Citizen deliberation and a communalist ethics of freedom

Journal article

Unlike many mainstream accounts of deliberation, Kwasi Wiredu offers a distinctly ethical conceptualization that foregrounds a robust accounting of pluralism in understanding the distinctive, general good of deliberation. Wiredu’s account partially emerges from his considerations of an African political geography where the pluralism of high ethnic stratification is structured into all political life. His broader arguments underscore the benefits to Africa and everywhere else of a robust consideration of pluralism and its ethical significance to deliberative understanding. Indeed, developing Wiredu’s arguments corrects a longstanding oversight in much deliberative theory which fails to treat pluralism robustly. Consequently, much mainstream theory misses a crucial, ethical, understanding of deliberation and its distinctive good. Developing Wiredu’s political and moral arguments, the article argues that deliberation fulfils a distinctly ethical function in enabling citizens’ moral consideration of each other and of those interests that are most meaningful to them in ways that are fundamental to the communal fabric of free society. This challenges the dominant justificatory view that sees deliberation predominantly as a means of justifying law and policy. By drawing out the moral and philosophical implications of Wiredu’s arguments, the article argues that the justificatory view fails to account for a normatively coherent understanding of deliberation because it fails, also, at an ethically robust understanding of the kind of difference—and agreement—with which deliberation is concerned. Further, with a field experiment, the article demonstrates that the empirical claim embedded in the justificatory view about the adherence of participants to deliberative decisions lacks support.

Authors: Ṣóyẹmí, ẸÀ

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Journal: Oxford Intersections
• Publication date: 2026-02-14
• Acceptance date: 2025-12-05
• DOI: 10.1093/9780198945246.003.0008
• Language: English
• Keywords: deliberation; deliberative theory; deliberative ethics; democracy; Kwasi Wiredu; freedom; communalism; justification of law and public policy