An Epistemic Problem for Epistocracy

Abstract

ABSTRACT Epistocracy, roughly amounts to distributing political power in accordance with each citizen’s competence for political decision-making. The problem, epistocrats hold, is that most voters in democracies are incompetent to vote. A central element of this diagnosis is that bad outcomes are largely attributable to lay citizens’ incapacity to choose the right means to foster their preferences. I call this the Preferences/Means Discrepancy. Based on this diagnosis, most epistocrats argue that the best way to improve outcomes is by implementing some form of restricted electorate constituted by those deemed competent to vote. In this paper I elucidate epistocrats’ understanding of competence to challenge the epistocratic idea of improving outcomes by restricting the electorate. I argue that the restricted electorate would fail to be competent under epistocrats’ own terms, because it is faced with an epistemic problem: The Information Gap Problem. Epistocrats most likely definition of competence seems to be to possess relevant information. However, a restricted electorate would be formed by a homogeneous elite, which would therefore have limited access to a key form of information, namely, lay citizens’ preferences. This gap of information questions the competence of the restricted electorate and makes epistocracy unsuited to address the Preferences/Means Discrepancy.