An act is arbitrary when chosen without tracking affected parties’ interests

Evidence

The idea of contestability gives us a cue for the right response to our question. What might enable one of us to own a public decision? What might make it possible for such a decision not to have the aspect of an arbitrary act of interference? The answer which suggests itself is: the fact that we can more or less effectively contest the decision, if we find that it does not answer to our relevant interests or relevant ideas. The decision may materialize, like most public decisions, on a basis that is consensual only in a vanishingly weak sense. That does not matter, provided that it materializes under a dispensation of effective contestability. The non-arbitrariness of public decisions comes of their meeting, not the condition of having originated or emerged according to some consensual process, but the condition of being such that if they conflict with the perceived interests and ideas of the citizens, then the citizens can effectively contest them. What matters is not the historical origin of the decisions in some form of consent but their modal or counterfactual responsiveness to the possibility of contestation. — Philip Pettit, Republicanism, 839 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Arbitrariness concerns the controls on an act, not its consequences; Non-arbitrary governance needs contestability rather than actual consent — Philip Pettit, Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and…, 839; Republicans held that subjection to another’s arbitrary will itself constitutes unfreedom — Philip Pettit, Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and…, 1209 (+3 more)

Related

• Non-arbitrary governance needs contestability rather than actual consent (similarity 0.89)
• Arbitrary interference ignores the affected parties’ own interests and opinions (similarity 0.83)
• Arbitrariness concerns the controls on an act, not its consequences (similarity 0.80)
• Legitimacy of state power rests on contestability, not actual consent (similarity 0.80)
• Laws should be selected through contest and testing rather than consensual design (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Non-arbitrary governance needs contestability rather than actual consent #expands (0.78) — Philip Pettit, Republicanism, 839