources of knowledge and evaluation in its choices is exceptional in the rare instances of direct democracy, but it is constant for the decisionmaking bodies of representative governments.

The need to employ all the resources appropriate for a responsible choice raises a problem that modern societies have difficulty confronting, that of the inability to recognize one’s own incompetence. This is a problem not only for individuals, but also for cultures. According to Lonergan’s analysis, modern culture has abandoned the Renaissance ideal of the universal man who possessed the one true culture, in favor of an empirical conception of culture and specialization in knowledge. In our modern culture, one cannot suppose that one person alone knows everything about everything, often not even within a single sector of knowledge. From the social point of view this awareness has spread slowly, and up to now the classical ideal of culture has marked our educational system. For example, until recently Italian students taking high-school graduation exams could be asked to pass judgment on anything, particularly in the written tests on the Italian language and culture.

Not only must it now be recognized that no-one is competent to pass judgment on everything, but it must also be recognized that there are different and contrasting criteria of judgment, those for common sense and those for science. These criteria originate from different interests and so tend to build up different worlds involving different orientations of intelligence, rationality, and responsibility. Common sense makes use of generalizations like those expressed by proverbs that are heedless of exceptions because they “prove the rule”. It is uninterested in anything whose utility it does not immediately perceive, and so it shuns anything that is too complicated and elaborate as a senseless waste of time. On the other hand, the scientific mentality tends to formulate its problems and describe its objects with the greatest possible precision because the smallest departure from predictions can be highly significant. Further, scientific research is primarily interested in the development of understanding, and therefore it tries to find relations among the data (the explanatory conjugates) that are more and more distant from immediate experience and, often, from any immediate practical use. The requirements of common sense and those of the scientific mentality thus tend to form two distinct worlds that are incapable of understanding their own limits, so that they eventually come to the conviction that the competence of the other is irrelevant, and thus they tendentiously come into conflict.[18]

Philosophy developed partly in the context of classical rhetoric, which is a development of common sense, and partly in the context of theory (with Aristotle and Thomas). Today it is in search of an integration of the two worlds of common sense and theory, but the road it must travel, the unfolding of the human subject, is still blocked by false assumptions about the world of interiority. In brief, therefore, no satisfactory solutions are in sight to the problem of guaranteeing that representative bodies generally have at their disposal competences adequate for the deliberations they have to make. If this conclusion is correct, it agrees with Nagel’s apparently pessimistic statement cited at the beginning of this section.

As part of the preceding discussion of the competence of voters, a technical detail was mentioned, the correspondence between the weight given to one’s vote and one’s competence. The weights of individual votes can be different if they are made to vary with a quantity like a voter’s wealth, education, or age. A present-day example: in the European context there is the problem of the greater weight given to the votes of larger countries in comparison with smaller ones. In our day giving different weights to different votes is only a marginal issue, but giving equal weight to all votes can be justified only if all voters are considered equally competent.

Representative democracy assures the best chance of reaching correct judgments of fact or value in public decisions, in cases where direct democracy would be impossible or inadvisable. It does this through the instrument of delegation. In modern representative democracies, delegation is made to representatives elected according to a fixed procedure. Within the body of representatives, a representative democracy works like a direct democracy and, at that level, the observations made in the preceding section are valid.

The same freedom of thought and expression that was found useful to a direct democracy in searching for the best solution is useful in a representative democracy. It is useful in the first place for decisions about the opportuneness, limits, and conditions of making the delegation of authority to representatives. Subsequently, it is useful for choosing the best representatives because it promotes the spreading of the information that makes the election responsible.

The chosen representatives can be many, or few, or one. In case there are more than one, they can all be responsible for everything, or each can be responsible for his own area of competence. In general, one representative can be responsible for all areas in social groups that are only slightly differentiated so that real differences in competence do not exist. Or this can happen in differentiated societies like modern political societies when the representative is given a limited coordinating function. This coordinating function does not involve making decisions of substance, but only controlling the selection and the performance of others, who in turn may be coordinators. It may also involve making decisions that determine the general direction of common action.

This concentration of executive power in one leader is common, especially in case of emergencies like war. For this reason, the traditional Aristotelian scheme of three holders of authority may be either democratic or undemocratic. Even inheritance of authority or lifetime tenure in office is not in principle incompatible with democratic government, if it can be justified in practical terms. It is not without significance that the most solid European democracies have proven to be those that have preserved the institution of the monarchy, and that the government of the United States brings to mind a sort of temporary democratic monarchy, where the monarch governs as well as reigns.

Modern representative democracies make use of more than one level of representation. At the first and fundamental level, the main purpose of representation is to reduce the size of the deliberating body enough that discussions can be held and decisions made in a reasonable length of time but the various orientations of the people represented are still reflected. Because of the great numerical difference between the people represented and their representatives, modern European democracies employ political parties as intermediaries. Their primary function is to make it possible for the citizens to choose their representatives, whose persons, programs, orientations, and principles would be unknown for the most part without the parties. Choosing a representative can be considered responsible either when the representative is given a specific mandate or when the one delegating is reasonably sure the representative will use criteria similar to those he would have used.

The task of the party, therefore, is to publicize the candidates, their programs, their political orientations, and their principles, and also to guarantee that when elected they will be faithful to the delegation they have received. Unfortunately, the present-day crisis in the parties indicates that this task is neglected in no small part. One cause for the failure of this guarantee, at least in Italy, is that the prohibition against an inflexible mandate is interpreted not only as prohibiting a specific mandate, but as prohibiting any binding indication of one’s programs, principles, and criteria.[19] The reason for the prohibition against a specific inflexible mandate is that the representative is entrusted with making choices that are primarily in the future. These must be based on findings, judgments, and evaluations that cannot be made at election time. Requiring a specific mandate for every one of the representative’s future decisions would deprive modern political representation of a great part of its purpose. If the voter wants to express his choice on specific matters, this can be done under the Italian Constitution by a referendum. But the rejection of inflexible mandates is interpreted in an absolute way in Italy, as a rejection of any bond with the voter, even a moral bond concerning the criteria for the representative’s future choices. This interpretation, which even permits changing one’s party after being elected, radically contradicts the principles of responsible delegation. Delegation in these circumstances becomes a delegation in the dark, to persons who are not known, or not known well enough, and without any juridical guarantee of the principles the elected person will follow.

Just as representative democracy requires that the programs, orientations, and principles of the representatives be well known at election time, it also requires that the general orientations and principles of governments be well known at all times. This can be done either by referring to a tradition or, as in Continental Europe, through written constitutions. It is clear that, within the limits of the responsible procedures examined here, all, including Christians, have the right to specify those principles according to their convictions. The principle of the laicity of the state requires only that the principles behind public action be determined through democratic procedures, not that they express specific moral or religious convictions. But it is vital to democracy that these principles be debated, and that it be clear which of them are supposed to be guiding public decisions at any given time.[20]

In the preceding observations I have sought to apply Bernard Lonergan’s method of intentionality analysis. The conclusion is that the correct implementation of the intentionality structure revealed in Lonergan’s work is at the heart of democratic method. A group that faithfully implements that structure is best able to employ its resources of intelligence and reasonableness in order to clarify the given situation, deliberate responsibly, and reach a decision on behalf of all its members. The democratic method assures the political freedoms of thought and of expression, so that every personal resource that is present in the group can emerge. It thereby puts the remote conditions in place for a correct search for the truth. Moreover, within the limits set by the principles of subsidiarity and conscientious objection, it is justifiable to allow the majority to make decisions. With majority rule the individual agrees to allow something that may not be the choice he wished for. His delegation of his right to make the choice is made explicit in a representative democracy, where it is justified only when there is certainty that the representative will act according to criteria accepted by those he represents.

I will add two observations. The first is that the preceding analysis of democratic government is only partial because it is limited to its general features. It does not take into account its dialectical aspect, which has to do with the danger of inattention, incomprehension, unreasonableness, and irresponsibility. But, though brief, it gives some clues for judging the democratic character, i.e., the reasonableness, of institutions that are constantly evolving.

The second is that recognizing delegation as the crucial aspect of the group’s making of choices, both in direct and in representative democracy, provides us with the formal criterion for public ethics. Until now public ethics has been excessively anchored in problems that are proper to individual ethics, problems about the relations of an individual with others rather than about actions proper to the group. But among the individual’s duties are those that concern his collaboration with others. The morality of this collaboration must be seen not only in relation to its contents (which is individual ethics), but also in relation to the way in which he participates (social ethics).

Å [Originally published as “La democrazia come metodo pubblico di ricerca del vero e del bene: I fondamenti epistemologici del metodo democratico”, in Antonio Salvatore (ed.), Europa Cristiana e Democrazie Liberali. Edizioni Rosminiane, Stresa, Italy 2002, pp. 245-270 and revised for this translation by the author.]

[1] The University of Toronto Press is in the process of publishing the Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan (CWL), of which 11 volumes have appeared out of an expected 21. The volumes of this edition will be cited with the symbol CWL followed by the number that the volume has in this collection.

[2] B. Lonergan, For a New Political Economy: CWL 21, 1998 and Method in Theology, 2^nd ed., Herder and Herder, Inc., New York 1973 and The Seabury Press (pb.) Minneapolis 1979.

[3] The most severe form of this opinion is that expressed by Hans Kelsen: “Tolerance, minority rights, and freedom of speech and thought, which are so characteristic of democracy, have no place in a political system based on a belief in absolute values.” H. Kelsen, “I fondamenti della democrazia”, in Id., La democrazia, Il Mulino, Bologna 1955, also published as H. Kelsen “The Foundations of Democracy” in Ethics, LXVI (1955-56), n1, part 2. [The quotation here is based on the Italian version.]

[4] The structure of knowledge in its basic pattern and in its consequences is the theme of Lonergan’s two principal works, Insight, a Study of Human Understanding, 2nd ed., Longmans, Green & Co., London 1958 (CWL 3, 1992) and Method in Theology, op. cit. Briefer presentations are Cognitional Structure, in Collection (CWL 4, 1993); Philosophical Position with Regard to Knowing, in Philosophical and Theological Papers (CWL 6, 1996), pp. 214-243; and the course Understanding and Being (CWL 5, 1990).

[5] “There is the empirical level on which we sense, perceive, imagine, feel, speak, move. There is an intellectual level on which we inquire, come to understand, express what we have understood, work out the presuppositions and implications of our expression. There is the rational level on which we reflect, marshal the evidence, pass judgment on the truth or falsity, certainty or probability, of a statement. There is the responsible level on which we are concerned with ourselves, our own operations, our goals, and so deliberate about possible courses of action, evaluate them, decide, and carry out our decisions” (B. Lonergan, Method in Theology, op. cit., p. 9).

[6] “Now the process of compounding is the work of the transcendental notions which, from the beginning, intend the unknown that, gradually, becomes better known. In virtue of this intending, what is experienced can be the same as what is understood; what is experienced and understood can be the same as what is conceived, what is experienced and understood and conceived, can be the same as what is affirmed to be real; what is experienced, understood, conceived, affirmed, can be the same as what is approved as truly good” (B. Lonergan, Method in Theology, op.cit., p. 12).

[7] B. Lonergan, The Subject, in A Second Collection, Papers of B. Lonergan, ed. by William Ryan and Bernard Tyrrell, Westminster Press, Philadelphia 1974, p. 73.

[8] Idealism specifies the real by the criterion of intelligibility alone, and on that basis claims to know the real. Relativism also accepts that criterion, but it emphasizes the uneliminable limits of human understanding and therefore declares that reality is unknowable. (B. Lonergan, Insight, op. cit., pp. 342-347 | 366-371 [Page references to Insight will give both the 1958 pagination and the CWL 3 pagination.].)

[9] B. Lonergan, Method in Theology, op. cit., p. 19.

[10] Ibid., p. 45.

[11] Ibid., p. 45.

[12] B. Lonergan speaks of “power”, “institution”, “legitimacy”, and “authority” in “Dialectic of Authority” in A Third Collection, ed. F.E. Crowe, S.J. (Paulist Press: New York, Mahwah, NJ, and London, 1985), pp. 5-12. In particular, he distinguishes between authority and authorities. The first of these terms refers to the cultural meaning of authority, while the second refers to its political meaning. In the present paper the use of these terms does not conform strictly to Lonergan’s usage.

[13] Thomas Nagel, Equality and Partiality, Oxford Univ. Press 1991, p. 3.

[14] Norman B. Tanner, The Councils of the Church: A Short History, Crossroad Press, New York 2001, p. 82.

[15] Not only do Councils decide questions of faith on the basis of majority vote, but one must regard as a matter of faith everything that the People of God (in its “maior et sanior pars [larger and healthier part]”) has considered to be such over the centuries.

[16] The history of the Councils on this point is richly instructive.

[17] The principle of subsidiarity also clarifies the old problem of the distinction between the law and morality. This distinction is inadequate because the law itself is the result of choices made about public action. As such it falls within the field of morality. But since authority has established it, the law can be accepted within the limits set by subsidiarity, which requires that the law provide for conscientious objections. Furthermore, the principle of subsidiarity helps us understand that the purpose of the state can extend well beyond the defense of internal and external peace, which has long been considered the proper end of the state.

[18] On the fundamental inability (“general bias”) of common sense to recognize its own limits, and thus the need for broader perspectives, see B. Lonergan, Insight, op. cit., pp. 225-242 | 250-267.

[19] “Every member of Parliament represents the Nation and exercises his or her functions without the encumbrance of a mandate” (Italian Constitution, Art. 67). The same Constitution, in the event that the Parliament delegates the legislative function to the Government “for a limited time and for definite objectives”, requires the specification of “directive principles and criteria” (Ibid., Art. 76).

[20] For example, see my paper “Il principio di laicità dello stato e le immagini sacre nei locali pubblici [The Principle of the Laicity of the State and Sacred Images in Pubic Places]”, second part, in Revue “I Tre Anelli--Les Trois Anneaux”, No. 4, October 2002, pp. 87-96 [also available in translation on this website]. ”