What is the best definition of the Democratic State?

Question

I would say the Democratic State is the organisation that applies a People's will towards the use of common resources (such as the territory of that People/State). This will has the form of a body of laws and the State ensures that they are applied and they express the will of majority of the people at any given time. This organisation is further described by its above-mentioned law.Can this definition be improved?...As for my opinion and why this discussion:In the wake of high tech transhumanism, prone to shape new social classes and to deepen the difference between their power, I think that the social balance that makes possible peace and real progress for humanity needs that the states become more democratic. Qualitatively speaking. We should consider political science and Law as basic education.Specifically, with these new weapons, who's gonna check on the hi tech military, to ensure they do not do whatever they please?Now, as for political science, I think that separating politics from opinion would take some time. Also, is the effort of defining the very basic notions (multiple ways)...prone to bias? or is it oppinion-flawed? Then what can we stand on?

Answer 1

The first issue is the meaning of democracy. How ‘loaded’ is your concept of democracy? Democracy can mean something like: republicanism, direct participation, or random selection of citizens to fulfill certain roles for designated periods of time.

There’s also the issue of the term ‘people’s will.’ What type of will are you referring to here? The philosophical literature on ‘the will’ is extensive, and it is not clear how you intend to be using that here. You seem to state that the will takes the form of laws, and then contradict this by stating that the law reflects the will. Is the will in the form of law, or is the law representative of the will?

What does ‘more democratic [ ] qualitatively speaking’ mean? How does a system achieve a more democratic state of affairs? We would need to know what you mean by democracy to begin to answer this question.

Finally, if you want to get to the finer levels of philosophy, what is ‘politics’ or ‘knowledge’ outside of the ‘bias’ of the subject that possesses those particular thoughts? And what is ‘the political’ outside of its subjectively constructed ‘bias-prone’ nature?

Now, to answer the question ‘what is the best definition of a democratic state,’ more directly — To decide what the best type of ‘democratic state’ is, we would need to come up with a list of desiderata that we wanted such a democratic state to satisfy. We would need to come up with what it means for an institution (a family, a business, a state, etc.) to be rightfully called democratic.

However, even if we did such a task, we would not be able to answer your latter question on checks on power. The best form of ideal theory government is the ‘benevolent and knowledgeable dictator’ (think Plato). So, in ideal theory the best way to regulate high tech military is likely not democracy, because democracy is prone to multiple points of failure and breakdown. In non-ideal theory, perhaps democracy is best suited to such a task; but that would appear to be an empirical question, not a philosophical one.