Representing Ignorance

Summary

INTRODUCTION

If we wish to assess the morality of elected officials, we must understand their function as our representatives and then infer how they can fulfill this function. I propose to treat the class of elected officials as a profession, so that their morality is a role morality and it is functionally determined. If we conceive the role morality of legislators to be analogous to the ethics of other professions, then this morality must be functionally defined by the purpose that legislators are to fulfill once in office. Hence, the role morality of legislators will largely be determined by our theory of representation. We will need not a normative account of their role, but an empirical explanatory account. In David Hume's terms, the morality of role holders is one of “artificial” duties, that is to say, duties defined by their functional fit with the institutional purposes of a profession. Our most difficult problem, therefore, is to understand the role of our elected representatives.

This problem is severely complicated by the nature of democratic choice and participation in a modern, complex society. A central problem of democratic theory for such a society is the general political ignorance of the citizens. In Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (1942), Joseph Schumpeter argues that citizens have no chance of affecting electoral outcomes and, therefore, no reason to learn enough about politics even to know which candidates or policies would serve their interests.