Deliberative democrats have won the legitimacy debate. Democratic theorists now must hold that some form of public deliberation is necessary for legitimacy, or explain why not. Accordingly, current democratic theory is focused on the details of deliberativism: Who deliberates? With whom? For how long? About which questions? By means of what kinds of reasons? These discussions are often highly technical, relying on subtle distinctions among, for example, “reasons all could accept,” “reasons acceptable to all,” and “reasons no one could reject.” This precision is required, though sometimes tedious. Still, a concern lurks: Should it turn out that even modest conceptions of deliberative democracy cannot be implemented, the rigorous theorizing will have been for naught.

One approach to implementation focuses on institutions. Deliberativists propose various innovations, ranging from a new national holiday devoted to deliberation and a fourth “deliberative” branch of government to modest interventions involving media regulations. These proposals have met with criticism. Yet even if their practicability and desirability is conceded, we confront the fact that democracy does not live by institutions alone. There is a different set of implementation issues, issues concerning the political activities of citizens.

Here there is reason for skepticism. If deliberativists hold that democratic decisions are legitimate only if they are preceded by public processes by which citizens offer one another reasons in support of their favored policies, then deliberative democracy proposes an impracticable model of politics. On any consequential political issue, there will be too many reasons to consider and too little time for everyone to speak.

These matters were brought into focus by Robert Goodin (“Deliberative Democracy Within,” Philosophy & Public Affairs 29 [2000]: 81–109), who argued that since it is impossible for each citizen to engage deliberatively with every other citizen, citizens must develop capacities which could enable them to make others “imaginatively present” in deliberation. Goodin held that in order for democracy to be deliberative, citizens must inject into their deliberations the considerations of others whom they can only imagine; only then can deliberative democracy claim to be responsive to the reasons of all citizens.

Goodin's problematic supplies the background to Michael Morrell's book. Morrell contends that deliberative democracy cannot keep its “promise” to “give all citizens equal consideration” unless a suitably developed conception of empathy is introduced into the deliberative process (p. 12). Actually, this way of stating Morrell's thesis is too weak; he intends to go beyond Goodin (pp. 99–100). Morrell holds that empathy provides not a supplement to the usual public reasoning prescribed by deliberative democrats but, rather, a recasting of the entire deliberativist enterprise so that it places empathy “at the heart of deliberation” (p. 128).

Unfortunately, the precise contours of Morrell's reorientation are difficult to discern. This is due mainly to the circuitous route he travels. The book begins with a rudimentary survey of the usual suspects in deliberative democratic theory. Chapter 3 offers a history of the concept of empathy and a description of the model of empathy that Morrell embraces. Chapter 4 returns to the usual suspects, charging each with “ignoring” empathy (p. 67). In Chapter 5, the author concedes that the first 100 pages of his book do not amount to a case for his thesis (p. 101). The remaining 95 pages of text are devoted to arguing that deliberative democracy requires empathetic citizens. Given the boldness of his thesis, it is not surprising that his arguments come up short.

Morrell repeatedly asserts that “democracy needs the process of empathy” (p. 158). What does this mean? Sometimes he says that empathy must be placed at the “heart” of deliberation (pp. 159, 187), elsewhere we are told that deliberative democracy must “take seriously,” “incorporate” (p. 158), and “embody” (p. 189) empathy, or that empathy is “vital” (p. 101) and “necessary” for proper deliberation (p. 126). Sometimes he claims that deliberation must “promote” empathy (p. 169), and other times he says that it must “induce” empathy (p. 181); elsewhere he advocates “empathy training” separate from political contexts (p. 188). These formulations are not obviously equivalent. One wonders what is being asserted.

Morrell's overriding claim is that without a due infusion of empathy, democratic deliberation fails to show each citizen equal concern. As equal concern is a necessary condition for legitimacy, nonempathetic deliberativism is illegitimate. Yet, surprisingly, Morrell offers no detailed discussion of what equal consideration requires. At most, he says that democracy must ensure that “everyone's input receives full consideration” (161). This is stunningly unhelpful. He proceeds as if it were obvious that equal consideration is defeated whenever citizens are subject to the kinds of cognitive biases and blind spots that, according to the empirical data he presents, empathy corrects (p. 126); furthermore, he often suggests that equal consideration requires each citizen to become intimately associated with every other (p. 176). Is that not a reductio?

The author's inattention to what deliberativists say about equal consideration is frustrating. Predominant views explicitly claim that deliberation is required in order to ensure that coercive laws and institutions are supportable by reasons of the right kind, reasons that are acceptable by all as reasons of the kind that states are permitted to recognize. Put otherwise, deliberativists hold that the state gives equal consideration to all of its citizens by treating citizens as equals; and this requires acting only on the basis of reasons that are acceptable to democratic citizens as such. When the state acts on such reasons, it nonetheless coerces its citizens, but it does so in a way that is consistent with equality.

Now, a lot more needs to be said about this model of equal consideration, and it is surely not without difficulties; but Morrell never engages it. Importantly, if this conception of equal consideration is viable, then his argument is irrelevant. Deliberative democratic legitimacy does not require empathy among citizens because legitimacy attaches to coercive acts of the state, not to relations between citizens. All that legitimacy requires is a political process by which democratic decisions can be forced to track reasons of the right kind.

Morrell could contend that the view just sketched should be rejected; however, his book contains no argument against it. Perhaps an argument is readily available. So consider an internal criticism of Morrell's proposal. He indicates that empathy must be instilled by various institutions involving “moderators” (p. 127) and “facilitators” (p. 188). Yet if, as he contends, properly empathetic citizens are necessary for democratic legitimacy (p. 173), then there could be no legitimate decision to create such institutions or appoint such facilitators. Empathy experts must force the rest of us to be free. But how could they? That's another reductio.

Empathetic citizens probably make for better democracy. Yet Morrell presents a more radical and far-reaching thesis. If he is correct, no existing democracy is legitimate, and maybe we must be anarchists until we figure out how to induce the requisite empathy in all citizens. Radical and far-reaching theses call for substantial elaboration and argument, neither of which is present in Empathy and Democracy. This is a book that is half written. A more sustained and precise treatment of these issues would make a most welcome contribution to the deliberative democracy literature.