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Journal articles on the topic 'Epistocracy'

Author: Grafiati

Published: 4 June 2021

Last updated: 29 March 2025

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1

Min, John B. "Epistocracy and democratic epistemology." Politics in Central Europe 11, no. 1 (April 1, 2015): 91–112. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/pce-2015-0005.

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Abstract Epistocracy, the rule by the experts or educated, poses a significant challenge to authentic democratic rule. Epistocrats typically reason from the premise, “experts have knowledge of political truths” to the conclusion, “experts should have the authority to rule.” There may be powerful moral reasons for thinking that the inference is fallacious. Invoking a public reason standard of acceptability, David Estlund makes a powerful argument of this sort. I argue that Estlund’s argument against epistocracy overlooks democratic epistemology, which can and should be utilized to strengthen the epistemic merits of a democratic rule. I therefore examine whether democratic democracy’s epistemic value can rest on a formal epistemic model. The inadequacy of the formal epistemic model leads us to defend democratic epistemology differently. This will be defended in two ways. The first step will be to cast doubt into the epistemic merits of expert rule in two ways. First, experts sometimes do not have access to privileged information of citizens who bear the consequences of expert decisions. Second, experts themselves can be biased. I argue that democratic deliberation can offset those two disadvantages of expert rule. The second step will be to examine the epistemic values of inclusive democratic rule.

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2

Gibbons, Adam F. "Epistocracy and the Problem of Political Capture." Public Affairs Quarterly 39, no. 1 (January 1, 2025): 19–42. https://doi.org/10.5406/21520542.39.1.02.

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Abstract Concerned about the harmful effects of pervasive political ignorance, epistocrats argue that we should amplify the political power of politically knowledgeable citizens. But their proposals have been widely criticized on the grounds that they are susceptible to manipulation and abuse. Instead of empowering the knowledgeable, incumbents who control epistocratic institutions are likely to selectively empower their supporters, thereby increasing their share of power. Call this the problem of political capture. In this paper, I argue for two claims. First, I claim that the problem of political capture for epistocracy has been overstated. Incumbents who want to increase their share of power will encounter certain obstacles that complicate the task of capturing the system. Second, however, I claim that if the problem is nevertheless sufficiently serious, it militates against not just epistocracy, but also many other institutions. The problem of political capture is thus far wider than typically recognized.

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3

Gunn, Paul. "Against Epistocracy." Critical Review 31, no. 1 (January 2, 2019): 26–82. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08913811.2019.1609842.

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4

Moraro, Piero. "Against Epistocracy." Social Theory and Practice 44, no. 2 (2018): 199–216. http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/soctheorpract20185835.

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Jason Brennan has argued that democracy is intrinsically unjust, for it grants voting power to politically incompetent individuals, thus exposing people to an undue risk of harm. He claims democracy should be replaced by epistocracy, i.e., the rule of the knowers. In this paper, I show that his argument fails. First, Brennan mistakes voters’ competence for voters’ trustworthiness. Second, despite Brennan's claim to the contrary, an epistocracy may not reduce people’s exposure to an undue risk of harm. Third, Brennan overlooks the fact that citizens are not equally affected by ‘bad voting.’ Fourth, far from being a defence of libertarian ideals, Brennan's argument supports paternalism.

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Blunt, Gwilym David. "The case for epistocratic republicanism." Politics 40, no. 3 (November 22, 2019): 363–76. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0263395719889563.

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In recent years, the fortunes of democracy have waned both in theory and practice. This has added impetus not only to the republican case for strengthening democratic institutions but also to new anti-democratic thought. This article examines the claim made by Jason Brennan that epistocracy, rule by the ‘knowledgeable’, is compatible with freedom from domination. It begins by briefly explaining epistocracy and republicanism. It then presents the argument for epistocratic republicanism: that democracy can be a source of domination and that freedom from domination can be secured through non-democratic political institutions. The case against epistocratic republicanism is grounded in concerns about systemic domination and the ability of epistocrats to arbitrarily set the terms of social cooperation. These two arguments are judged on the basis of which better minimises domination while respecting its value to all people. Epistocratic republicanism is found to be less reliable because of the risks of epistemic injustice that accompanies systemic domination; democracy, accompanied by other republican institutions, is better at minimising domination and respecting persons. It concludes that republicans ought to be democrats.

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Van der Haak, Donovan. "The Incompatibility of Moral Relativism and Brennan’s Argument for Epistocracy." Politikon: The IAPSS Journal of Political Science 54 (September 30, 2022): 22–38. http://dx.doi.org/10.22151/politikon.54.2.

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In Against Democracy, Brennan argues in favor of restricting suffrage, proposing epistocracy. He argues political power should not be held by incompetent and morally unreasonable people (i.e., the competence principle) and that epistocracy would create more just outcomes than democracy. However, Brennan assumes his argument is compatible with different meta-ethical frameworks. In this article, I examine the extent to which his argument is challenged by meta-ethical moral relativism, aiming to answer the following central research question: what are the repercussions of meta-ethical moral relativism for Brennan’s use of the competence principle and the creation of just outcomes as an argument in favor of epistocracy over democracy? I argue that democracy better satisfies Brennan’s own principles compared to epistocracy, for the epistocratic reliance on experts renders epistocracy inherently incapable of collecting sufficient information about moral facts from the right voting population.

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7

Marrone, Pierpaolo. "Epistemic Democracy and Technopolitics." International Journal of Technoethics 13, no. 1 (January 2022): 1–14. http://dx.doi.org/10.4018/ijt.291551.

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In this article I examine the structure of four deliberative models: epistemic democracy, epistocracy, dystopic algocracy, and utopian algocracy. Epistocracy and algocracy (which in its two versions is an extremization of epistocracy) represent a challenge to the alleged epistemic superiority of democracy: epistocracy for its emphasis on the role of experts; algocracy for its emphasis on technique as a cognitively and ethically superior tool. In the concluding remarks I will advance the thesis that these challenges can only be answered by emphasizing the value of citizens’ political participation, which can also represent both an increase in their cognitive abilities and a value for public ethics.

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8

Hannon, Michael. "Are knowledgeable voters better voters?" Politics, Philosophy & Economics 21, no. 1 (January 10, 2022): 29–54. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1470594x211065080.

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It is widely believed that democracies require knowledgeable citizens to function well. But the most politically knowledgeable individuals tend to be the most partisan and the strength of partisan identity tends to corrupt political thinking. This creates a conundrum. On the one hand, an informed citizenry is allegedly necessary for a democracy to flourish. On the other hand, the most knowledgeable and passionate voters are also the most likely to think in corrupted, biased ways. What to do? This paper examines this tension and draws out several lessons. First, it is not obvious that more knowledgeable voters will make better political decisions. Second, attempts to remedy voter ignorance are problematic because partisans tend to become more polarized when they acquire more information. Third, solutions to citizen incompetence must focus on the intellectual virtue of objectivity. Fourth, some forms of epistocracy are troubling, in part, because they would increase the political power of the most dogmatic and biased individuals. Fifth, a highly restrictive form of epistocracy may escape the problem of political dogmatism, but epistocrats may face a steeper tradeoff between inclusivity and epistemic virtue than they would like.

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9

Hédoin, Cyril. "Liberal Perfectionism and Epistocracy." Public Affairs Quarterly 37, no. 4 (October 1, 2023): 307–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.5406/21520542.37.4.01.

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Abstract This essay explores the possible justification that liberal perfectionism may provide to an epistocratic regime. I suggest that epistocratic mechanisms and rules can maintain and improve epistemic autonomy, which itself contributes to the form of personal autonomy to which perfectionists grant a moral priority. Though not decisive, I claim that the Perfectionist Argument for Epistocracy partially justifies epistocracy. Because this argument is developed in the context of liberal social forms, this indicates the conceptual possibility of liberal epistocracy.

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10

Jeffrey, Anne. "LIMITED EPISTOCRACY AND POLITICAL INCLUSION." Episteme 15, no. 4 (April 20, 2017): 412–32. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/epi.2017.8.

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ABSTRACTIn this paper I defend a form of epistocracy I call limited epistocracy – rule by institutions housing expertise in non-political areas that become politically relevant. This kind of limited epistocracy, I argue, isn't a far-off fiction. With increasing frequency, governments are outsourcing political power to expert institutions to solve urgent, multidimensional problems because they outperform ordinary democratic decision-making. I consider the objection that limited epistocracy, while more effective than its competitors, lacks a fundamental intrinsic value that its competitors have; namely, political inclusion. After explaining this challenge, I suggest that limited epistocracies can be made compatible with robust political inclusion if specialized institutions are confined to issuing directives that give citizens multiple actionable options. I explain how this safeguards citizens’ inclusion through rational deliberation, choice, and contestation.

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Gunn, Paul. "Democracy and Epistocracy." Critical Review 26, no. 1-2 (April 3, 2014): 59–79. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08913811.2014.907041.

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Madsen, Tine Hindkjaer. "Civil Disobedience, Epistocracy, and the Question of whether Superior Political Judgment Defeats Majority Authority." Journal of Moral Philosophy 17, no. 6 (July 6, 2020): 606–32. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/17455243-20203144.

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Abstract I outline a new approach to the question of when civil disobedience is legitimate by drawing on insights from the epistocracy literature. I argue that civil disobedience and epistocracy are similar in the sense that they both involve the idea that superior political judgment defeats majority authority, because this can lead to correct, i.e. just, prudent or morally right, political decisions. By reflecting on the question of when superior political judgment defeats majority authority in the epistocracy case, I identify considerations that also apply to the disobedience context. I conclude that disobedience in protest of law X performed by agents who know that X is wrong is legitimate when: 1) it is not reasonably disputable that the civil dissenter knows that X is wrong 2) the adoption of X is a high-stakes political decision and 3) no destabilizing effects ensue.

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13

Méndez, María Pía. "An Epistemic Problem for Epistocracy." Social Epistemology 36, no. 2 (November 15, 2021): 153–66. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02691728.2021.1992531.

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14

SCHIAVONE, GIUSEPPE, MATTEO MAMELI, and GIOVANNI BONIOLO. "Epistocracy for Online Deliberative Bioethics." Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 24, no. 3 (June 10, 2015): 272–80. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0963180114000590.

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Abstract:The suggestion that deliberative democratic approaches would suit the management of bioethical policymaking in democratic pluralistic societies has triggered what has been called the “deliberative turn” in health policy and bioethics. Most of the empirical work in this area has focused on the allocation of healthcare resources and priority setting at the local or national level. The variety of the more or less articulated theoretical efforts behind such initiatives is remarkable and has been accompanied, to date, by an overall lack of method specificity. We propose a set of methodological requirements for online deliberative procedures for bioethics. We provide a theoretical motivation for these requirements. In particular, we discuss and adapt an “epistocratic” proposal and argue that, regardless of its merits as a general political theory, a more refined version of its normative claims can generate a useful framework for the design of bioethical forums that combine maximal inclusiveness with informed and reasonable deliberation.

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15

LANDA, DIMITRI, and RYAN PEVNICK. "Representative Democracy as Defensible Epistocracy." American Political Science Review 114, no. 1 (September 9, 2019): 1–13. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0003055419000509.

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Epistocratic arrangements are widely rejected because there will be reasonable disagreement about which citizens count as epistemically superior and an epistemically superior subset of citizens may be biased in ways that undermine their ability to generate superior political outcomes. The upshot is supposed to be that systems of democratic government are preferable because they refuse to allow some citizens to rule over others. We show that this approach is doubly unsatisfactory: although representative democracy cannot be defended as a form of government that prevents some citizens from ruling over others, it can be defended as a special form of epistocracy. We demonstrate that well-designed representative democracies can, through treatment and selection mechanisms, bring forth an especially competent set of individuals to make public policy, even while circumventing the standard objections to epistocratic rule. This has implications for the justification of representative democracy and questions of institutional design.

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16

Lippert-Rasmussen, Kasper. "Estlund on Epistocracy: A Critique." Res Publica 18, no. 3 (March 14, 2012): 241–58. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11158-012-9179-1.

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Bhatia, Udit. "Rethinking the epistemic case against epistocracy." Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 23, no. 6 (July 16, 2018): 706–31. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13698230.2018.1497246.

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18

Edmundson, William A. "POLITICAL EQUALITY, EPISTOCRACY, AND EXPENSIVE TASTES." Lua Nova: Revista de Cultura e Política, no. 117 (September 2022): 55–70. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/0102-055070/117.

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Abstract Democracy and equality are different concepts. There are two fundamentally different ways of relating them. The first way defines democracy in terms of substantive political equality: the purest form of democracy is a regime in which each citizen (at any given level of aptitude and motivation) has equal influence over political decisions, regardless of the citizen’s wealth and other resources. The second way renders democracy as a device for assuring equality (or justice) by some measure external to the process by which political decisions are made. According to this second way, political equality -democracy’s defining trait on the first view- is at best of secondary importance. John Rawls is the most prominent exponent of the first way, and Ronald Dworkin and David Estlund of the second. This article explores the differences between the two ways, and concludes with the thought that the failure to appreciate how different they are contributes to our currrent democratic malaise.

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19

Taylor, James Stacey. "The Myth of Semiotic Arguments in Democratic Theory and How This Exposes Problems with Peer Review." International Journal of Applied Philosophy 35, no. 1 (2021): 13–29. http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/ijap20211221160.

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In a recent series or books and articles Jason Brennan and Peter M. Jaworski (writing both together and separately) have developed criticisms of what they term “semiotic” arguments. They hold that these arguments are widely used both to criticize markets in certain goods, to defend democracy, and criticize epistocracy. Their work on semiotics is now widely (and approvingly) cited. In this paper I argue that there is no reason to believe that any defenders of democracy or critics of epistocracy have offered semiotic arguments for their positions. I then explain how the operation of academic incentives has led to this being overlooked by both Brennan and Jaworski and their critics. I conclude with suggestions for how to revise peer review so that such errors are less likely to be made in the future.

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20

Klocksiem, Justin. "Epistocracy is a Wolf in Wolf’s Clothing." Journal of Ethics 23, no. 1 (February 9, 2019): 19–36. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10892-019-09279-1.

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Brennan, Jason. "Does the Demographic Objection to Epistocracy Succeed?" Res Publica 24, no. 1 (December 11, 2017): 53–71. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11158-017-9385-y.

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22

Hédoin, Cyril. "The ‘Epistemic Critique’ of Epistocracy and Its Inadequacy." Social Epistemology 35, no. 5 (February 8, 2021): 502–14. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02691728.2021.1882609.

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23

Mulligan, Thomas. "On the Compatibility of Epistocracy and Public Reason." Social Theory and Practice 41, no. 3 (2015): 458–76. http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/soctheorpract201541324.

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NIKOLENKO, Vadym. "THE MYSTERIOUS SOCRATES AND HIS ATTITUDE TOWARDS DEMOCRACY." Філософія та політологія в контексті сучасної культури 16, no. 2 (December 30, 2024): 72–82. https://doi.org/10.15421/352448.

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The article emphasizes the extraordinary mission of leaders in the process of social life, in particular the development of philosophy, science, and politics. It singles out a relatively new theory of leadership – quiet leaders. It is emphasized that Socrates should be considered one of the first representatives of this style of leadership, despite some exceptions. It is emphasized that the issue of leadership, primarily the influence of a specific individual on the course of world history, still awaits further research.Against the background of fixing the advantages and some disadvantages of the democratic process, Socrates’ attitude to lotocracy and epistocracy is tangentially examined. In view of this, his contribution to the criticism of lotocracy forms of socio-political life of Ancient Athens is highlighted. It is noted that the Athenian philosopher was at the origins of the philosophical understanding of epistocracy. The consonance of J.S.Mill’s views with the epistocracy ideas of Socrates is noted. A brief argumentation of the contradictory essence of the epistocratic approach and its incompatibility with the classical principle of democracy – equality of starting opportunities regardless of origin, wealth, education, etc. is proposed.It is emphasized that in this way Socrates preferred to focus attention on the importance of the expert approach in the socio-political process. Socrates’ value orientations, his life ideals, and the relevance, on the one hand, of what he proclaimed, and on the other hand, of the philosopher’s real behavior and actions, are highlighted.The conclusion is made that Socrates was mostly committed to the principles of meritocracy, as opposed to universal suffrage or lotocratic law, which was fully accepted by A.Tocqueville, as well as with certain reservations by J.S.Mill and others. And even against this background, given his leadership qualities, as well as his vision of the essence of the average person and criticism of the tribal aristocracy, the statement about the completely anti-democratic essence of the Greek philosopher is refuted.

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25

Standbrink, Peter. "Epistocracy and Democratic Participation in a Post-Truth World." Democratic Theory 5, no. 1 (June 1, 2018): 1–17. http://dx.doi.org/10.3167/dt.2018.050102.

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This article investigates civic-political and cognitive participation as they play out in democratic theory. Its core purpose is to develop a conceptual-normative critique of the presupposition in liberal democratic theory that these logics are mutually reinforcing and complementary. This misunderstanding of a theoretical ambivalence contributes to inhibiting constructive assessment of epistocratic*technocratic frameworks of democratic interpretation and theory. I demonstrate that these logics circulate contrasting views of democratic power and legitimacy and should be disentangled to make sense of liberal democratic theoretical and political spaces. This critique is then fed into a political-epistemological interrogation of post-truth and alt-facts rhetorical registers in contemporary liberal democratic life, concluding that neither logic of participation can harbor this unanticipated and fundamentally nonaligned way of doing liberal democratic democracy.

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Brennan, Jason. "Correction to: Does the Demographic Objection to Epistocracy Succeed?" Res Publica 24, no. 1 (January 11, 2018): 157. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11158-017-9390-1.

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Lenczewska, Olga. "Electoral Competence, Epistocracy, and Standpoint Epistemologies. A Reply to Brennan." International Journal of Philosophical Studies 29, no. 4 (August 8, 2021): 641–64. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09672559.2021.1997392.

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Kalkan, Buğra, and Pınar Ebe Güzgü. "Epistocracy vs constitutional democracy: A Hayekian response to Jason Brannan." Masyarakat, Kebudayaan dan Politik 36, no. 1 (February 13, 2023): 44–57. http://dx.doi.org/10.20473/mkp.v36i12023.44-57.

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Jason Brennan, who proposes assessing democratic decisions based on non-procedural expert knowledge from a pure utilitarian standpoint, holds a prominent position among libertarian critiques of democracy. Brennan contends that epistocratic regimes can outperform democracies since democracies perform badly due to the phenomena of rational ignorance and deliberative democratic methods cannot solve this problem. Brennan, who compares epistocratic institutions to constitutional institutions, wants to tame democracies using negative externality arguments. In this study, we demonstrate that constitutional democracies cannot be assessed by the Brennanian metrics and that epistocracy will erode the libertarian political successes of constitutional democracy. Two important arguments back up this conclusion. First, transforming libertarian ideals beyond constitutional rules into the standard for daily politics allows experts tremendous discretion. Even with good intentions, the unchecked discretion of experts would most likely undermine the general, abstract, and egalitarian rules required by a complex society. Second, taking the concept of rational choice out of its original context will make the distinction between constitutional and unconstitutional governments unclear. Therefore, the libertarian ideal of the limited government established by the separation of powers and the procedures of checks and balances would lose its significance, giving place to the unchecked discretion of expert rule.

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Lord, Christopher. "No epistocracy without representation? The case of the European Central Bank." European Politics and Society 20, no. 1 (September 3, 2018): 1–15. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/23745118.2018.1515868.

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Reiss, Julian. "Expertise, Agreement, and the Nature of Social Scientific Facts or: Against Epistocracy." Social Epistemology 33, no. 2 (March 4, 2019): 183–92. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02691728.2019.1577513.

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Wekesa, Moni, and Ann Wanjiku Kinyua. "Epistocracy or Democracy—The Place of the Common Person in Constitutional Amendment in Kenya." Studies in Law and Justice 2, no. 1 (March 2023): 54–66. http://dx.doi.org/10.56397/slj.2023.03.07.

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Epistocracy is the rule by the elite while democracy entails the rule of the people by the people for the people. The common person is supposed to have space to determine how they wish to be governed. Kenya’s constitution provides that all sovereignty belongs to the people. And that such sovereignty can be exercised either directly or indirectly through elected representatives and established institutions. With respect to constitutional amendments, the people can participate through either a popular initiative or a parliamentary initiative. Both routes could eventually require the direct participation of the people through a referendum. In some other jurisdictions, amendment of the constitution is a preserve of the legislature. In others, reference is always made to the common person. In Kenya, the law is not clear on ‘who’ can initiate an amendment to the constitution through the popular initiative. The common person in Kenya is poor; can’t afford necessities of life like food and healthcare; and to some extent, forms a large segment of the illiterate population. The common person relies on the benevolence of the elite and is easily influenced by them to even vote in a certain way. This situation would appear to make the concept of democracy a mirage. This paper examines the place of the common person in various attempts at amending the 2010 Constitution. It is argued that though the common person is legally empowered to participate in constitutional amendments, the reality is that it is the epistographs who determine such constitutional changes. Recommendations on improving the level of participation of the common person in constitutional amendments are postulated to include continuous and enhanced ‘awareness’ seminars as well as improving underlying social conditions such as access to food, health and education.

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Bøyum, Steinar. "The Democratic Duty to Educate Oneself." Etikk i praksis - Nordic Journal of Applied Ethics, no. 2 (November 12, 2018): 129–41. http://dx.doi.org/10.5324/eip.v12i2.2515.

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I argue that democratic citizens have a duty to educate themselves politically. My argument proceeds in two stages. First, I establish a case for the moral importance of individual competence for voting, but also maintain that the substantial content of the required competence must remain open. I do this by way of an assessment of Jason Brennan's provocative defense of epistocracy. I try to show that there is no notion of political competence that can meet with reasonable agreement among citizens and that voter qualification exams are therefore illegitimate. Second, I maintain that the basic premise of Brennan's argument, the right to a competent electorate, is valid and that it corresponds to an individual duty to educate oneself politically. This duty is, in Kant's terminology, a wide and imperfect duty that we owe to our fellow democratic citizens. Yet since the content of competence must be left open, this moral duty cannot be transformed into a legal obligation.

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Coen, David, and Alexander Katsaitis. "Between cheap talk and epistocracy: The logic of interest group access in the European Parliament's committee hearings." Public Administration 97, no. 4 (April 27, 2018): 754–69. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/padm.12406.

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Vandamme, Pierre-Étienne. "What’s wrong with an epistocratic council?" Politics 40, no. 1 (March 26, 2019): 90–105. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0263395719836348.

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Epistemic justifications of democracy affirm the comparative quality of democracies’ decisions. The challenge faced by those who endorse such views is to explain why we should prefer standard democratic institutions to some sort of epistocracy or rule of the wisest. This article takes up this challenge by assessing the epistemic potential of an epistocratic council, as imagined by Jason Brennan. Members of such council would be selected through competency exams, the required competencies being defined by the whole population. The argument defended in this article is that the potential gain in instrumental rationality that such an institution could offer under certain questionable conditions would be outweighed by the increased risks of misrule and involuntary biases if such council has decision-making or veto power. In comparison with the existing literature, this argument stresses the importance of moral rightness, here defined as impartiality, in the epistemic assessment of democracy and its alternatives. The article then ends with a qualified assessment of purely epistemic justifications of democratic inclusion, which could be insufficient to reject implausible but imaginable forms of epistemically justifiable disenfranchisement.

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Coelho, Bruno. "Ignorância e irracionalidade política." Sofia 12, no. 1 (March 4, 2023): e12139863. http://dx.doi.org/10.47456/sofia.v12i1.39863.

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Neste artigo discuto alguns problemas epistêmicos que a democracia enfrenta. Apresento, inicialmente, o argumento segundo o qual a ignorância e a irracionalidade política afetam de maneira substancial as democracias atuais. Em seguida, exponho os princípios que suportam um sistema alternativo: a epistocracia. Segundo os epistocratas, devemos preferir a estrutura institucional que tende a produzir as melhores decisões. Além disso, as decisões políticas são legítimas e autoritativas somente quando produzidas por um corpo político competente de um modo competente e de boa fé. Após expor os princípios que suportam a epistocracia, considero algumas formas de implementação desse sistema. Na última seção, detalho uma resposta epistêmica aos argumentos que questionam a legitimidade da democracia. Sustento que a resposta não diminui a força das críticas, de modo que os problemas epistêmicos permanecem como uma questão a ser enfrentada pelos democratas.

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García Valiña, Luis. "Democráticamente equivocados: ignorancia del votante, epistocracia y experimentalismo democrático." REVISTA LATINOAMERICANA DE FILOSOFÍA 46, no. 1 (June 8, 2020): 7–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.36446/rlf2020195.

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La ignorancia y la irracionalidad del ciudadano democrático promedio ha preocupado a los teóricos desde la época de Sócrates. Recientemente, y a la luz de la evidencia surgida de la investigación empírica, una nueva oleada de pensamiento epistocrático ha comenzado a emerger. En este trabajo se analizan algunas de las posiciones centrales de los “nuevos epistócratas” para afirmar que, aunque atendibles, dichas posiciones fallan en considerar los fenómenos mencionados en su dimensión sistémica y social y por ello sus propuestas de innovación institucional resultan desencaminadas. En segundo lugar, se sostiene que una orientación tal permitiría apreciar el concepto de aprendizaje como central para evaluar la capacidad epistémica de un sistema deliberativo. Por último, se ofrecen algunos ejemplos acerca de programas de investigación y diseños institucionales que podrían satisfacer el criterio de capacidad epistémica como aprendizaje.

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Muchisse, Itélio Joana, and Adelino Esteves Tomás. "Colonialismos, Etnias e Epistemologias." ACENO - Revista de Antropologia do Centro-Oeste 11, no. 27 (December 31, 2024): 333–46. https://doi.org/10.48074/aceno.v11i27.16129.

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Este artigo discute a questão do desenvolvimento dos povos em dois eixos principais: Democracia e Epistocracia. A pretensão é reflectir sobre as lógicas de organização social e composições políticas, através de uma discussão que se enquadra na influência dos modelos político-pedagógicos na construção e repetição das epistemologias ao longo do tempo. A partir da metodologia instrumental foi possível a desconstrução dissertativa, mas também explicativa sobre lógica de gestão do conhecimento sob a perspectiva dos dois eixos acima expostos. No entanto, é necessário haver comunicação de signos, tanto endógenos, quanto contemporâneos, de modo a salvaguardar tradições, bem como captar as mudanças no espírito do tempo que é movido por demandas e inovações, altamente influenciadas pelo conflito social, gerador de mudança e desenvolvimento.

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38

Kogelmann, Brian. "Finding the Epistocrats." Episteme, August 1, 2022, 1–16. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/epi.2022.18.

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Abstract Concerned about widespread incompetence among voters in democratic societies, epistocrats propose quasi-democratic electoral systems that amplify the voices of competent voters while silencing (or perhaps just subduing) the voices of those deemed incompetent. In order to amplify the voices of the competent we first need to know what counts as political competence, and then we need a way of identifying those who possess the relevant characteristics. After developing an account of what it means to be politically competent, I argue that there is no way for the epistocrat to identify such persons. Therefore, epistocracy cannot be implemented.

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Gibbons, Adam. "Is Epistocracy Irrational?" Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 21, no. 2 (February 28, 2022). http://dx.doi.org/10.26556/jesp.v21i2.1581.

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Proponents of epistocracy worry that high levels of voter ignorance can harm democracies. To combat such ignorance, they recommend allocating comparatively more political power to more politically knowledgeable citizens. In response, some recent critics of epistocracy contend that epistocratic institutions risk causing even more harm, since much evidence from political psychology indicates that more politically knowledgeable citizens are typically more biased, less open-minded, and more prone to motivated reasoning about political matters than their less knowledgeable counterparts. If so, perhaps epistocratic institutions will perform worse epistemically than corresponding democratic institutions. Call this 'the problem of epistocratic irrationality'. This paper argues that the problem of epistocratic irrationality can be overcome. First, I argue that critics of epistocracy have overlooked several complications regarding the psychological data they claim shows that more knowledgeable citizens are less politically rational. Second, I argue that appropriately designed epistocratic institutions could overcome the problem of epistocratic irrationality even if such critics have interpreted the data correctly. I first explore whether refined selection mechanisms could allow epistocrats to avoid empowering less rational citizens, before assessing the prospects of implementing only those epistocratic institutions with a solid track record of reliable performance.

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Gibbons, Adam F. "Political Disagreement and Minimal Epistocracy." Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 19, no. 2 (February 8, 2021). http://dx.doi.org/10.26556/jesp.v19i2.1088.

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Despite their many virtues, democracies suffer from well-known problems with high levels of voter ignorance. Such ignorance, one might think, leads democracies to occasionally produce bad outcomes. Proponents of epistocracy claim that allocating comparatively greater amounts of political power to citizens who possess more politically relevant knowledge may help us to mitigate the bad effects of voter ignorance. In a recent paper, Julian Reiss challenges a crucial assumption underlying the case for epistocracy. Central to any defence of epistocracy is the conviction that we can identify a body of political knowledge which, when possessed in greater amounts by voters, leads to substantively better outcomes than when voters lack such knowledge. But it is not possible to identify such a body of knowledge. There is simply far too much controversy in the social sciences, and this controversy prevents us from definitively saying of some citizens that they possess more politically relevant knowledge than others. Call this the Argument from Political Disagreement. In this paper I respond to the Argument from Political Disagreement. First, I argue that Reiss conflates social-scientific knowledge with politically relevant knowledge. Even if there were no uncontroversial social-scientific knowledge, there is much uncontroversial politically relevant knowledge. Second, I argue that there is some uncontroversial social-scientific knowledge. While Reiss correctly notes that there is much controversy in the social sciences, not every issue is controversial. The non-social-scientific politically relevant knowledge and the uncontroversial social-scientific knowledge together constitute the minimal body of knowledge which epistocrats need to make their case.

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"The Elephant in the Room: Against Democracy." International Dialogue 9, no. 1 (November 2019). http://dx.doi.org/10.32873/uno.dc.id.9.1.1168.

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Unfortunately, any discussion of Jason Brennan’s Against Democracy (2017), which seeks to make a case for epistocracy and against democracy, raises the “Don’t think of an elephant” problem (Lakoff 2004). If you tell people not to think of an elephant, they immediately think of an elephant. If you tell people not to think about epistocracy, they will immediately think about epistocracy. And this is a pity, because epistocracy is a terrible idea, and nothing Brennan says proves otherwise.

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Keeling, Sophie. "Standpoints, Knowledge, and Power: Introducing Standpoint Epistocracy." Hypatia, March 18, 2025, 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1017/hyp.2024.68.

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Abstract Should citizens have equal say regarding the running of society? Following the principles of democracy, and most of political philosophy: yes (at least at a fundamental level, thus allowing for representatives and the like). Indeed, comparing the main alternative seemingly supports this intuition. Epistocracy would instead give power just to the most epistemically competent. Testing citizens’ political and economic knowledge looks likely to disproportionately disempower marginalized groups, making the position seem like a non-starter and democracy the clear winner. Nevertheless, this paper argues against giving citizens equal say, or at least, it offers the strongest possible motivation for this position. In particular, I introduce the progressive case for epistocracy, and what I term standpoint epistocracy. This account refigures the relevant notion of political competence such that it is not the most privileged classes who would likely constitute our epistocracy, but rather, the least. The resulting picture considerably improves on traditional versions of epistocracy and also democracy.

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Gibbons, Adam F. "Are There Demographic Objections to Democracy?" Episteme, February 19, 2025, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1017/epi.2025.11.

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Abstract Proponents of epistocracy claim that amplifying the political power of politically knowledgeable citizens can mitigate some of the harmful effects of widespread political ignorance, since being politically knowledgeable improves one’s ability to make sound political decisions. But many critics of epistocracy suggest that we have no reason to expect it to make better decisions than democracy, for those who are politically knowledgeable can also possess other attributes that compromise their ability to make sound political decisions. This is one version of the Demographic Objection to epistocracy, and in this paper I argue that the reasoning which underlies it generalizes in such a way that it applies not only to epistocracy but also to democracy. Thus, there are demographic objections to both epistocracy and democracy. I argue that such demographic objections to democracy have important and overlooked implications. Among other things, they imply that we should be skeptical about the arguments of epistemic democrats; they count against proposals to democratize extant epistocratic practices and institutions; and they even count against certain democratic reforms taking place within a wholly democratic framework.

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Malcolm, Finlay. "Epistocracy and Public Interests." Res Publica, June 17, 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11158-021-09502-7.

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Yamaguchi, Akito, Masaki Hata, and Akira Inoue. "How can we accept ‘our’ decisions?: an experimental study on lottocracy, epistocracy, and electoral democracy." Japanese Journal of Political Science, October 14, 2024, 1–17. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1468109924000094.

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Abstract Lottocracy and epistocracy have received deeply insightful attention as political regimes. Herein, by conducting an experiment using an online survey, we explored the extent to which public opinion is receptive to political decisions under various regimes regarding two environmental policies: education policy and environmental tax policy. By doing so, we examined whether the presence of tax burdens affected the acceptability of political regimes, i.e., electoral democracy, lottocracy, and epistocracy. Our results revealed that decisions based on lottocracy and epistocracy were significantly less acceptable than those based on electoral democracy. Nevertheless, lottocratic and epistocratic decisions were more acceptable regarding the issue of environmental tax policy. The difference was mainly attributed to people's rejection of environmental tax policy offsetting their rejection of lottocracy and epistocracy. This suggests, first, that decisions based on electoral democracy increase policies' acceptability if they do not involve taxation, and second, that the status of whether or not a decision is electoral does not significantly affect policy acceptability if taxation is involved, whereas on the other hand, people are sensitive to differences between the regimes if the policy does not involve taxation.

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Lucky, Matthew C. "Knowledge-Making in Politics: Expertise in Democracy and Epistocracy." Political Theory, October 11, 2023. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/00905917231199495.

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Recently, epistocrats have challenged the value of democracy by claiming that policy outcomes can be improved if the electorate were narrowed to empower only those with sufficient knowledge to inform competent policy decisions. I argue that by centering on contesting how well regimes employ extant knowledge in decision-making, this conversation has neglected to consider how regimes influence the production of knowledge over time. Science and technology studies scholars have long recognized that political systems impact the productivity of expert research. I argue that in order to evaluate which regime is “smarter,” we must consider not only how well they employ existing knowledge in decision-making, but we must also assess how those regimes influence the ongoing production of policy-relevant knowledge. Thus, I offer an instrumental defense of democracy based on its capacity to encourage a superior pattern and quality of expert research to inform policy decisions over time. Epistocracy may be effective at employing extant knowledge in the short run, but in the long run, democracy is a superior environment for producing knowledge to inform policy decisions.

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Brennan, Jason, and Christopher Freiman. "Why Paternalists Must Endorse Epistocracy." Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 21, no. 3 (March 28, 2022). http://dx.doi.org/10.26556/jesp.v21i3.926.

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Recent findings from psychology and behavioral economics suggest that we are “predictably irrational” in the pursuit of our interests. Paternalists from both the social sciences and philosophy use these findings to defend interfering with people's consumption choices for their own good. We should tax soda, ban cigarettes, and mandate retirement savings to make people healthier and wealthier than they’d be on their own. Our thesis is that the standard arguments offered in support of restricting people’s consumption choices for their own good also imply support for “epistocratic” restrictions on people’s voting choices for their own good. Indeed, the philosophical case for paternalistic restrictions on voting choices may be stronger than the case for restricting personal consumption choices. So, paternalists face a dilemma: either endorse less interference with consumption choices or more interference with voting choices.

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Brennan, Jason. "Giving epistocracy a Fair Hearing." Inquiry, September 3, 2019, 1–15. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0020174x.2019.1663020.

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Ingham, Sean, and David Wiens. "Demographic Objections to Epistocracy: A Generalization." Philosophy & Public Affairs, August 18, 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/papa.12199.

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Somin, Ilya. "The promise and peril of epistocracy." Inquiry, September 6, 2019, 1–8. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0020174x.2019.1663019.

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