Democratic Group Cognition

Lepoutre, Maxime

doi:10.1111/papa.12157

Cited by 16 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 1 publication

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“…One might argue that, indeed, political agency is only possible given a degree of homogeneity. This argument corresponds with a more corporatist ontology of social groups and has frequently been made in the context of historically marginalized identities (Cudd 2006;Lepoutre 2020;Young 1990). White and Laird (2020), for instance, argue that the achievement of meaningful political power for Black Americans has required their support to be consolidated within one party (the Democrats), which has in turn required forms of "racialized social constraint" to discourage defection of Black citizens whose preferences might otherwise lean Republican.…”

Section: Social Partisan Identity and Its Dangers Social Identity And...mentioning

confidence: 70%

“…As mentioned, for many, partisan involvement is mediated by membership in one or more social identity groups. The common concern that such association undercuts agency neglects the fact that social identities are frequently reliable sources of the politically relevant interests of their members, as “[social] group membership is partly defined by epistemically significant social perspectives” (Lepoutre 2020, 42). It also neglects the fact that the association between social identity membership and party identity is a fluid, dynamic, and contingent process—participation in which represents another venue for expression of political partisan agency.…”

Section: Political Partisan Identity and Its Virtuesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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What Kind of Identity is Partisan Identity? “Social” versus “Political” Partisanship in Divided Democracies

RUCKELSHAUS

2022

Am Polit Sci Rev

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Many scholars blame partisan polarization for collapsing politics into social life. But these diagnoses lack any sophisticated theoretical basis for distinguishing “social” from “political” forms of identity. This article offers such a framework, providing better grounding for evaluating polarization. Drawing on work on the politics of difference, I first argue that the harms of polarized partisanship mirror long-standing criticisms of essentialist social identities, including the constriction of agency and reduction of compromise. I then show how a more political form of partisan identity could not only mitigate these concerns but also positively contribute to democracy through the promotion of civic republican ideals of active citizenship. I conceptualize partisan identity between the view of the social-identity literature (partisanship as cultural identity) and an idealizing tendency within some recent normative views (partisanship without identity), offering a novel evaluation of polarization and a conceptual map useful for both empirical and normative scholars.

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Section: Social Partisan Identity and Its Dangers Social Identity And...mentioning

confidence: 70%

Section: Political Partisan Identity and Its Virtuesmentioning

confidence: 99%

What Kind of Identity is Partisan Identity? “Social” versus “Political” Partisanship in Divided Democracies

RUCKELSHAUS

2022

Am Polit Sci Rev

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“…However, neither concern is compelling. As Chambers (2018) and Lepoutre (2020) argue, the affective dimension of group identity is consistent withand may positively contribute toits epistemic value. And group identities are epistemically relevant to assessing a wide range of issues.…”

Section: The Generality Of Political Modellingmentioning

confidence: 94%

Political Understanding

Lepoutre

2022

Brit. J. Polit. Sci.

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Public opinion research has shown that voters accept many falsehoods about politics. This observation is widely considered troubling for democracy – and especially participatory ideals of democracy. I argue that this influential narrative is nevertheless flawed because it misunderstands the nature of political understanding. Drawing on philosophical examinations of scientific modelling, I demonstrate that accepting falsehoods within one's model of political reality is compatible with – and indeed can positively enhance – one's understanding of that reality. Thus, the observation that voters accept many political falsehoods does not necessarily establish that they lack political understanding. I then address three worries: that voters cannot generally engage in such political modelling; that political modelling obscures facts that are crucial to political understanding; and that successful political modelling would require knowing that one's model contains falsehoods. My responses reveal how, going forward, we should measure political ignorance, and they highlight the standing importance of participatory democracy.

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“…Dogmatism can be seen as both an epistemic and a moral vice. Lepoutre discusses the example of city dwellers who worry about the environment and underestimate the effect of environmental measures on job creation (Lepoutre 2020). Rural populations who see a lack of jobs in their environment may overprioritize the issue of job creation over environmental protection.…”

Section: Define Mandevillian Morality Asmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This "dogmatic group cognition" can be beneficial systemically. In his words: "Rural inhabitants who overprioritize job creation will be more disposed to uncover evidence of how environmental regulation harms rural jobs… …Conversely, environmentalists may, because of their contrasting epistemic standards, be more effective at finding flaws in evidence that environmental regulation harms jobs and more likely to generate new evidence of climate change" (Lepoutre 2020).…”

Section: Define Mandevillian Morality Asmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mandevillian Virtues

Astola

2021

Ethic Theory Moral Prac

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Studies in collective intelligence have shown that suboptimal cognitive traits of individuals can lead a group to succeed in a collective cognitive task, in recent literature this is called mandevillian intelligence. Analogically, as Mandeville has suggested, the moral vices of individuals can sometimes also lead to collective good. I suggest that this mandevillian morality can happen in many ways in collaborative activities. Mandevillian morality presents a challenge for normative virtue theories in ethics. The core of the problem is that mandevillian morality implies that individual vice is, in some cases, valuable. However, normative virtue theories generally see vice as disvaluable. A consequence of this is that virtue theories struggle to account for the good that can emerge in a collective. I argue that normative virtue theories can in fact accommodate for mandevillian emergent good. I put forward three distinctive features that allow a virtue theory to do so: a distinction between individual and group virtues, a distinction between motivational and teleological virtues, and an acknowledgement of the normativity of “vicious” roles in groups.

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Democratic Group Cognition

Cited by 16 publications

References 1 publication

What Kind of Identity is Partisan Identity? “Social” versus “Political” Partisanship in Divided Democracies

What Kind of Identity is Partisan Identity? “Social” versus “Political” Partisanship in Divided Democracies

Political Understanding

Mandevillian Virtues

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