Legitimacy, Authority, and Democratic Duties of Explanation

Understand

Increasingly secret, complex and inscrutable computational systems are being used to intensify existing power relations and to create new ones; in particular, they are being used to govern.

• To be all-things-considered morally permissible new, or newly intense, power relations must meet standards of procedural legitimacy and proper authority.
• This is necessary for them to protect and realise democratic values of individual liberty, relational equality, and collective self-determination.
• For governing power in particular to be legitimate and have proper authority, it must meet a publicity requirement: reasonably competent members of the governed community must be able to determine that they are being governed legitimately and with proper authority.