I’m in the process of writing Against Politics. Among other things, the book argues that Mill was wrong and Schumpeter was right about how political engagement affects us. Political engagement doesn’t tend to ennoble us, but tends to make us stupider, more epistemically defective, and more morally vicious. Here’s a very drafty first draft of a section discussing deliberative democracy. This follows a section in which I reviewed the empirical literature, which overwhelmingly seems to show that deliberative democracy fails to deliver the promised educative and aretaic benefits, and, on the contrary, seems to make people worse overall.

Real-world deliberation doesn’t deliver the promised educative and aretaic benefits—in fact, it often makes things worse.

But one way to protect deliberative democracy from disconfirming empirical research is to complain that people aren’t deliberating properly. Deliberative democrats can continue to assert that if people would follow, say, Habermas’s rules of proper discourse, then deliberation would deliver certain educative and aretaic benefits. As the evidence itself shows, people do not follow those rules.

Thus, the empirical research fails to falsify the deliberative democrat’s claims. After all, as anyone who has taken introductory logic should know, these two sets of claims are compatible:

1. If people deliberate properly, deliberation will tend to educate and ennoble them
2. People do not deliberate properly, and improper deliberation fails to educate and ennoble them. In fact, it stultifies them and exacerbates their biases.

The statement “If P then Q” is not falsified by evidence of “not-P and not­-Q.” So, the empirical research doesn’t show that proper deliberation fails to educate or ennoble us. But deliberative democrats should not rest secure. To see why, let’s parody the debate here.

Sigma Alpha Epsilon “strives to give young men the leadership, scholarship, service and social experiences they need to excel…” SAEs “strive to mold [their] members into gentlemen so they can set an example in today’s society.”[i] Sigma Nu stylizes its members as “knights” who “believe in the life of life, walk the in the way of honor, and serve in the light of truth.”[ii] Beta Theta Pi strives to “develop men of principle for a principled life.”[iii] Phi Delta Theta “was built on three pillars that haven’t budged an inch since” the fraternity was founded, including the pillar of “the attainment…of a high standard of morality.”[iv]

College social fraternities are supposed to make men into better men. In the language of philosophical virtue ethics, these fraternities are supposed to serve both an educative and an aretaic function. Fraternities are usually founded on high-minded ideals.. They strive to transform ordinary men into extraordinary men, to bring out the best in each of them. Most fraternities have extensive educational programs designed to cultivate virtue, scholarship, and a commitment to service among their brothers.

But, in fact, college frats tend to fall far short of their ideals. College frats are often “rape factories,” full of drunken men who take advantage of drunken women. Among men who commit rape or sexual assault on a college campus, fraternity men seem to be disproportionately represented.[v] Men who join fraternities drink more, and drink more frequently, than other college men.[vi] Fraternity men are more likely to engage in academic dishonesty than men who do not join fraternities.[vii] Even though almost all fraternities’ mission statements include a dedication to the highest standards of scholarship, first-year fraternity men tend to have worse GPAs and to do worse on various tests of cognitive ability than non-fraternity men, though this gap tends to shrink over time.[viii] Fraternity men nationwide may high slightly higher average GPAs than non-fraternity men, but part of the explanation for this is that most fraternities must suspend and even expel members with GPAs lower than a C+. There is no evidence, at least that I can find, that joining a fraternity tends to improve men’s GPAs.

Not all fraternities are the same, of course. Some individual fraternities on some campuses are better than others. Still, the overall weight of the evidence shows that fraternities tend to undermine rather than support their aretaic goals. Fraternities seem to be more of a disease than a cure, whatever the noble intentions of their founders may have been. In general, college fraternities probably reinforce sexist, homophobic, and dishonest attitudes, and tend to encourage far more vice than virtue

Imagine a conversation in which a critic of college fraternities advanced all of these criticisms. Then imagine that the executive director of, say, Sigma Nu responded, “Sure, actual fraternities tend to corrupt men rather than ennoble them. But when I defend fraternities, I mean to say that such fraternities would educate and ennoble college men, if only fraternity men acted properly and went through the fraternity experience the right way. The college fraternity experience provides an excellent opportunity for men to develop into true gentlemen, who live with honor, who hold themselves to the highest moral standards. It’s just too bad that men do not properly take advantage of this opportunity. Still, I think it’s important that we keep providing them with opportunity, as much as possible. It’s also important that we keep researching ways to get men to use the fraternity experience the correct way.”

There’s a sense in which the director’s response is absolutely right, and yet absurd at the same time.The director’s response is that the problem isn’t with the fraternities, but with the men who join them. Angelic men would do far better. The director is probably correct that fraternities would ennoble and educate, if only the men who joined them behaved appropriately. (It’s difficult to test that claim, but it remains plausible.) At the same time, the director fails to take the criticisms of fraternities seriously. Critics of fraternities do not deny that under highly idealized circumstances, fraternities could educate and ennoble. Instead, they are complaining that as a matter of fact, fraternities tend to do more harm than good.

What’s going on?

When deliberative democrats asserts that deliberation will tend to educate and enlighten people, this sounds at first as though they are making an interesting causal claim, equivalent to the claim “Advil tends to cure headaches”. However, they are really asserting something closer to a tautology, something closer to the claim “Headache cures tend to cure headaches”. Notice the difference between the following two claims:

1. If people deliberate properly, then deliberation will tend to educate and enlighten them.
2. If people deliberate, this will tend to educate and enlighten them.

Claim A is pretty close to being a tautology. To say we “deliberate properly” is to say we acquire information from one another in a scientifically minded, rational, unbiased way. If people (who have different information) deliberate with one another and fail to become better educated, then it follows that they did not properly deliberate. So, of course proper deliberation educates people—if people aren’t educated by deliberation, then the deliberation was by definition improper.

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[i] http://www.sae.net/page.aspx?pid=753

[ii] http://www.sigmanu.org/about/the_creed.php

[iii] http://www.betathetapi.org/home/about/become-a-beta/

[iv] http://www.phideltatheta.org/about/

[v]http://www.universityherald.com/articles/4521/20130912/wesleyan-university-rape-factory-frat-house-victim-reach-settlement-lawsuit.htm;  Frintner, Mary Pat; Rubinson, Laurna. Acquaintance rape: The influence of alcohol, fraternity membership, and sports team membership. Journal of Sex Education & Therapy, Vol 19(4), 1993, 272-284; Koss, M., and J. Gaines (1993). “The Prediction of Sexual Aggression by Alcohol Use, Athletic Participation and Fraternity Affiliation.” Journal of Interpersonal Violence 8(1):94—108; Humphrey, S., and A. Kahn (2000). “Fraternities, Athletic Teams and Rape: Importance of Identification With a Risky Group.” Journal of Interpersonal Violence 15(12):1313—1322.
Koss, M., and H. Cleveland III (1996);  “Athletic Participation, Fraternity Membership and Date Rape: The Question Remains—Self-Selection or Different Causal Processes?” Violence Against Women 2(2):180—190; Humphrey, S., and A. Kahn (2000). “Fraternities, Athletic Teams and Rape: Importance of Identification With a Risky Group.” Journal of Interpersonal Violence 15(12):1313—1322. However, for a contrary point of view, see Martin D. Schwartz and Carol A. Nogrady, “Fraternity Membership, Rape Myths, and Sexual Aggression on a College Campus”, Violence Against Women June 1996 vol. 2 no. 2 148-162

[vi] Peer Effects and Alcohol Use among College Students

Authors: Kremer, Michael; Levy, Dan

Source:The Journal of Economic Perspectives, Volume 22, Number 3, Summer 2008 , pp. 189

[vii] Donald McCabe and Linda Trevino, “Individual and Contextual Influences on Academic Dishonesty: A Multicampus Investigation,” Research in Higher Education 38 (1997): 379-396.

[viii] http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-campus/201109/how-fraternities-and-sororities-impact-students-or-do-they