Deliberation was first conceived from a rationalist intellectual lineage by Jürgen Habermas, who argued that true democratic legitimacy arises when citizens engage in communicative rationality. The theory of communicative rationality argues that when people participate in communication through language for the end of reaching consensus, the process necessarily involves the raising and contestation of “validity claims” [@habermasTheoryCommunicativeAction1985]. Validity claims can be truth—the objective truth value of one’s statement, rightness—the normative acceptableness of a statement within a shared moral framework, and sincerity—whether the statement is genuine [@habermasTheoryCommunicativeAction1985]. Through iteration of this process, Habermas argues that consensus can emerge through the rational testing of validity claims, and the eventual convergence of the participants towards what is most true or justifiable [@habermasTheoryCommunicativeAction1985]. This stands in contrast to instrumental or strategic rationality, where an action or statement is rationalized for the end of a private goal.
In practice however, it is unclear whether the Habermasian assumptions of the participants’ rational capacities stand. Existing research on how individuals reason suggest that people are subject to taking information shortcuts or heuristics—making decisions or forming opinions without processing all available information through party identification, group affiliation, personal ideology, and other cues [@lauAdvantagesDisadvantagesCognitive2001]. While this helps with cognitive efficiency, bounded rationality in a deliberation setting can undermine the idealized deliberative environment that guarantees rational consensus. In fact, lab studies have revealed that deliberation can lead to participants making decisions in conflict to not only expert opinion, but also their own opinions, which results in regret post-deliberation [@wilsonThinkingTooMuch1991].
Scholars argue that the emphasis on rational argumentation systematically favors privileged groups who are most comfortable with formal, reason-based discourse.
The consensus-seeking aspect of deliberation has also drawn significant criticism. In small group settings, Sunstein has found that deliberation tends to steer groups towards a point that is more extreme than what participants’ individual predeliberation judgments were, but in the same direction [@sunsteinLawGroupPolarization]. Overall, the rarity with which consensus is achieved in real-world deliberation suggests that rationalist deliberation may be too idealized to be feasible in practice.
Moreover, scholars have criticized the rationalistic bias of studies relying only on reasoned arguments, arguing that other forms of speech such as testimony or narratives are legitimate and frequently used in group discussions.
Researchers have found three conditions that motivate individuals to adopt a deliberative frame of mind: accountability, high stakes, and diversity. These three can be summarized as the psychological assessment of self in relation to other people or to one’s environment. Researchers argue that rational discourse is not in line with facilitating these three conditions, but storytelling is. As Fisher puts it, ““the idea of humans as storytellers indicates the general form of all symbol composition: it holds that symbols are created and communicated ultimately as stories meant to give order to human experience and to induce others to dwell in them to establish ways of living in common, in communities…”” (Ryfe, 2005, p. 58)
With any given topic for deliberation then, the richest unit of data may be the human experience regarding the topic. And this rich unit of data is what drives individuals to face the uncomfortable but constructive process of reflecting oneself in relation to others or to one’s environment. With this concept in mind…(something along the lines of, say for UAM, it would be “what is your experience with public transportation?“)