Social Identity and Democratic Deliberation

3 units

Democracy is committed to citizens' status as political equals, including our right to have equal say in determining our joint political future. In a democracy, our voices are equal. At least in theory. As it turns out, many core deliberative practices, including argument and testimony, are distorted by individuals' social identities. In this class, we will proceed according to the following questions: How should argument and testimony work in a democracy? How does social identity, including gender, race and class, impact us as political agents within a deliberative context? More specifically, how does our social identity effect our practices of knowledge acquisition, maintenance, and transmission? We will study theories of democratic deliberation, standpoint theories in epistemology, theories of epistemic injustice, and conclude by considering several ameliorative theories.