INTRODUCTION

It seems reasonable and logical to start a discussion on democracy with a discussion on why democracy is important. There are many well-established justifications of democracy, but I will present the case that a compelling justification of democratic decision-making is that it cultivates autonomy more equally than any other form of decision-making. The argument, then, is that autonomy is the normative core of democracy because they are intrinsically linked concepts, as they both aim to achieve equal self-determination; furthermore, autonomy has also been a central theoretical and practical aim of liberal democracy. This means that it is fair to judge liberal democracies by how well they cultivate their citizens' autonomy.

In order to completely establish autonomy as the normative core of democracy, it would be necessary to directly compare it with the alternative justifications, and demonstrate that it captures this normative core more accurately than these other justifications. However, that would entail a book in itself. Consequently, I will concentrate on putting forward, and defending, the autonomy justification of democracy. Furthermore, it will be asserted that other values, that are rightly, related to democracy, are only contingently related, where as autonomy can only be preserved by democracy. Connecting democracy and autonomy is not a new idea, but a democracy is a form of political organisation through which collective decisions are made, and as such, it is the form of decision-making that is my concern here, not the extent or scope of decisions (although this is undoubtedly a vital concern in relation to autonomy).