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UNIVERSITY of CALIFORNIA, IRVINE Democracy UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, IRVINE Democracy, Epistocracy, and the Epistemic Problems of Politics: How Centralized Decision Making Undermines Three Fundamental Democratic Values DISSERTATION submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY In Philosophy by Brandon Samuel Richardson Dissertation Committee: Professor Annalisa Coliva, Chair Professor Aaron James, co-Chair Professor Karl Schafer 2020 © 2020 Brandon Samuel Richardson DEDICATION To Shanan and Peyton, whose constant support and encouragement made this work possible. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page AKNOWLEDGEMENTS iv VITA v ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION vii INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER 1: A Trilemma of Democratic Values 8 CHAPTER 2: Competence and Competent Government 49 CHAPTER 3: Epistocracy, Competence, and the Trouble with Trial and Error 73 CHAPTER 4: Complexity, Encapsulation, and Decentralization 118 REFERENCES 149 iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my advisor, Annalisa Coliva, and my committee co-chair, Aaron James, for their guidance and feedback throughout this project. I would also like to thank G. Michael Pace, Daniel Pilchman, and Gordon Babst for encouraging me to become a philosopher. iv VITA Brandon S. Richardson Areas of Specialization: Epistemology and Political Philosophy Areas of Competence: History of Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind, and Ethics. Education PhD University of California, Irvine, Philosophy, June 2020 Advisor: Annalisa Coliva MA University of California, Irvine, Philosophy, June 2016 Advisor: Jeff Helmreich BA Chapman University, Philosophy and Political Science, May 2014 Dissertation: Democracy, Epistocracy, and the Epistemic Problems of Politics: How Centralized Decision Making Undermines Three Democratic Values Committee: Annalisa Coliva (Chair), Aaron James (co-Chair), Karl Schafer Teaching Lecturer Experience Belief, Truth, and Knowledge Introduction to epistemology 23 Students Chapman University Spring 2019 Teaching Assistant Intro to Knowledge Upper division epistemology and philosophical writing, 2 discussion sections of 23 students each. Fall 2016 Puzzles and Paradoxes Basic topics in philosophy, deductive reasoning, logic, and history of philosophy. Two sections of 35 students each. Fall 2017, Winter 2018, Spring 2018, and Summer 2019 Introduction to Philosophy Basic introduction to philosophical topics. Two sections with 30 students each. Winter 2017 and Fall 2018 Introduction to Ethics v Basic topics in ethics and political philosophy. Two sections with 30 students each. Spring 2017, Winter 2019, and Summer II 2019 Think Program Teach basic concepts of philosophy to 5th graders. Selected At UCI: Graduate Medical Epistemology, Coliva and Bernecker, Winter 2018 Coursework Rights and Demands, Gilbert, Fall 2017 Plato, Perin, Fall 2017 History of Analytic Philosophy II, Heis, Spring 2017 Epistemology of Conspiracy Theories, Bernecker, Spring 2017 Kant’s Ethics, Bencivenga, Winter 2017 Hume’s Treatise, Schafer, Winter 2017 Hinge Epistemology, Coliva, Fall 2016 Set Theory, Walsh, Fall 2016 Self Knowledge, Coliva, Spring 2016 Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason I & II, Heis and Greenberg, Winter/Spring 2016 Rawls and Utilitarianism, Skyrms and James, Winter 2016 Plato’s Republic, Perin, Winter 2016 vi ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Democracy, Epistocracy, and the Epistemic Problems of Politics: How Centralized Decision Making Undermines Three Fundamental Democratic Values by Brandon Samuel Richardson Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy University of California, Irvine, 2020 Professor Annalisa Coliva, Chair The empirical evidence of widespread ignorance of voters in modern democracies has led some philosophers to question traditional justifications for democracy. These philosophers attempt to resolve this problem by arguing for limits on who can vote with the goal of increasing the competence of the average voter. Epistemic democrats attempt to assuage these worries by looking to a priori theorems that purport to show that democracy can be competent despite the widespread ignorance of voters. In this dissertation I argue for a fuller account of what it means to be competent in making political decisions, without which we face a problem I call the graveyard spiral. I then use this account of competence to show that epistemic democrats and epistocrats fail to give us a reason to expect competence in government, which leaves us open to the graveyard spiral problem. Because of this, I argue that these views face a trilemma of democratic values. I argue that in order for competence to be satisfied, public problems should be addressed at the lowest levels of complexity to reduce the problems with tracking the effects of decisions, but also to increase the variety of solutions to public problems. Through a process vii of encapsulating public problems and decentralizing the decision making process, we can expect meta-competence to be satisfied and to avoid the trilemma. viii Introduction Democracy finds wide-spread support because it is considered a fair means to make political decisions. It gives citizens an equal say in the decision-making process and allows citizens to collectively determine the laws and policies they will live under. Recently, however, some philosophers have questioned the ability of democracy to make competent decisions. Research into voter knowledge of basic political facts—including facts about the political beliefs of active politicians and major historical events—has revealed that voters tend to be misinformed. These philosophers argue that we have a right to competent government, but that right cannot obtain if large segments of the electorate are misinformed. This brings into tension three democratic values: 1. The non-instrumental value of universal inclusion 2. The collective right to self-determination 3. The right to competent government The purpose of this dissertation is to argue that epistemic defenses of democracy and recent arguments for epistocracy fail to give us a reason to believe that the problem of voter ignorance can be overcome, which leaves these kinds of accounts unable to maintain the three values above. I argue that through decentralization of the decision making process, we can hold all three values together. Epistemic democrats fail to account for how democracy can be competent with a largely misinformed electorate. Epistocrats like Jason Brennan (2016) attempt to secure the right to 1 competent government by abandoning universal suffrage, and therefore rejecting the non- instrumental value of universal inclusion. I argue that neither can account for the right to competent government given the epistemic problems of politics (chapter 3). Indeed, it appears that any epistemic defense of democracy or epistocracy must give us a reason to believe that mistakes will be identified and corrected. I argue they cannot, and that the only available means to resolving these problems is through a decentralized system of problem solving. Decentralization allows attempted solutions to be tracked with greater reliability and multiple solutions can be attempted simultaneously such that evidence can be gathered regarding what works and what does not. Epistemic democrats attempt to resolve the problem of voter ignorance by appealing to three mathematical theorems. These theorems attempt to show that individual knowledge is much less important to collective decisions than we might intuitively think. Epistocrats reject these arguments as telling us much of anything about real-world democracy, and so advocate restricting suffrage in one way or another to limit the influence of voters who fail to have basic political knowledge. If epistocrats are correct, then these theorems do nothing to establish the right to competent government. Hence, epistemic democrats fail to be able to account for all three values above. Epistocrats see the right to competent government as overriding considerations of fairness on the grounds that better decisions will be better for everyone. If restricting suffrage leads to better decisions, then we will all be better off. In chapter 1, I show that Brennan (2016) fails to establish that epistocracy will be capable of identifying errors and correcting mistakes. If we have no reason to think errors will be identified and corrected, then there is no reason to think that Brennan’s account of epistocracy can maintain the right to competent government. It 2 appears, then, that epistocracy rejects the non-instrumental value of universal inclusion and fails to secure the right to competent government. In chapter 2, I show that the intuitive conception of competence presented in Brennan (2016) only accounts for part of what it means to be competent. I utilize the conception of competence found in Sosa (2010) to establish that competence means more than performing well. Indeed, competence requires both the ability to perform well, but also the ability to aptly judge when an impending performance will be competent and to be situated such that it will apparent to us when we go wrong. Hence, we can split competence into a first and second order. First-order competence will be the ability to perform well and second-order competence will be the capacity to judge when an impending performance will be first-order competent. With both first and second-order competence satisfied, meta-competence will be satisfied. Without being competent in this way, we set ourselves up to mistake errors for corrections and corrections for errors. I call this situation the graveyard spiral
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