Public reason
From Internet: Knowledge and Community
Deliberative democrats claim that policy formation and decision-making can benefit from public deliberation because the public can contribute information and knowledge from their store of diverse, collective experience and expertise which might otherwise remain private and unutilised; because deliberating citizens, employing fair, equal and inclusive rules of discourse, are more likely to reach just policy conclusions than elites, experts or cliques; and because public input legitimises democratic decisions. In addition to these instrumental and utilitarian arguments for public deliberation, there are compelling reasons for concluding that deliberation has an inherently democratising effect upon the public itself: that by exercising public reason, rather than merely bargaining and voting, the public will become less atomised and more civic.
