: Answer two given questions. Your answer to each question should be approximately 375 words in length.
QUESTION 1. To be a democrat is to be committed to the following belief.
(i) There is a moral obligation to abide by any decision which is reached by democratic means.(Without this, no democrat could expect those in the minority to abide by democratically reached decisions)
Person, P, is a democrat, and an election is due. Out of two policies on offer, A and B, P is going to vote for A. This is because P holds the following belief.
(ii) A ought to be the case.
However, the majority vote for B. Because P holds belief(i) it follows that P is logically committed to yet another belief, namely
(iii) B ought to be the case.
A and B are incompatible, therefore belief (ii) is logically inconsistent with belief (iii). P must hold both. It follows that it is impossible to believe in democracy without logical self-contradiction.
Do you agree?
(This is sometimes known as ‘Wollheim’s Paradox’: See Richard Wollheim, 1969,:”A Paradox in Democracy”, in Laslett, P and Runciman, W G(eds): Philosophy, Politics, Society Second Series)
QUESTION 2. Rousseau on the English.
(From Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, chapter 15
The English people believes itself to be free; it is gravely mistaken; it is free only during the election of Members of Parliament; as soon as the members are elected, the people is enslaved; it is nothing. In the brief moments of its freedom, the English people makes such a use of that freedom that it deserves to lose it.
Is Rousseau right? If not, why not? If so, does it matter?
