Max – You say that “a moral reason rests on a moral standard or value, not an opinion poll” and that legislators should “act on principle”.

But you don’t clearly identify what is the foundation or origin of these moral standards and principles. How does the legislator know when he/she has tuned into the “right” standard or principle?

By virtue of the fact that they have been elected to parliament, does that somehow endow them with a moral sense that others don’t have?

Indeed, is there any absolute moral standard? If so where has it come from and how can it be irrefutably ascertained?

I'm afraid this article is just a bit too slick for me. Any politician will take notice of public opinion and polling is useful for determining what that opinion is. Not to take notice of the people's views risks running too far ahead of the population on an issue and perhaps delaying a useful reform for years. So, good government is not a choice between opinion polls and moral principle. It is a matter of balancing the competing interests and views in a democratic society.

The second point I'd make is that governments have a responsibility to encourage moral independence in their citizens. Sadly, we are now in an age when individual moral choices are increasingly subject to government or statutory authority regulation. Plain cigarette packaging, various attacks on so-called 'junk food' and attempts to put a floor price on alcohol are all examples of governments weakening the moral independence of the citizenry, thereby inhibiting individuals from understanding the difference between right and wrong. If you want an insight into the London riots, this is a good place to start.

Finally, using this shaky understanding of democracy to have a shot at Tony Abbott really says all we need to know.

Democracy *IS* nothing but a system where the public rule.
And that is fine.

After all, what sounds more just?

1- a system where the majority (at least 51%) of the people decide unto themselves (including those who disagree) what system they are to be subjected to- accepting that they also live within their own prejudices and must pay for every bad idea they come up with.

2- a system where the entire sum of the people are forced to obey whoever happens to be in charge, and be forced to live their lives in accordance to what the people in their governments and courts BELIEVE they aught to behaving. As such it has given us the 'moral' laws that abortion, euthanasia and gay marriage are illegal (surprise!), that we should have chaplains, compulsory religious brainwashing (Scripture classes) in schools, owning a water tank as a crime until the last decade, the privatization of Telstra- the APEC meeting, WYD- do you want me to continue?

Even at the very worst comparison- 51% bullying 49% is better than 50 people bullying 22 million, wouldn't you agree?
The only differences are that some people like to believe in complete myths that because a person got a government position- that this was granted because they are 'wise' or 'sensible'.

Of course- it also occurs because some people don't like it when everybody doesn't want to play to their personal beliefs, and feels that a like-minded authority aught to force them to.

So there you have it.

The public must be wrong if the academics think differently. What rubbish.

No wonder we are getting sick of paying these self righteous people who want to dictate to us, their employers.

Mark, when everyone is marching to as different drum, it is highly likely you have the one who has it wrong.

Tony wasn't just "passing the buck back to us, under a simplistic slogan that the public is ‘sovereign’ when he said ‘In Australia the people are sovereign’." He was seeking support from a partisan view about a debate around science, while also elevating that partisan view.

So, it is more narrow than ‘populism’. It is the 'speculative fallacy'. Yes, it is with little regard for the public interest.

Max that is well said. However you have not taken your conclusion as far as your reasoning has justified.

You have demonstrated that democracy is an unsalvageably immoral arrangement.

If 12 men and one woman vote to have sex, and the men vote for, and the woman votes against, so they use force, that doesn’t mean it’s okay, and it doesn’t mean it’s not rape. And it wouldn’t make any difference to the *moral* conclusion if there were 100 men, or two, or if the majority had claimed or exercised a prerogative to legalise it.

That being so, it is impossible to see how the moral case for democracy is in any better position. In terms of the logic of human action, legal or illegal rape or robbery are indistinguishable.

“But” people say “Did not Churchill say democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the other forms?”

But that is to misunderstand the issue, which is whether a moral or immoral way of social action is preferable. The question is not, given that many immoral persons choose government as their instrument of bullying (since it is safer for them), how best to secure its continuance?

While it is true that for the use of force - policy - to be moral, there must be recourse to values or principles over and above majority opinion, it is no solution for politicians to appeal to vague unspecified “community values” which would only take the matter back to the original problem.

The solution cannot lie in any kind of assertion by politicians that they represent the common good, because:
a) there is no evidence for the common assumption that politicians or governments represent the majority or "community values"
http://economics.org.au/2010/08/unrepresentative-government/ ;
b) even if they did, that does not justify a conclusion that they stand for the greater good, since the majority may be wrong or ignorant or immoral, just as much as the minority ;
c) nor does it justify asserting that legislators represent the common good, because the good cannot be ascertained in common:
http://economics.org.au/2011/08/government-is-criminal-part-3-subjective-utility/ .