In the New Yorker, Caleb Crain reviews the case. It’s a difficult case to make if most voters are uninformed. Jamming the stub of the Greek word for “knowledge” into the Greek word for “rule,” Estlund coined the word “epistocracy,” meaning “government by the knowledgeable.” It’s an idea that “advocates of democracy, and other enemies of despotism, will want to resist,” he wrote, and he counted himself among the resisters. As a purely philosophical matter, however, he saw only three valid objections. First, one could deny that truth was a suitable standard for measuring political judgment. This sounds extreme, but it’s a fairly common move in political philosophy. After all, in debates over contentious issues, such as when human life begins or whether human activity is warming the planet, appeals to the truth tend to be incendiary. Truth “peremptorily claims to be acknowledged and precludes debate,” Hannah Arendt pointed out in this magazine, in 1967, “and debate constitutes the very essence of political life.” Estlund wasn’t a relativist, however; he agreed that politicians should refrain from appealing to absolute truth, but he didn’t think a political theorist could avoid doing so. The second argument against epistocracy would be to deny that some citizens know more about good government than others.
Topics:
Dirk Niepelt considers the following as important: David Estlund, Democracy, Epistocracy, Hannah Arendt, Information, John Stuart Mill, Notes, Philosophy, Plato, Truth, Voter
This could be interesting, too:
Dirk Niepelt writes “Report by the Parliamentary Investigation Committee on the Conduct of the Authorities in the Context of the Emergency Takeover of Credit Suisse”
Dirk Niepelt writes “Governments are bigger than ever. They are also more useless”
Dirk Niepelt writes The New Keynesian Model and Reality
Dirk Niepelt writes Urban Roadway in America: Land Value
In the New Yorker, Caleb Crain reviews the case. It’s a difficult case to make if most voters are uninformed.
Jamming the stub of the Greek word for “knowledge” into the Greek word for “rule,” Estlund coined the word “epistocracy,” meaning “government by the knowledgeable.” It’s an idea that “advocates of democracy, and other enemies of despotism, will want to resist,” he wrote, and he counted himself among the resisters. As a purely philosophical matter, however, he saw only three valid objections.
First, one could deny that truth was a suitable standard for measuring political judgment. This sounds extreme, but it’s a fairly common move in political philosophy. After all, in debates over contentious issues, such as when human life begins or whether human activity is warming the planet, appeals to the truth tend to be incendiary. Truth “peremptorily claims to be acknowledged and precludes debate,” Hannah Arendt pointed out in this magazine, in 1967, “and debate constitutes the very essence of political life.” Estlund wasn’t a relativist, however; he agreed that politicians should refrain from appealing to absolute truth, but he didn’t think a political theorist could avoid doing so.
The second argument against epistocracy would be to deny that some citizens know more about good government than others. Estlund simply didn’t find this plausible (maybe a political philosopher is professionally disinclined to). The third and final option: deny that knowing more imparts political authority. As Estlund put it, “You might be right, but who made you boss?”