Published on August 4, 2024 6:02 AM GMT
How to govern society is one of the oldest philosophical problems, and while there aren’t any perfect solutions that can completely eliminate corruption, there are some pragmatic principles and heuristics that we can follow to generate a better society.
It is peculiar how the legislative and jury processes are so radically different from each other. In a democracy, decisions are allowed to be based on partisanship, emotions, conflicts of interest, and personal morals. And that’s even strongly encouraged. The selection process for the people who make legislative decisions regarding society is also determined by election campaigns and voting.
On the other hand, the decision-making process in the court system is completely different. People are forbidden from being selected to make decisions if they have a conflict of interest in deciding the verdict, or if they are likely to be influenced by their emotions, morals, and personal biases. In addition, the selection process for the people who make decisions is also determined by random selection (sortition), in contrast to the voting system used by democracies.
It’s odd that most people never question why these decision making processes are so different from each other. Yes, they belong to different branches of government, but they are both making important decisions about society. Besides the appeal that a random selection of people on the jury can seem more fair and unbiased, I can’t think of many other reasons why the decision-making processes for the legislature and court system should be much different from each other.
How many things can go wrong with a system that emphasizes reason, logic, and non-partisanship? On the other hand, you could easily imagine thousands of different ways how a system that allows emotions, partisanship, non-thorough evaluation of the evidence, and conflicts of self-interest to influence the decision making could go wrong. Democratic legislatures should work more similarly to the judicial system.
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