Democracy is a decision- making procedure in the situation of uncertainty or conflict, in which all members of an association participate with equal value to settle the dispute.

As is indicated above, the subject about which a collective decision should be made can be an uncertain and disputed conception of the good, to which the members of an association have subscribed. The purpose in this case would be the discovery of that common concern. Alternatively, the subject for decision- making can be the conflicting interests, which are pursued by the members of an association. The purpose in this case Would be the aggregation of these conflicting interests.

Put another way, in cases of uncertainty of a conception of the good, which concerns an association, democracy is a decision- making procedure in which all members of the association participate in interpreting the uncertain and disputed conception of the good whit equal eligibility. In this case, democracy opposes guardianship, which restricts the eligibility of the settlement of disputes to a few members who are supposed to innately possess infallible knowledge of the good unattainable by the public. Democracy, by contrast, presupposes that all members of a given association share the modicum of the required capabilities for the interpretation of the disputed conception of the good, notwithstanding their differences in the degree of their possession. Equal value, as a constitutive characteristic of democracy, here means equal eligibility for the settlement of disputes over the conception of the good involved.

As for the cases of conflict among the interests of the members of an association, democracy is a decision- making procedure in which all beneficiaries participate in aggregation of the conflicting interests with equal weight. In this case, democracy is an alternative to dictatorship, which privileges the interests of a few over the interests of the public.

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