Moral disagreement on capital punishment (death penalty) legislate, media blitz or do politics. We often believe that the person who argues most eloquently, reasonably or forcefully will win any controversy, but there are times when this optimism fails, despite great efforts to show the strength of a position we cannot extricate ourselves simply by proving that we are right and that another is wrong. Some moral issues allow for such different perspectives that supporters of completely opposing views can both be morally sound to recognize its critical elements and keep bitter dissent to a minimum. Even with the most fundamental moral differences, we are often forced to make clear and unshakable decisions. Amid a welter of incompatible claims about the need to protect the lives of fetuses and women's liberties, politicians must decide definitively whether abortions will be legally available. Neither years of careful reflection nor months of fierce debate will provide an objectively right answer: some other method is clearly needed. The deliberative technique proposed here does not provide automatic answers, but provides progress towards difficult choices. This idea of democratic deliberation does not require all 270 million US citizens to participate in a debate or cast votes in a binding referendum. Such a vast and varied state makes this impossible and, less obviously, such clear majoritarianism also ignores the positions of a substantial minority. In the efforts at...... middle of the paper ...... creative discourse has a natural tendency to make decision-making more inclusive by embracing a broader field of views, be they of students, philosophers or Death Inmates in line. Clearly this method is not foolproof or universally applicable, yet deliberation is valuable for the simple reason that, in its essence, it is "a form of agreement over disagreement." In many cases of deliberation there will be no obvious compromise to include all opinions, so the most we can hope for is to accommodate the most strongly held points of each. Some groups will always be dissatisfied, but we can try to limit the amount of moral discord created. While we may disagree on opinions, there is little we can say or do that will not sanctify our beliefs. Moral positions should not be silenced, but instead must be taken into account, as can be done within a framework of democratic deliberation.

Topic > Moral disagreement on capital punishment (death penalty) legislate, media blitz or do politics. We often believe that the person who argues most eloquently, reasonably or forcefully will win any controversy, but there are times when this optimism fails, despite great efforts to show the strength of a position we cannot extricate ourselves simply by proving that we are right and that another is wrong. Some moral issues allow for such different perspectives that supporters of completely opposing views can both be morally sound to recognize its critical elements and keep bitter dissent to a minimum. Even with the most fundamental moral differences, we are often forced to make clear and unshakable decisions. Amid a welter of incompatible claims about the need to protect the lives of fetuses and women's liberties, politicians must decide definitively whether abortions will be legally available. Neither years of careful reflection nor months of fierce debate will provide an objectively right answer: some other method is clearly needed. The deliberative technique proposed here does not provide automatic answers, but provides progress towards difficult choices. This idea of democratic deliberation does not require all 270 million US citizens to participate in a debate or cast votes in a binding referendum. Such a vast and varied state makes this impossible and, less obviously, such clear majoritarianism also ignores the positions of a substantial minority. In the efforts at...... middle of the paper ...... creative discourse has a natural tendency to make decision-making more inclusive by embracing a broader field of views, be they of students, philosophers or Death Inmates in line. Clearly this method is not foolproof or universally applicable, yet deliberation is valuable for the simple reason that, in its essence, it is "a form of agreement over disagreement." In many cases of deliberation there will be no obvious compromise to include all opinions, so the most we can hope for is to accommodate the most strongly held points of each. Some groups will always be dissatisfied, but we can try to limit the amount of moral discord created. While we may disagree on opinions, there is little we can say or do that will not sanctify our beliefs. Moral positions should not be silenced, but instead must be taken into account, as can be done within a framework of democratic deliberation.