Epistemic foundations of democratic authority

Abstract

Until recently, epistemic considerations have not been relevant for answering the question about democratic authority. It was usually considered that justifications that go in the direction of knowledge, truth or correctness favored decision making by experts rather than democratic decision making. However, recent research in the field of epistemic democracy has experienced significant change of the point of view in this regard. Now it seems unavoidable that the question about justification of democracy and its authority should have an epistemic dimension. In this paper, special attention will be paid to justification of democratic authority on epistemic grounds. Since I think that in order to answer the question about legitimate democratic authority, it is necessary to previously examine what makes democratic decision making legitimate, I will also consider different ways of justifying democracy that include epistemic considerations. Since Estlund's defense of epistemic proceduralism plays a key role in grounding democratic authority on epistemic basis, in this paper I will in greater detail discuss some essential issues regarding this conception.