There are both instrumental and intrinsic reasons to value democracy. In short, democracy is valuable instrumentally because:
(1) democracy can assist us in producing laws and policies that protect the rights and interests of citizens,
(2) democracy more often than other systems produces the right laws and policies (there are epistemic benefits to democratic decision-making), and
(3) democracy can improve the people in it through increased autonomy and knowledge (Christiano and Bajaj, 2022).
Intrinsic reasons to value democracy include self-governance and liberty, the value of public justification and deliberation, and the promotion of equality. We take each of these valuable aspects in turn.