Imagining Other Lives

Abstract

In his recent book Reflective Democracy, Robert Goodin argues that ‘external-collaborative’ models of democratic deliberation procedures need to be supplemented by ‘internal-reflective’ deliberation. The exercise of the moral imagination plays a central role in Goodin's account of ‘democratic deliberation within’. By imaginatively putting ourselves in the place of a range of different others, he argues, including those who may not be able to represent their own interests, we can make their points of view ‘communicatively present’ in deliberation. Goodin's argument emphasises the role of art and other forms of cultural representation in helping to bring about this expansion of moral imagination. Drawing on debates in philosophy of mind concerning the cope and limits of our capacities to simulate other minds, I argue that Goodin's analysis of ‘democratic deliberation within’ conflates different kinds of imaginative project. In doing so, it underestimates both the difficulties of imaginatively putting ourselves in the place of others and the political risks of doing so. I argue, alternatively, that moral engagement with others involves the capacity for sympathy and that art and other forms of cultural representation can enlarge the cope of our sympathies by assisting us to overcome imaginative resistance to alien points of view. In developing this argument, I provide a qualified defence of Iris Young's claim that respect for others involves ‘asymmetrical reciprocity’.