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How to make decisions in line with the common good?

The answer to this question is a consequence of the answer previously given to the question 'Why do humans systematically reason incorrectly?'.

To obtain decisions in line with the common good, one must:

1. require the production of a written reasoning that reports the analysis that led to the decision

2. the decision must be limited to the scope of the reasoning that supports it

Why is voting an absurdity?

Voting, for example in parliament, amounts to changing the source of legitimacy of the decision. The source is no longer the quality of the reasoning that led to the decision, but the legitimacy of the social group that voted for the decision.
In other words, every time we vote, we move from a rational decision to a political decision that is simply the result of various interests arbitrated by the play of alliances. We thus shift from the common good to the interest of the dominant group.
To drive the point home, a parliament discusses a decision, then votes on it without attaching the reasoning that justifies it, which would be the synthesis of the discussions. Indeed, such reasoning, if properly conducted, would often contradict the final vote. Therefore, voting is a tyranny—not of one person, but of the dominant group.

Limits of the analysis

It is not because an analysis has been correctly conducted that a decision necessarily follows. Often, several decisions can be equally valid with respect to the analysis.
Nevertheless, it is essential to write down this analysis because it is this that allows the decision to be questioned when circumstances change, whereas a vote without attached reasoning ends up sanctifying the decision, and often overgeneralizing it, which is much more harmful to the common good.

Go deeper

Chapters 4 'The Decision-Making Process, or the Reign of the Irrational' and 7 'Going Beyond the Philosophical View of the Enlightenment' of the book From Capital to Reason present a more developed version.

See the question 'What are the conditions to produce a serious reasoning? Problem solving.', then 'A necessary condition for a satisfactory social organization' which addresses a related topic.

Refer to chapter 21 'Justice' of the book From Capital to Reason, which proposes a constitution in a single article.

 

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