Overview
- Bridges the gap between theory and practice, whereas previous books have focussed only on deliberative theory or the practice of public deliberation
- Not only relevant for academic scholars, but also for members of NGO’s and government departments, that are involved in organizing public deliberations
- Argues that that deliberative practices can deal better with the existence of intractable disagreement than liberal democratic practices
Part of the book series: Library of Ethics and Applied Philosophy (LOET, volume 29)
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Table of contents (7 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Context of Book
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Front Matter
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Theoretical Framework
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Front Matter
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Deliberative Fora: Deliberative Democracy Put to the Test
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Front Matter
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Conclusions: Deliberative Democracy Revisited
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Keywords
About this book
This book grounds deliberative democratic theory in a more refined understanding of deliberative practice, in particular when dealing with intractable moral disagreement regarding novel technologies. While there is an ongoing, vibrant debate about the theoretical merits of deliberative democracy on the one hand, and more recently, empirical studies of specific deliberative exercises have been carried out, these two discussions fail to speak to one another.
Debates about animal and plant biotechnology are examined as a paradigmatic case for intractable disagreement in today’s pluralistic societies. This examination reveals that the disagreements in this debate are multi-faceted and multi-dimensional and can often be traced to fundamental disagreements about values or worldviews.
“One of the acute insights to emerge from this examination is that deliberation can serve different purposes vis-à-vis different types of problem. In the case of deeply unstructured problems, like the modern biotechnology debate, the aim of inclusion is more appropriate than the aim of consensus. This book highlights the importance of political culture and broader institutional settings in shaping the capacity and propensity of citizens to engage in deliberation and the degree to which governments are prepared to relinquish authority to deliberative mini-publics."
Robyn Eckersley, University of Melbourne, Australia
Authors and Affiliations
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: The Biotechnology Debate
Book Subtitle: Democracy in the Face of Intractable Disagreement
Authors: Bernice Bovenkerk
Series Title: Library of Ethics and Applied Philosophy
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2691-8
Publisher: Springer Dordrecht
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and Law, Philosophy and Religion (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012
Hardcover ISBN: 978-94-007-2690-1Published: 05 January 2012
Softcover ISBN: 978-94-007-9215-9Published: 22 February 2014
eBook ISBN: 978-94-007-2691-8Published: 04 January 2012
Series ISSN: 1387-6678
Series E-ISSN: 2215-0323
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XX, 336
Topics: Ethics, Political Science, Animal Genetics and Genomics, Environmental Engineering/Biotechnology, Sociology, general