Episode 84: Amanda Greene discusses the legitimacy of democracy

Last year, we talked about anarchism. This year, we turn to democracy with Amanda Greene, Lecturer in Philosophy at University College, London, and Law and Philosophy Fellow at the University of Chicago. Click here to listen to our discussion.

Amanda GreeneIn the West, at least, most of us consider democracy to be the obvious choice for the best form of government, but we rarely take a step back to think about why. Amanda Greene agrees that democracy is the best choice, but thinks that most attempts to understand why it is the best choice build the idea that democracy is the most legitimate form of government into the very definition of democracy. That makes democracy hard to object to, but it also isn’t very illuminating as an explanation. Her approach, instead, is to start with a pretty austere definition of legitimacy, which allows that some governments can be legitimate without being democratic, and then argue that democracy is the best way to achieve that.

Join us as our guest takes us through the ins and outs of our modern political system!

Matt Teichman


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One response to “Episode 84: Amanda Greene discusses the legitimacy of democracy”

  1. […] threat, and self-fulling prophecies result in behaviors that, in accumulation, sustain X-ism.13 Indeed, unconscious cognition is likely a greater source of X-ist discrimination and prejudice […]

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