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published on December 5, 2023
Bernard Reber
Democracy of Consideration
Democracy of consideration is a conceptual candidate, next to deliberative democracy. Consideration offers an interesting constellation. If we take the two directions in which consideration leads us, respect and careful examination, these two requirements, to be held together, promise and lead both to a quality of relations between participants of a discussion who feel considered, and to an epistemic quality, from several points of view (constellation), even disciplines and aspects of the issue. It gives rise to a sense of perspective, pluralism, the process of examination, its cessation, and its stabilization “all things considered.” Consideration can be linked to all levels of a deliberative system, to tackle complex problems such as the fight against global warming. Indeed, it goes from individual decisions to international agreements and back again. Solving such a problem requires transitions understood as adjustments (responsiveness) between knowledge, institutions, and individuals, in the course of conversations, all things considered.