Epistemic democracy

Despite its many attractions, democracy has a number of criticisms. The classical concerns relate to the problem of disproportionate representation, such as tyranny of the majority, the suppression of minority rights, and the problem of factions. Other critics present consequentialist arguments: what if the outcome of a democratic procedure is not ultimately good for society? In a system that is self-governed, what if the ignorance and evilness of the masses results in the voluntary election of corrupted leaders who choose immoral policies based on incorrect scientific evidence? The field of epistemic democracy is born out of these concerns, and offers a positive vision for the ability of the people to know their preferences, values, and the facts that will lead them toward realizing their vision of a truly good society. There are two dimensions to epistemic democracy: the people (a) are aware of the outcomes of their actions and (b) have the capacity and knowledge to attain those outcomes.

A democratic society “may be said to be ‘epistemic’ to the degree to which it employs collective wisdom to make good policy.” Part of the notion of “collective wisdom” is born out of Ancient Athens wherein Aristotle argued that the wisdom of the multitude was an essential ingredient for democracy. The diversity of lived experiences was seen to be essential for proper law making and governing. However, as in other fields of political theory (and other discourses for that matter), different authors mean different things when they use identical words.

Josh Cohen is accredited to coining the term “epistemic democracy” to refer to the “the importance to the populist of ensuring that the basic institutions that provide the framework for political deliberation are such that outcomes tend to advance the common good.” His three main elements of an epistemic interpretation of voting are:

1. An independent standard of correct decisions (the general or popular will that is an account of the common good)
2. A cognitive account f voting (voting expresses a belief about what the correct outcome is rather than just personal preference)
3. An account of decision making as an adjustment of beliefs should evidence that requires adjustment arise.

Cohen's populist account of epistemic processes and outcomes maintains that majorities and institutional arrangements do in fact provide sound evidence of the general will. Further, this also lends “legitimacy to the outcomes. The populist does not simply want procedures that in fact produce outcomes that are more likely to be correct than alternative procedures-that is, procedures that are in fact reliable apart from their legitimacy effects. It should also be manifest that they have the property of producing good outcomes. That is, the populist wants procedures that are reliable, and that citizens have reason to expect to be reliable as well.”

Christian List and Robert Goodin maintain that “for epistemic democrats, the aim of democracy is to ‘track the truth.’” For them, democracy is more desirable than alternative forms of decision-making because, and insofar as, it does that. One democratic decision rule is more desirable than another according to that same standard.” In contrast, “procedural democrats” hold that the “aim of democracy is to embody certain procedural virtues…. Democracy is not about tracking any ‘independent truth of the matter’; instead, the goodness or rightness of an outcome is wholly constituted by the fact of its having emerged in some procedurally correct manner” such as through voting or deliberation. Fabienne Peter, for example offers a conception of epistemc proceduralism that does not depend on a procedure-independent standard for a good outcome. Instead, a decision is legitimate “if it is the outcome of a process that satisfies certain conditions of political and epistemic fairness.”

David Estlund argues that we do not even need a strong justification of “epistemic proceduralism.” Rather, all that is needed is to show why it is better than the alternatives. Estlund argues that pure epistocracies are problematic because there is most likely a “biasing features of the educated group… which do more harm than education does good.” In the US this can be seen in the income and racial inequality that leads to imperfect meritocratic systems that produces those with greater money with the highest education. Estlund uses the case of jury systems to show that original authority can be drawn from an epistemic proceduralist account grounded in normative consent. For him, democracy has no normative authority unless it has a minimal epistemic threshold, which he sets at “better than random” (as in majority rule, better than just 51% of the vote). Cohen and Estlund’s accounts hold that the common will and values can be knowable in society through democracy.

Elizabeth Anderson endorses the “Dewey experimentalist account of democracy,” arguing that “interaction of voting with discussion” and “periodic elections and protests” are key to preventing those deemed “uneducated” out of the decision-making process. She worries about special interest groups dominating the “knowledge market” and argues that some combination of “votes and talk rather than prices are the appropriate form of information to which states should be responsive.” The strength of Dewey’s model lies in that “democratic decision-making [is] the joint exercise of practical intelligence by citizens at large, in interaction with their representatives and other state officials. It is cooperative social experimentation.” This best reflects the powers of “diversity, discussion, and dynamism.” Society as a diverse collection of individuals can only best arrive at a decision when all those of different walks of life and who have experienced different problems and policies of public interest can situate their knowledge towards solving the complex problems of modern democracies. Anderson, as well as Shapiro, hold great skepticism towards the idea of consensus offering proof of knowledge. What is at stake is the loss of a challenging disagreement that, when done correctly, can only perfect the account being given.

Michael Feurstein poses more skepticism than Anderson about the ability of the people to determine epistemic outcomes for society, relying instead more on aristocratic guidance. He endorses a system of what he calls “democratic epistemology” wherein the “social character of political knowledge” is integral. The “social-epistemic perspective” reveals that democracy is the best way to produce well-informed policy. He posits that the knowledge of politics is distinct from individualist knowledge. Political knowledge is more complex, requiring knowledge of the effects of social organization as well as individual experiences in isolation. He argues thus that “a social-epistemic perspective allows us to see that the type and degree of epistemic competence required of any individual, with respect to some body of knowledge is distributed across the community of inquirers in which the individual is embedded as well as where within that distribution the individual fails.” For example, “a community of mediocre scientists, well distributed throughout the natural sciences, is likely to be more epistemically successful than one full of brilliant scientists who are all doing physics.”

Helene Landemore examines this concept more rigorously by offering an account of “democratic reason” wherein the “phenomenon of collective intelligence” is key to good decision making. Public reason offers cognitive diversity, or “the variety of mental tools that human beings used to solve problems or make predictions in the world.” Using social science evidence, she argues that majority rule and deliberation are complementary procedures and that representative government can accommodate these goals. She combines the epistemic and procedural perspectives of facts and values as well, claiming that democracies are the best of the alternative systems to producing good outcomes, again compared with an independent standard that focuses on the idea of collective intelligence. The cultivation of a diverse array of different viewpoints, experiences, and expressions is essential for her epistemic argument for democracy. Landemore’s text contains more empirical evidence for the phenomenon of collective intelligence, which then necessitates deliberation to include as many groups as possible. As a result, there is less of a role of the “expert” because this is epistemically and empirically shown to not be able to represent or express the full array of knowledge present in society. At the end of deliberation, when consensus and decision by interpretation fail to occur, voting is used.