Epistemic dimension of decision – making in epistocracy and democracy
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18485/Keywords:
epistocracy, democracy, epistemic democracy, political epistemology, expertise, decision making theoryAbstract
In this paper we try to show the importance of epistemology in the process of making political decisions and the weakness of democracy when it comes to the epistemic dimension. The key assumption of work is that the epistemic dimension affects the quality of decisions, which then leads to dilemmas about whether decisions are made better in democracy or epistocracy. In this paper we try to solve this dilemma by extending the pros and cons of each system separately, as well as their variants that we describe and compare each other. First we present the epistemic justification of democracy by democratic theorists and their criticism of epistocracy, and then we present some models of epistocracy by several political theorists and their arguments for each. The author, after this, expresses his opinion on this problem and the model by which some problems of the epistocracy could be solved. From this, in the end, we draw conclusions about the need for designing epistemic institutions in modern states, further developing theories of epistocracy and epistemic democracy, and empirical research on this topic.
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