"In argumentation theory, an argumentum ad populum (Latin for "appeal to the people") is a fallacious argument which is based on claiming a truth or affirming something is good because the majority thinks so."
> Democracy is not a system of determining truth, it is a system of aggregating preferences.
I agree, but the definition of the fallacy goes:
...claiming a truth *or affirming something is good* because the majority thinks so...
"Aggregating preferences" sounds like "affirming something is good" across some population.
Does that make the main argument for democracy a fallacy? Or is it fallacious that argumentum ad populum is necessarily a fallacy? Or is democracy an exception to the general fallacy? I'm undecided.
I think what's tripping you up here is that democracy makes no guarantee that the majority decision is correct, but rather what they wanted.
You could deconstruct this idea with something I've always struggled in answering-- is the purpose of representative governance to do the right thing or the thing that the majority desires? Take, for example, slavery-- at one point, the majority desired it but in retrospect we can see it was clearly incorrect, so if you elect someone are you asking them to represent your will or what is correct? Most people treat the two as synonyms and indeed in some perfect plane it would be, but it rarely actually is. But that is another dialogue entirely.
So, for now consider that democracy once permitted slavery; to say it was morally correct or similar because it was the will of the majority would be an argument ad populum, but the decision to permit it based on the majority will is not in itself a statement about correctness only that it was the majorities will.
Isn't that the central conceit of democracy?
reply