Cognitivist theories of democratic decision-making come in two flavours, which I label transparently and intransparently epistemic. Lafont’s deliberative theory of democracy has strengths in accounting for the transparently truth-tracing power of justification but lacks a plausible account of the intransparently truth-tracking power of aggregative approaches highlighted by, among others, Hélène Landemore, such as the Condorcet Jury Theorem or the Diversity Trumps Ability Theorem. I suggest opting for an approach that includes semi-transparently epistemic mechanisms, that is, truth-tracking mechanisms, the workings of which can be explained, passing the public reason test, to all citizens.
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LafontCristina. 2019. Democracy without Shortcuts. A Participatory Conception of Deliberative Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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LandemoreHélène. 2013. Democratic Reason. Politics, Collective Intelligence, and the Rule of the Many. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
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RousseauJean-Jacques. 2002. “The Social Contract (1762).” In The Social Contract and the First and Second Discourses, edited by DunnSusan, 149–255. New Haven: Yale University Press.
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SpiekermannKaiGoodinRobert. 2018. A Theory of Epistemic Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
