A Plurality Atlas

Who is Danielle Allen?

An American political philosopher and professor at Harvard University. She wrote about the idea of a "connected society", in which people form ties across their differences, and the book *Plurality* links one of the three pillars of Plurality to this idea. She leads the research network GETTING-Plurality.

Open the chapter of Plurality that explains "what is Plurality", and you find three names side by side: the philosopher Hannah Arendt, Audrey Tang, and this person. For the answer to the question of why we should make use of diversity, the book turns to this person's ideas.

In short

Danielle Allen is an American political philosopher and a professor at Harvard University [1]. She wrote about the idea of a "Connected Society", which holds up as an ideal a society in which ties between people are actively formed across differences. Plurality links the pillar of Plurality that concerns why we should make use of diversity (the normative pillar) to Allen's ideas [2].

Connection with Plurality

A pillar of the definition of Plurality. Chapter 3-0 of the book breaks Plurality into three components — "descriptive", "normative" and "prescriptive" — and associates each with Arendt, Allen and Tang respectively. The normative component reads: "Diversity is the fuel of social progress and while it may explode like any fuel (into conflict), societies succeed largely to the extent they manage to instead harness its potential energy for growth." The book writes: "We identify this concept with philosopher Danielle Allen's ideal of 'A Connected Society'" [2]. The chapter opens with a passage from Allen: "(A)n ideal of 'social connectedness'...denotes a society where bridging ties, across lines of difference are formed at a high rate" [2]. → ⿻ Plurality

An endorsement. Allen appears among the endorsements at the front of the book as a "political philosopher, James Bryan Conant University Professor at Harvard, MacArthur Fellow" [1].

Citations in the book. Chapter 4-0 cites Allen's Justice by Means of Democracy (2023) to explain the link between rights and democracy: "government cannot respond to the 'will of the people' if their will cannot be safely and freely expressed" [3]. Chapter 5-5 presents a white paper by Allen and colleagues on a new system of badges for recognizing learning as "one of the most promising directions" [4]. Chapter 5-7 cites Allen's proposal that "migration could be conditioned upon endorsement or support from one or more civil society groups in the receiving country" [5].

GETTING-Plurality. In March 2023, Harvard University's ethics center announced the launch of a research network called "GETTING-Plurality". It studies how to make technology support democracy and public goods, starting from the premise that human intelligence (and perhaps AI too) is not one but many. According to the announcement, Allen leads the network, and Glen Weyl and others take part [6].

Co-writing with Weyl. In January 2024, Allen and Weyl wrote a piece on two threats that generative AI poses to democracy [7]. → Generative foundation models

Key ideas

Power-sharing liberalism. This is the idea set out in Justice by Means of Democracy. In an interview with Harvard University's news publication, Allen said it matters that everyone can have power both in private life and in the spaces we govern together, and that this requires a balance among work, life and activity as a citizen [8]. A 2025 co-authored paper applies this idea to the governance of AI, describing AI governance not as passive regulation but as a positive program that advances human flourishing [9]. It connects to the book's idea of the rights operating system.

Three paths for AI. In 2025, Allen set out, as her lab's view, that there are three paths for governing AI: "accelerationism", "effective altruism" and "pluralism". She writes that if the United States wants to win the AI race while remaining a society of free and equal citizens, it should choose the third, pluralism: a direction that, rather than replacing human intelligence, complements and extends humans' many intelligences with many machine intelligences [10]. According to a report on a lecture in Paris the same year, Allen named "Plurality, or digital democracy" as the third option [11]. This corresponds to the map of the book's three paths.

A connected society. An ideal that values bridging ties across differences. The book uses it as a foundation for collaboration across difference [2].

Further reading

  1. Plurality, 3-0 "What is ⿻?" (English, book) — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/3-0/eng/
  2. "A roadmap for governing AI" (English, paper, 2025, CC BY) — https://doi.org/10.1007/s43681-024-00635-y
  3. Harvard Gazette, "Danielle Allen thinks our democracy needs renovation" (English, article, 2023) — https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/05/danielle-allen-thinks-our-democracy-needs-renovation/
  4. Harvard Gazette, "How to regulate AI" (English, article, 2025; Allen's section "Choosing path of pluralism") — https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2025/09/how-to-regulate-artificial-intelligence-ai/
  5. Sunji Lee's review of Justice by Means of Democracy (in Japanese, review) — https://note.com/chic_borage2648/n/n36443feaf466

Sources

  1. Plurality, endorsements — https://www.plurality.net/
  2. Plurality, 3-0 "What is ⿻?" — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/3-0/eng/ ［CC0］
  3. Plurality, 4-0 "Rights, Operating Systems and ⿻ Freedom" — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/4-0/eng/ ［CC0］
  4. Plurality, 5-5 "Adaptive Administration" — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/5-5/eng/ ［CC0］
  5. Plurality, 5-7 "Social Markets" — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/5-7/eng/ ［CC0］
  6. Harvard Gazette, "Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics launches research network" (2023-03-20) — https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/newsplus/edmond-lily-safra-center-for-ethics-launches-research-network/
  7. Allen and Weyl, "The Real Dangers of Generative AI" (Journal of Democracy, 2024) — https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/the-real-dangers-of-generative-ai/
  8. Harvard Gazette, "Danielle Allen thinks our democracy needs renovation" (2023-05-26) — https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/05/danielle-allen-thinks-our-democracy-needs-renovation/
  9. "A roadmap for governing AI: technology governance and power-sharing liberalism" (AI and Ethics, 2025) — https://doi.org/10.1007/s43681-024-00635-y ［CC BY 4.0］
  10. Harvard Gazette, "How to regulate AI", section "Choosing path of pluralism" (2025-09-08) — https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2025/09/how-to-regulate-artificial-intelligence-ai/
  11. Ash Center, "A Time for Choosing: Danielle Allen on What Comes After DOGE" (2025-02-07) — https://ash.harvard.edu/articles/a-time-for-choosing-danielle-allen-on-what-comes-after-doge/
Related: What is ⿻ Plurality? ・ What is collaboration across social difference? ・ What is the rights operating system? ・ What are the "three paths"? ・ What are generative foundation models (GFMs)? ・ Who is E. Glen Weyl?

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