Epistemic democracy

Epistemic democracy refers to a range of views in political science and philosophy which see the value of democracy as based, at least in part, on its ability to make good or correct decisions. Epistemic democrats believe that the legitimacy or justification of democratic government should not be exclusively based on the intrinsic value of its procedures and how they embody or express values such as fairness, equality, or freedom. Instead, they claim that a political system based on political equality can be expected to make good political decisions, and possibly decisions better than any alternative form of government (e.g., oligarchy, aristocracy, or dictatorship).

Theories of epistemic democracy are therefore concerned with the ability of democratic institutions to do such things as communicate, produce, and utilise knowledge, engage in forms of experimentation, aggregate judgements and solve social problems. Based on such abilities, democracy is said to be able to track some standard of correctness, such as the truth, justice, the common good, or the collective interest. Epistemic democracy as such does not recommend any particular form of democracy – whether it be direct, representative, participatory, or deliberative – and epistemic democrats themselves disagree over such questions. Instead, they are united by a common concern for the epistemic value of inclusive and equal political arrangements. Epistemic democrats are therefore often associated with ideas such as collective intelligence and the wisdom of crowds.

Epistemic (or proto epistemic) arguments for democracy have a long history in political thought and can be found in the work of figures such as Aristotle, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Nicolas de Condorcet, and John Dewey. In contemporary political philosophy and political science, advocates of epistemic democracy include David Estlund, Hélène Landemore, Elizabeth Anderson, Joshua Cohen, Robert Goodin, and Kai Spiekermann.