In Essays on Aggregation in Deliberation and Inquiry, I study models of aggregation for probabilities, full beliefs, and preferences. Aggregation matters for finding consensus, neutral positions, or agreement, which serves crucial functions in rational deliberation and inquiry for both individual agents and groups. While it may be obvious that neutrality or consensus matters in settings of grou...

The EU has firmly moved beyond what is termed an intergovernmental organisation. But how can supranationalism be explained action theoretically? Political integration is a process where actors shift their loyalties and activities towards a new centre with the authoritative right to govern in the interest of all. Because the decision-making system of the EU possesses rather weak instruments to b...

For many observers neither EU-democracy nor e-democracy exist in any meaningful sense. With regard to the latter this is certainly the case, though this does not mean that we are not witnessing innovative experimentation with information and communication technologies (ICT) in the democratic realm. This chapter focuses on the prospects for e-democratic experimentation in the EU political settin...

One aspect of rational behavior is that agents can pursue multiple goals in parallel. Current BDI theory and systems do not provide a theoretical or architectural framework for deciding how goals interact and how an agent can decide which goals to pursue. Instead, they assume for simplicity reasons that agents always pursue consistent goal sets. By omitting this important aspect of rationality,...

Five arguments in favour of deliberative democracy are considered. These focus on its educative power, on its community-generating power, on the fairness of the procedure of public deliberation, on the epistemic quality of its outcomes and on the congruence of the deliberative democratic ideal ‘with whom we are’. The first four arguments are shown to be inadequate. The fifth argument, it is cla...

Health implications of politically charged phenomena are particularly difficult for physicians to discuss with their patients and communities. Addressing climate change and its associated health effects involves trade-offs between health and economic prosperity, necessitating that physicians weigh the potential benefits and risks of discussing climate change health effects. We argue that the po...

Two notions of accountability embodied in proposals to reform managed care have different ethical implications. Market accountability requires plans to inform purchasers and consumers about performance and options, in theory legitimizing limits to care through consumer choice. Recognizing the limits of consumer choice, accountability for reasonableness requires that the rationales for limits to...

Recognizing the long-standing traditions of democratic consultation at the local level in Botswana and the leading role of ICT (Information and Communication Technology) tools in participation and decision-making processes, this paper focuses on a real-life case study that matches the implementation of an innovative ICT tool that allows citizens to participate in online and offline consultation...