Human nature & the open society

Abstract

How do we most effectively live together? The goal of this paper is to help reinvigorate the concept of open society, by presenting an updated, summary model of the panhuman cognitive phenotype (‘human nature’), and summarising some of its most important implications for how to think about collective governance. I describe the human mind as a fundamentally social mind, geared towards the specific adaptive challenges of an ultra-social existence among both kin and non-kin. There are, in other words, deep evolutionary and cognitive reasons why reason and decision making are especially effective in dialogue and interaction within small groups. This generates in turn a number of features that balance the interests of relevant parties and work against populist appeal. Relevant and revealing real-world examples include jury discussion in criminal trials, editing on Wikipedia, and the 2018 Irish referendum on abortion. The challenge is how to recapitulate those dynamics in large and complex societies. By distinguishing open engagement within and between institutions, I argue that the traditional liberal demands of open society meet this challenge only in part. We should research, teach and advocate for more overtly open and interactive approaches to governance, including in particular deliberative approaches to law making. This will make more effective use of distinctive human cognitive capacities, and provide new responses to conservative worries about the possible excesses of open society.

4 Empirical Embodiment of Critical Rationalism: Deliberative Theory and Open Society

“…This proliferation was so remarkable that it has been named the deliberative turn in democratic theory (Dryzek 2000). The deliberative turn and significant development of the deliberative theory is supported by cognitive science, anthropology and other fields studying "human nature," grounded in deep evolutionary and cognitive reasons why deliberative approaches are especially effective in complex societies (Scott-Phillips 2023).…”