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The differences of opinion, and the jarring of parties in [the legislative] department of the government... often promote deliberation and circumspection, and serve to check excesses in the majority.
In everyday life the exchange of opinion with others checks our partiality and widens our perspective; we are made to see things from their standpoint and the limits of our vision are brought home to us.... The benefits from discussion lie in the fact that even representative legislators are limited in knowledge and the ability to reason. No one of them knows everything the others know, or can make all the same inferences that they can draw in concert. Discussion is a way of combining information and enlarging the range of arguments.
Each person can share what he or she knows with the others, making the whole at least equal to the sum of the parts. Unfortunately, this is often not what happens ....
... As polarization gets underway, the group members become more reluctant to bring up items of information they have about the subject that might contradict the emerging group consensus. The result is a biased discussion in which the group has no opportunity to consider all the facts, because the members are not bringing them up.
... Each item they contributed would thus reinforce the march toward group consensus rather than add complications and fuel debate.
I. 1 INTRODUCTION
Consider the following events:
Affirmative action is under attack in the state of Texas. A number of professors at a particular branch of the University of Texas are inclined to be supportive of affirmative action; they meet to exchange views and, if necessary, to plan further action. What are these professors likely to think, and to do, after they talk?
After a nationally publicized shooting at a high school, a group of people in the community, most of them tentatively in favor of greater gun control, come together to discuss the possibility of imposing new gun control measures. What, if anything, will happen to individual views as a result of this discussion?
A jury is deciding on an appropriate punitive damage award in a case of recklessly negligent behavior by a large company; the behavior resulted in a serious injury to a small child....