Epistocracy

Abstract

To avoid the alleged ignorance of citizens that is considered detrimental to democracies, advocates of epistocracy propose that only the voices or votes of a limited group of citizens should be taken into account, of those that are in the knowing. In recent proposals, the suggested selection criterion often is passing a knowledge test related to political or social issues that would qualify citizens to fully participate, to be granted full voting rights. In these tests, social scientific knowledge takes a prominent place. This raises the question of whether restricting full rights to those that allegedly have better social scientific knowledge would lead to a better government of society. We review arguments pro and contra, and defend that even in epistemic terms democracy does better than epistocracy. Three questions will be addressed: What knowledge is relevant? Do epistocrats possess better knowledge? Have epistocrats considered the epistemic benefits of a more democratic approach? Regarding the “impact” social sciences could or should have, evaluating the epistocrats’ proposals helps us to better stipulate the social sciences’ role in democracies as well as their social-epistemic adjustment to that role – which requires the sciences to be democratised, to fit democracy as much as possible.To avoid the alleged ignorance of citizens that is considered detrimental to democracies, advocates of epistocracy propose that only the voices or votes of a limited group of citizens should be taken into account, of those that are in the knowing. In recent proposals, the suggested selection criterion often is passing a knowledge test related to political or social issues that would qualify citizens to fully participate, to be granted full voting rights. In these tests, social scientific knowledge takes a prominent place. This raises the question of whether restricting full rights to those that allegedly have better social scientific knowledge would lead to a better government of society. We review arguments pro and contra, and defend that even in epistemic terms democracy does better than epistocracy. Three questions will be addressed: What knowledge is relevant? Do epistocrats possess better knowledge? Have epistocrats considered the epistemic benefits of a more democratic approach? Regarding the “impact” social sciences could or should have, evaluating the epistocrats’ proposals helps us to better stipulate the social sciences’ role in democracies as well as their social-epistemic adjustment to that role – which requires the sciences to be democratised, to fit democracy as much as possible.B