The Epistemic Theory of Democracy

At the beginning of the 21st century, some Western political theorists tried to justify democracy in an epistemic way. They wanted to prove that democracy leads to the most correct political decisions. Consequently, it is reasonable to say that a new normative theory of democracy has emerged — the epistemic theory. The article demonstrates that the existing epistemic justifications of democracy are presented in the forms of rational/moderate epistemic proceduralism (D. Estlund et al.), pure   epistemic proceduralism (F. Peter), as well as in other forms, for example reliability democracy (S. Prijić Samaržija). Within the framework of the first form, three main ways of epistemic justification of democracy can be distinguished, namely through the demonstration of epistemic advantages of: 1) deliberative practices; 2) the Condorcet jury theorem; 3) opinions’ diversity (the formula “diversity trumps ability”). Doubts are expressed that epistemic democracy can be seen as a form of deliberative democracy. This is because epistemic democrats not only value deliberation but also what is called the “miracle of aggregation”. The article explores the ideas of the main representatives of the epistemic theory of democracy and suggests   the most promising ways to criticize these theories. It also points out that all epistemic democrats lack a clear theory of   how their justifications relate to the purely procedural justifications of democracy based on the value of political equality.

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