So the UK has voted for Brexit. That's the will of the people! There has been much written and spoken on the outcome of the referendum and I have no wish to continue that specific debate in this post. However, the Brexit issue has prompted me to concentrate my recent thinking on the role of referenda generally within the nation's governance. In particular, are we as citizens adequately qualified to make sensible judgements on highly complex socio-economic problems?
Let's take a look at the issue of competence and the role of experts. There's something rather quaint about making decisions on important issues by combining the expertise of 'experts' with the pragmatism of 'the people'. The justice system for determining guilt or innocence is a classic example. Richard Dawkins in his essay "Trial by Jury", questions why in a court of law, twelve jurors selected from 'ordinary people' are preferred to a single 'expert' judge when determining important verdicts affecting people's lives. From his logical analysis, he concludes:
"And should I be charged with a serious crime, here's how I want to be tried. If I know myself to be guilty, I'll go with the loose cannon of a jury, the more ignorant, prejudiced and capricious the better. But if I am innocent........, please give me a judge."
Basically, Dawkins argues that better judgements are likely to be achieved by an 'expert' judge than by a collection of well-intentioned, but collectively influenced, 'amateur' jurors. In fact, he goes further to suggest that multiple and independent judges might provide an even more reliable verdict. That seems to make sense to an amateur like me! " Trial by Jury" is one of the essays included in Richard Dawkins' book, "A Devil's Chaplain", published in 2003 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Devil's_Chaplain. It is a good read and I recommend it to the enquiring reader.
Let's extend Dawkins' reasoning to referenda. Why should a slight majority verdict of a sample of the voting public (they don't all vote) produce a better decision than a consensus of independent experts? I ask this rhetorical question in good faith particularly when the outcomes of so many referenda are rarely resounding YESs or resounding NOs, which begs yet another rhetorical question, why not just toss a coin and save the vast expenditure of an ineffective (in my opinion) democratic process? I am really not intending to be flippant. I have a genuine concern about the validity of any decision-making process that purports to produce a simple one-dimensional answer from a multi-dimensional complex problem, particularly when the process is so often underpinned by a plethora of at best inaccurate, and at worst false, arguments.
I am not intending to rubbish our political processes but merely suggesting that some highly complex issues are definitely not for the uninitiated but should perhaps be left to our democratically elected institutions. Indeed, why not entrust major decisions to elected MPs, guided by cross-party select committees and drawing on the expertise of suitably qualified experts, within and outside government? I thought that's what parliamentary democracy was all about!
Whether something is right or wrong is a matter of judgement, whether it is correct or incorrect will become apparent in time.
