Independence and democracy: Condorcet beyond the jury theorem

Abstract

In democratic theory, Condorcet's jury theorem plays an ambiguous part: a powerful justification of democracy for some, it is a predictor of democratic failings for others. This article discusses the theorem's independence condition (according to which votes must be independent if numerous voters are to make good decisions with reasonable likelihood) in light of the conception of independence Condorcet came to develop in his political and revolutionary writings. I show that the independence condition's implications for democracy are standardly misunderstood and that Condorcet defended a broader conception of independence, which provides sounder ground for a defense of democracy than the standard uses of the theorem suggest. For Condorcet, vote independence rests not only on voters’ independence of mind, but also on their social independence. Independence is not the precondition for political participation, as the standard uses of the theorem would have it, but the goal of democratic practice. In the comprehensive democratic ideal that Condorcet developed as the French Revolution unfolded, the conditional epistemic argument expressed in the early jury theorem thus becomes secondary.

In 1785, Condorcet wrote a simple theorem, which, after two centuries of relative indifference, has attracted considerable attention among democratic theorists over the past 40 years. Condorcet's jury theorem (CJT) states that, in certain circumstances, large numbers of people tend toward infallibility in the collective decisions they make. Many theorists—“epistemic democrats”—think that CJT provides a mathematical basis for an epistemic justification of democracy (i.e., a justification based on democracy's tendency to foster good political decisions) that is worth exploring, in a context where democracy is under threat worldwide and where epistocracy and authoritarianism are gaining traction among political thinkers (Estlund, 1994; Goodin and Spiekermann, 2018; Grofman and Feld, 1988; List and Goodin, 2001; Schwartzberg, 2015). Other theorists cast doubt on the theorem's democratic potential due to the unrealistic and possibly backfiring conditions Condorcet set for the theorem to hold (Dietrich and Spiekermann, 2013; Estlund, 2008; Ladha, 1992; Samaržija, 2023). And yet others—“epistocrats”— sometimes argue for voting rights restrictions or weighed votes mechanisms by stressing democracy's inability to meet the theorem's conditions (Brennan, 2016; Mulligan, 2018).

Among these, the independence condition, as it has come to be known, states that votes must be independent from one another. Condorcet himself does not use the term “independence condition.” Instead, in the essay where he introduces the jury theorem, he insists on votes being free from “influence.” In other writings, however, Condorcet often uses “independence” to refer to one's slipping out of the intellectual or partisan influence of another individual or of a group. He also characterizes the socioeconomic situation of people who can rely on their “independent wealth” for their living, without having to earn it, as “independent.” By contrast, Condorcet uses “dependence” to refer to epistemic or social circumstances in which an individual defers to someone else's judgement or lives at the mercy of someone else's will. Independence, for Condorcet, comes in intellectual and social versions.

This article examines what CJT's independence condition means for democracy. One critical aim of the article is to show that the independence condition's implications for democracy are standardly misunderstood in the epistemic democracy literature, and that such a misunderstanding is symptomatic of a use of CJT that ultimately weakens the democratic case. My positive and primary aim, consequently, is to suggest that recontextualizing the concept of independence in Condorcet's political thought may provide sounder ground for a justification of democracy along Condorcetian lines. To do so, I will address two questions. First, how do the two distinct forms of independence, intellectual and social, relate to one another, if at all, in Condorcet's political thought? Second, what does the relation between intellectual and social independence (or lack thereof) imply for CJT's scope of application and for the justification of democracy? More precisely, how does people's social dependence affect the recognition of their political rights? In response to the first question, I will argue that, for Condorcet, social independence serves as a basis for intellectual independence. What this entails for the justification of democracy, however, is not as straightforward as what the standard use of CJT might suggest. According to most commentators, Condorcet is an epistemic democrat whose jury theorem provides a strong but conditional defense of democracy: voting rights are justified only insofar as their exercise contributes to making the right political decisions more likely, and this happens when, among other things, votes are independent from one another. So, according to the standard use of CJT, lack of individual independence undermines the justification of voting rights. By contrast, I will suggest that, while Condorcet originally considered voters’ independence to be a precondition for political participation, he eventually came to see it as a democratic demand, best realized through democratic means. In other words, while Condorcet initially conceived of the dependence of political opinions as fixed, thereby warranting the political exclusion of some social groups to increase the quality of collective decision-making, in his revolutionary writings, he became convinced that opinion dependence is endogenous and that democratic participation figures among those social and political factors that tend to increase vote independence. I will argue that Condorcet's reflections on intellectual and social independence gradually led him to endorse a more comprehensive justification of democracy as an egalitarian emancipatory ideal, thereby turning the conditional epistemic argument expressed in his 1785 theorem into a secondary justification. Condorcet came to see democracy as a social ideal of equal emancipation from dependence and vulnerability, which, when realized, also made good political decisions more likely. In addition to being more faithful to Condorcet's writings, such a reinterpretation of independence and its democratic role might therefore open the door to a reassessment of the function and place of epistemic arguments in theories of democracy, or so I will suggest.

Two important caveats. First, this article does not offer an original mathematical discussion of CJT's independence condition, nor does it propose a looser or broader interpretation of it. Instead, it defers to social choice theory's standard account of the theorem and dives into Condorcet's political work to show that the full democratic implications of CJT's independence condition are yet to be grasped. In other words, it appeals to the history of political thought to question our conception of democracy, not the mathematical workings of CJT, which would be absurd. Second, the article does not purport to show that CJT's independence condition is realistic or can be made so and therefore considers the technical debate over CJT's applicability only in passing. I take CJT to be a model that predicts democratically interesting results based on simplifying hypotheses, such as the independence condition. Many theorists have applied themselves to showing that generalizing the theorem or relaxing its hypotheses yields results similar to Condorcet's original jury theorem (see Dietrich and Spiekermann, 2023). My more modest aim is to suggest that, although the independence condition is not strictly met in real-life democracies, different social circumstances and democratic arrangements can be more or less conducive to its approximation.

The article proceeds in four steps. First, in keeping with the standard account of CJT, I show that its independence condition calls for voters’ intellectual independence and I explore the main ways in which Condorcet intends to secure such independence. Second, I show that, for Condorcet, voters’ intellectual independence is based on their social independence. Third, I analyze the evolving relations between independence and voting rights in Condorcet's political writings. Finally, I show that the epistemic justification of democracy, as sustained by the 1785 theorem, plays a complementary role in the larger conception of democracy that Condorcet came to develop as the French Revolution unfolded. This approach then allows me to sketch some conclusions about the role of epistemic arguments in democratic theory.

CJT's independence condition

Condorcet's jury theorem figures in the 1785 Essay on the Application of Mathematics to the Probability of Decisions Reached by Plurality Rule. CJT relies on probability theory to state that the more decision-makers there are, the more likely it is that their collective decision will be correct, provided that certain conditions are met (Condorcet, 1785: 24). Such collective decisions typically are those of juries, whose members try to ascertain the truth about past events in reaching their verdict, but also those of assemblies, which ought to decide political and legal matters in conformity with justice and natural human rights. Democratic theorists have consequently read CJT as providing an indisputable, if conditional, epistemic justification of democracy (Cohen, 1986; Estlund et al., 1989; Goodin and Spiekermann, 2018; Grofman and Feld, 1988). When certain conditions are met, a numerous decision-making body, such as a large legislative assembly or the citizenry as a whole, is more likely to make the right political decisions than a few individuals, however competent. If these conditions are not met, by contrast, a democratic mode of decision-making is unlikely to result in good political decisions. In 1785, judging that such conditions have rarely been satisfied, Condorcet therefore warns against the hazard of adopting a “democratic constitution” (Condorcet, 1785: 25; see also 1847: V, 120, 122, 210). Condorcet lists three conditions for the theorem to hold (Condorcet, 1785: 21). First, the competence condition: voters have “equally apt and enlightened minds,” which, in mathematical language, translates into each voter having a greater than 0.5 chance of making the right decision. Second, the independence condition, which Condorcet states as follows: “no voter has influence over the votes of others.” Third, the sincerity condition: all voters vote “in good faith”. ¹

The independence condition requires that each voter enjoy “the fullest equality of influence” (1847, XII, 672) over the collective decision, by casting a vote that is independent from the votes cast by other voters or groups of voters. In technical terms, CJT's independence condition is understood as one of statistical independence between votes (Estlund, 1994:131; Estlund et al., 1989: 1327; Goodin and Spiekermann, 2018: 68). In probability theory, votes are considered statistically independent if the probability of one vote being correct does not in any way affect the probability of another vote being correct. By contrast, the independence condition is violated when votes are correlated. When A's vote influences B's, but also when A's and B's randomly similar information exposure leads them to cast the same vote, there is a correlation between their votes such that the probability of B's vote being correct increases (or decreases) with the probability of A's being so. Condorcet often alludes to the independence condition in nontechnical terms as requiring juries or voters to decide “in accordance with their conscience alone” (1847: XII, 295), shielded from all “extraneous influence” (1847: IX, 309). In social choice and democratic theory, CJT's independence condition is therefore presented as a condition of statistical vote independence that in turn is partly reflected by individual intellectual independence. Now, what does independence from “extraneous influence” consist in?

With a specific focus on political assemblies, Condorcet mentions two main sources of extraneous influence threatening his theorem's results. The first one is “cabals,” “ploys,” and “parties” (1847: IX, 298, 309). Individual members or a group within the assembly may come to “dominate the election,” if they “[dispose] of the votes” of enough members, by appeal to shared interests (intérêts de corps) or partisanship (1847: V, 114; IX, 5, 24, 87, 142–43). The voter defers to the party line or gives in to pressure or a quid pro quo, instead of voting according to what they ² think is best. In that regard, a typical figure of dependence is the partisan, whose vote is entirely and systematically determined by the party or by a leader's influence and is therefore cancelled out as an independent potential bearer of truth (Condorcet, 1785, 138). A typical figure of independence, by contrast, is the upstanding representative, who owes the people “the absolute independence of [their] opinions” and who votes independently from “any public or private influence” (Condorcet, 1792; 1847: IX, 129, 384; see XII, 558).

A second source of extraneous influence over voters is intellectual authorities such as “opinion leaders,” the knowledgeable few, political “charlatans,” or even “public opinion” (1847: IX, 5; VIII, 475; IX, 309; XII, 295). The independence condition is breached whenever a voter is in a state of ignorance or of intellectual subjection such that they are not in a position to think for themself but depend on other people for their opinions. Condorcet equates ignorance with being in a “servile state of dependence,” in which one is “compelled to blindly hand oneself over to guides one can neither judge nor choose,” because one lacks the epistemic resources to understand the basis for such “guides’” opinions and actions (1847: VII, 172; see VII, 170–71; VIII, 476). In daily life as in political matters, ignorance amounts to subjection because it forces the ignorant to unknowingly defer to the opinions of “master”-like others (1847: XI, 628; VIII, 174), making the ignorant yet another typical figure of dependence. The opposite figure of independence is therefore the savant, whose interest in science and philosophy naturally encourages independence of character. The savant's knowledge shields them from intellectual dependence, and their scientific mind makes them eager to seek the truth without regard for authority figures (1847: II, 577; III, 178). ³

According to Condorcet, a collective decision is more likely to be correct if it is the aggregated result of independently reached individual decisions for two reasons. First, the influence of leaders and parties is a common “cause for error” in moral matters and, consequently, of “false decisions” (1785, 102, 155; 1847: IX, 5, 58–59). Parties are organized around sectarian interests that are often at odds with the common good. Moreover, not usually having any specific expertise on the matter at hand, parties and opinion leaders may fall prey to error, prejudice, and passions, like any voter. Lastly, parties and opinion leaders are particularly vulnerable to personal ambitions and partisan interests. In these conditions, the party line or the leader's opinion is not very likely to be correct (1785, 134; 1847: IX, 5, 89–91; X, 378). Now as the leader's opinion or the party line is influential over other votes, the likelihood of reaching a correct collective decision diminishes in proportion. This is the second reason why votes must be independent if CJT is to hold. Voters under the influence of a party or opinion leader vote as a block. As such, the probability of each of their votes being right becomes “null” (Condorcet, 1785: 138)—that is, it becomes pegged to the probability that the party line or leader's vote is right. In CJT, block voting has therefore the same effect as a vote in a small assembly: by reducing the number of independent voters, it decreases the probability of reaching a good collective decision. By contrast, the upstanding representative contributes to increasing the assembly's chances of making good decisions by vowing to vote independently (1847: IX, 129).

Many commentators have questioned both the plausibility and desirability of assuming voters’ intellectual independence, as CJT does, in our contemporary democratic contexts. They stress that the synthesizing role of political parties is crucial to the organization of modern democratic politics and that citizens inevitably come to form their political opinions in light of roughly the same information, through the exchange of ideas with others, and under the influence of the media and opinion leaders (Anderson, 2006: 11–12; Dietrich and List, 2004; Estlund et al., 1989: 1327; Estlund, 1994: 132; Ladha, 1992: 621; White and Ypi, 2010). What these objections often leave out is that, as a matter of fact, Condorcet was largely aware of these difficulties. He puts forward three main sets of legal and institutional measures to prevent vote dependence.

First, voters’ susceptibility to extraneous influence varies significantly depending on the institutional setting. Condorcet analyses how the “form of elections” (i.e., the organizational and decision-making rules regulating elections and assemblies), when adequately designed, can help keep certain kinds of influence—namely, quid pro quos and partisanship—to a minimum. Condorcet admits that the formation of momentary “opinion parties” is neither preventable nor truly harmful, but insists that permanent parties, with the schemes and partisan pressures that come with them, ought to be avoided (1847: IX, 87; XII, 400). This requires denying them legal existence (one finds no mention of parties in Condorcet's 1793 constitutional draft), but also designing a series of measures that will prevent ploys and influence, during elections and within the elected assembly. These measures include indirect election and the ineligibility of electors (1847: IX, 290, 292; X, 84); secrecy of the ballot (1847: XII, 403); rules on the appropriate size of the assembly (1847: VIII, 143); rules on agenda-setting (1847: IX, 298, 301); measures to expedite the vote, such as replacing on-site discussion with a previously held “printed discussion” (1847: IX, 24, 66, 344; X, 203–4), and in-person voting with postal vote (1847: IX, 309; XII, 403). All these measures aim at preventing schemes to influence the vote.

While procedural and institutional design can greatly decrease the likelihood of quid pro quos and partisan influence, it remains powerless against violations of the independence condition that stem from ignorance. Condorcet therefore also relies on two other sets of measures to prevent voters’ intellectual dependence: public instruction and freedom of opinion and of the press. These liberal-democratic institutions contribute to intellectual independence in two ways. They increase competence, and they mitigate the risk of intellectual dependence by diversifying the sources of influence.

One of the main goals of public instruction is to give individuals each enough knowledge and critical resources to protect them from intellectual dependence in daily business as well as in political matters. Basic public instruction should include the analytic teaching of human rights and of basic principles of the economy and social science. Every citizen would thereby enjoy a clear understanding of their interests and rights, which they could then use to choose and assess their representatives on an independent basis (1847: V, 206–7; VI, 238, 249, 582–83). Although Condorcet is committed to making instruction equal and therefore uniform to a significant extent, he is also concerned with protecting educational content from state meddling. To ensure independent instruction (and warrant parents’ freedom of educational choice), he recommends that, along with public institutions, private schools be allowed to provide teaching (1847: VII, 189, 320–22, 372). Introducing relative variety in educational methods and content, competition among schools helps to prevent the state from being the sole force at work in shaping citizens’ opinions. As far as instruction is concerned, however, the best way to ensure the circulation of various and independent opinions in society is to limit instruction to the teaching of basic factual truths in the natural and social sciences. As opposed to “public education,” which imparts state-approved, controversial moral and political opinions as if they were indisputable truths, hence cultivating uniformity of opinion and citizens’ intellectual dependence on the state, public instruction limits itself to teaching widely admitted truths supported by strong evidence (1847: VII, 201, 208). Such a provision fosters the free formation of political opinions within the citizenry.

Freedom of opinion and of the press contributes to vote independence in roughly the same ways. A constitutional human and political right (1847: IX, 193), freedom of thought and opinion breaks up the artificial uniformity of opinion fostered by political and religious censorship. Being exposed to a plurality of moral and political views, citizens are led to question the bases of their own opinions, gaining intellectual independence in the process (1847: VII, 202; XI, 260). Like public instruction, a free press increases voters’ independence of thought by bringing relevant facts and events to their attention and by exposing them to a variety of opinions on political issues. Access to information gives each reader enough competence not to be at the mercy of manipulative and unworthy leaders (1847: IX, 59; XII, 229), while freedom of press exposes citizens to enough diverse sources of information and opinions that newspapers do not turn into extraneous influences of a new sort.

Condorcet therefore provides a partial answer to the objection that the independence condition is unrealistic because individual opinions are necessarily formed under “common influences,” such as common information, shared ideology, shared social background, or general education, which lead citizens to vote in blocks. As Goodin and Spiekermann (2018: 61–62) remark, in a pluralist society such as the one Condorcet envisions, “different people are subject to different common causes,” which mitigates the harmful political effects of intellectual dependence on collective decision-making. ⁴

It is worth noting that Condorcet does not consider all kinds of influence to be harmful. While he dreads the influence of eloquent passion and prejudice over the individual mind, he welcomes that of reason, which he associates with the guiding role that “the enlightened” (schoolteachers, journalists, philosophers, and savants) play in the formation of public opinion (1847: I, 442; II, 238; V, 33; IX, 130; XI, 201; see Baker, 1975: 33). Condorcet seems to think that only the first kind of influence puts the independence condition at risk. Voters lose their intellectual independence under the influence of passions and prejudice expressed by political orators or charlatans, but keep it when they are influenced by reason, as expressed by the enlightened. The distinction would appear ad hoc and self-serving, if it weren’t for the rational character of the influence thereby exerted. Condorcet warns us against complete subjection—what David Estlund calls “blind deference” (Estlund, 1994: 156)—including toward knowledge and competence, for such subjection compromises both the independence and the truth of one's judgment (1847: V, 81; VI, 224–25, 629). Being under the influence of reason as publicly expressed by the enlightened should not normally result in intellectual subjection, however, because such an influence essentially takes the form of an internal process of reasoned examination and acceptance of others’ arguments or opinions by the individual. Similarly, the enlightenment that results from instruction does not amount to another kind of extraneous influence on future citizens, because instruction differs from indoctrination. Schoolteachers should refrain from presenting any received opinion as a truth and should instead teach students how to critically assess the basis of any claim, as well as the soundness of any law, in full independence (1847: VII, 203–4, 212; X, 180, 222). As opposed to blind deference, the influence of reason does not infringe on one's intellectual independence because it consists in the influence of “reasons [one] independently [values]” (Maxwell, 2019: 79). Consequently, neither enlightenment through public instruction nor rational deference toward enlightened public opinion violates CJT's independence condition.

In promoting and protecting intellectual independence, liberal-democratic institutions, rights, and decision-making procedures such as the ones Condorcet devises help neutralize the structural causes of statistical dependence between votes. The more citizens develop their intellectual independence, therefore, the less chances there are that their votes will be statistically dependent. Whether the independence condition can realistically be met in the normal circumstances of modern liberal societies remains an open question whose answer lies beyond the scope of this article. Theorists who wish to ground an epistemic justification of democracy in CJT usually attempt to relax the independence condition (as well as the theorem's other assumptions) so that it fits the partisan and media environment of contemporary democracy (Dietrich and Spiekermann, 2013; Estlund, 1994; Goodin and Estlund, 2004; Goodin and Spiekermann, 2018). Yet the preconditions of vote independence might be even more demanding than the standard use of CJT assumes. Indeed, as the next section shows, in many cases the intellectual independence the theorem requires of each voter is itself grounded in a much broader, social kind of independence. Lack of social independence may severely compromise intellectual independence, along with the applicability of CJT.

Social independence

For Condorcet, the combination of freedom of press and opinion, public education, and appropriate decision-making procedures does not suffice to meet the independence condition. Independent minds also rely on a set of legal protections and social conditions designed to ensure their security against domination and vulnerability—what I propose to call social independence. In contrast to the standard understanding of vote independence and its focus on intellectual independence, I will suggest that voters’ intellectual independence is itself grounded in their social independence, with potentially broad implications for Condorcet's conception of democracy and Condorcetian epistemic justifications of democracy more generally. To do so, I must first clarify what social dependence is and how Condorcet intends to secure it for citizens.

In addition to his concern for vote dependence in the 1785 Essay, in his political writings Condorcet more generally conceives of dependence as the durable situation of agents who are unable to provide for themselves, or who need assistance, and are thereby subject to the “arbitrary will” of others (1847: I, 611; VIII, 461; see Rothschild, 2001: 202). Condorcet does not lament interdependent relations, which characterize any modern society (1847: XII, 387). But he specifically condemns the kind of social dependence that results from asymmetrical relations of power between individuals. Relations of this kind were legion within Old-Regime French society, where unjust and often uncertain laws cohabited with state officials’ discretionary power and vast socioeconomic inequality. Dependent were the farmer, burdened by heavy taxes and enduring the “vexations” of state inspectors and subordinate officials; the guild apprentice, at the mercy of his “master's” will; the wage-earner, working on their employer's terms and constantly at risk of falling into misery and destitution; and, of course, slaves, servants, and women, legally bounded to the family realm and defined by the personal relation their masters, fathers or husbands have with them (1847: V, 64, 68; VII, 122; IX, 93; XI, 145, 161; see Rothschild, 2001: 9, 27–28; Rosanvallon, 1992: 111, 121, 136). As Condorcet sees it, social dependence is a source of hostile social relations, marked by humiliation and contempt. Akin to servitude—slavery amounting to absolute dependency—it restricts dependent individuals’ capacity for action and encourages their “servility,” that is, the development of adaptive behaviors and desires that conform to dominant individuals’ expectations (1847: V, 196–97; see Laborde, 2008: 154). Republican in character, Condorcet's criticism of social dependence leads him to defend an ideal of independence as protection against domination and vulnerability. The republican lexicon of nondomination is helpful here to capture Condorcet's scattered ideas on social independence: for Condorcet, to enjoy social independence is to be free from domination, protected from arbitrary interference and from the chronic vulnerability that stems from unregulated asymmetric relationships and uncertain environments; it is to have enough control over one's choices and actions as a result. ⁵

While Condorcet's denunciation of social dependence sounds distinctly republican to contemporary ears, Condorcet combines liberal and republican ideas without perceiving them as belonging to opposite or even distinct traditions of thought, as his various proposals for ending social dependence show. Protection from domination and vulnerability first comes from granting equal rights to every member of society. While absolute monarchy “infinitely multiplies dependence between men through the influence of wealth,” the 1789 Declaration of Rights “makes man independent from man” by recognizing human rights and the exclusive “dependence on the law” (1847: I, 509; X, 278, 342). An early abolitionist, Condorcet is keen to point out the contradiction between the French Declaration of Rights and the persistence of slavery in the French colonies, and he calls for the emancipation of all slaves (1847 IX, 471–72). Social independence also calls for the reform of criminal and civil law to establish the rule of law and grant legal status and protections to people whose professions and situations are vulnerable to asymmetric relations of power, such as freed slaves, tenant farmers, servants, and women (1847: VII, 122; XI, 192; XII, 386; see Rothschild, 2001: 169). Second, social dependence is bound to decrease as public instruction becomes widespread. In endowing people with the necessary knowledge to freely develop their “industry and abilities” and giving them access to professional training, instruction aims to ensure that all members of society are in a position to provide for their own needs without living at the mercy of wealthier citizens (1847: VI, 248; VII, 175).

Third, Condorcet sees economic reform as key to ending social dependence. In the decade preceding the Revolution, he supported fiscal reforms aimed at abolishing the corvée and other oppressive taxes that were borne overwhelmingly by the poor and vulnerable, and which thus maintained them in a state of dependence and misery (1847: V, 63; XI, 161). More broadly, Condorcet is convinced that economic liberalization will lead not only to general prosperity but also to the abolition of dependency relations and to the end of poverty (1847: V, 196). Emma Rothschild has shown how Condorcet, along with Smith and Turgot, saw economic liberalism as the most effective and progressive way to fight arbitrary power, old privilege, and inequality in the economic sphere (Rothschild, 2001). The abolition of arbitrary regulations and privilege restitutes to all the “freedom to dispose of their intelligence and strength as they see fit;” freedom of trade and industry aims at “attacking all kinds of oppression” (1847: V, 68, 77). As an equilibrium will eventually be reached between the need of the rich for a workforce and the need of the poor for money, the wage-earners will become “more independent” by developing their skills, multiplying their resources, and gaining negotiating power (1847, XI, 104–5). In the long run, economic freedom combined with tax and inheritance reform is to result in a “more equal distribution” of wealth or, at least, in the disappearance of wealth discrepancies so vast as to create dependence, social inequality, and the humiliation and disregard for the poor and vulnerable that come with it (1847: V, 196; VI, 238, 245; IX, 92–93; XI, 191).

As confident as he is in the equalizing power of economic liberalism, Condorcet is aware that economic equilibrium is a distant prospect. Moreover, he thinks that inequality between people living on the net product of their property and people having to work for a living is inevitable in a society organized by division of labor (1847: XI, 389; XII, 645–46). Therefore, he proposes to preserve wage-earners’ social independence with a fourth set of measures. He envisions various social-insurance and savings schemes designed to provide for workers and their families in case of loss of employment due to disability, old age, or sudden death (1847: VI, 247; VIII, 461; XI 389, 392; XII, 649). He also demands that every member of society be assured “subsistence,” not through charity or the fixing of prices for necessary goods, but through provision by the state of work to the poor, for a salary high enough to buy such goods (1847: XI, 111, 167, 199; see Rothschild, 2001: 77). These various projects of “insurance against the inequality of security,” in Rothschild's words (Rothschild, 2001: 251), are designed to guarantee the same protection against vulnerability and domination to all—that is, equal social independence.

Condorcet's work contains many indications that he held social independence to be a basis for intellectual independence. Not only does Condorcet often associate intellectual and social forms of dependence as equally intolerable constraints on freedom (1847: VII, 122; IX, 93); he also implies that, in many cases, social independence is the precondition for intellectual independence. This is evident when he discusses the social situation of the savant. Condorcet is perfectly aware that enlightenment comes at a price: only those who are lucky enough to have “independent wealth” are at liberty to pursue long studies (1847: VII, 174) ⁶ and to freely express their minds. When depending on protectors and patrons for their living, scientists and philosophers cannot write freely or convey the truth to others, because they are vulnerable to pressure and forced to flatter and please their benefactors in exchange for protection. This debasing and humiliating situation also directly limits the savants’ independence of thought and distorts the truthful expression of their opinions (1847: III, 70; see Baker, 1975, 53).

What is even more evident for Condorcet is that social dependence puts the intellectual independence of the poor and vulnerable at risk. Misery and meaningless work can reduce a person to stupidity (1847: IX, 93), and living off a relationship defined by dependence can sometimes deprive agents of a will of their own. In the eighteenth-century political imagination, this was typically the case of servants. Pierre Rosanvallon notes that servants were attached to their masters via a personal, domestic relationship (as opposed to a contractual one) that put them at the disposal of their masters. For this reason, servants were not considered full members of civil society and were reputed to be “incapable of a personal opinion” (Rosanvallon, 1992: 120–21). In writings from 1788 and 1789 (including his draft for a declaration of rights), Condorcet endorses this dominant view when he denies that servants have a “free will” or “a will of their own,” because of their social position of dependence (1847: VI, 130; VIII, 132; IX, 17, 207). More generally, Condorcet appears to have conceived security against domination and vulnerability as a prerequisite for intellectual independence, particularly in the political realm.

“Extraneous influence” over votes, in other words, can also stem from social circumstances of vulnerability. In Condorcet's eyes, individuals facing general insecurity or depending on the will of other people for their living are more susceptible to extraneous influence than are legally and economically independent agents when articulating their choices and opinions. Likewise, individuals stuck in social relations of domination and servility risk having a distorted understanding of their interests and rights and are prone to “corrupting dependence” (Sparling, 2013; Stedman Jones, 2005: 225). Resistance to political quid pro quos and partisan pressure—one of the fundamental conditions for vote independence—requires more than personal virtue and strength of character: often, resistance will be maintained only from a position secured against domination and personal dependence by legal status, rights, and independent means of subsistence. Only when citizens are granted equal rights and enjoy epistemic, social, and economic resources can they judge, in full knowledge of the facts and with complete independence of mind, how best to promote justice and the public interest.

Social independence is a “fragile achievement” (Garrau, 2018: 143) rather than a given. Even approximating it depends on specific, and demanding, social conditions. Now this might give democrats pause. If intellectual independence must be realized for CJT to hold, and, consequently, at least approximated for democracy to be justified, and if intellectual independence is often severely undermined by social dependence, then the conditions for the justification of democracy appear much more exacting than previously thought. In other words, by seemingly offering new grounds for the political exclusion of historically disadvantaged groups, the revised interpretation of what vote independence requires appears only to reinforce anti-democratic arguments. To put it bluntly, in social circumstances where some groups are chronically exposed to domination and social dependency, granting their members political rights may not be justified considering CJT. Condorcet's brief remarks on servants may serve as a warning in that regard. Although he did not explicitly say so, Condorcet seems to have adhered to the common view that servants, being in a situation of personal dependence, would only replicate their masters’ votes if they were given the chance—thereby effectively violating CJT's independence condition. In any case, in his 1788–1789 writings, he excluded servants from the exercise of political rights, including voting rights. Should we conclude that, for Condorcet, democratic universal suffrage remains unwarranted until intellectual and social independence is, if not fully realized, at least structurally warranted?

From precondition to democratic demand

Condorcet's answer to that question is ambivalent and bears the imprint of the transformative event that was the French Revolution. As revolutionary events unfolded—as a democratic republic, although imperfect in many respects, was instituted in France for the first time—Condorcet, as a political actor and thinker, had to take cognizance of a radically new political reality. This led him to develop a perspective on democracy and its justification that departs from his prerevolutionary writings.

Before 1789 and during the first months of the French Revolution, Condorcet oscillated between two opposite positions. He firmly believes that democratic rule is justified only if there is a high probability that it will bring about good political decisions, but he is equally committed to political participation as a natural human right. The tension between these two positions is manifest in Condorcet's contrasting views of the possible grounds for women's and non-property-owners’ claims to citizenship rights (droits de cité, which refer to residential and political rights in Condorcet's writings).

Women, sharing with men the rational and sensitive powers that enable them to develop moral ideas, are naturally endowed with the same rights as them (1847: IX, 14; X, 122). Among these natural rights figures one's right to participate in the making of laws that apply to oneself; women, therefore, are entitled to the same citizenship rights as men. Moreover, according to Condorcet, women's legal and material dependence, although very real, has no effect on their ability to have independent political opinions. Condorcet condemns the structural domination to which “oppressive laws” subject women and laments the “great inequality” existing between men and women, including within marriage. But he denies that it should follow that women are deprived of a will of their own or fully deferent to their husband's opinions (1847: IX, 15–16; X, 125). Notwithstanding their social dependence, women follow their own reason. Therefore, there are no solid grounds for denying women citizenship rights. When discussing women's political rights, then, Condorcet dismisses the possibility that one's capacity for independent reasoning could be impaired by material or legal dependence. Women's intellectual independence is the necessary and sufficient condition for their entitlement to voting rights.

Condorcet's approach to the question of citizenship rights for non-property-owners is strikingly different. In prerevolutionary writings, he develops a convoluted argument about the difference between the natural right to political participation, which every person is granted in principle, and the exercise of such a right, which can be rightfully limited to prevent misuse. While citizenship rights, and specifically the right to participate in lawmaking, are “essential, unalienable and imprescriptible” and belong equally to all people subject to the law, their exercise is “in effect” subject to “natural” conditions (1847: V, 210; VIII, 127; IX, 11–12). Among these conditions figures the possession of property: in his 1789 draft for a declaration of rights, Condorcet thus limits citizenship rights to property-owners (1847: I, 207; VIII, 128; IX, 11, 207). ⁷ Condorcet considers such limitation legitimate for various reasons.

First, Condorcet defends a physiocratic version of the all-interested principle: having a personal right to a good (usually a piece of land) subject to the law, property-owners have an interest in the content of such law and are entitled to citizenship rights on such grounds (1847: VIII, 132; see Rosanvallon, 1992: 53–54). By contrast, non-property-owners have little or no interest in the content of the law. They are necessarily less concerned with having good civil and fiscal laws, whose main purpose is to protect property. Meanwhile, landowners, being attached to the land, cannot as easily escape the country and therefore have further reasons to make sure good laws are passed (1847: V, 178–79; IX, 12). But there is a second reason why non-property-owners are rightfully excluded from citizenship rights, according to the prerevolutionary Condorcet: their social dependence. Having no property means having no independent wealth, no resources of one's own on which to live (1847: V, 126; VIII, 128; IX, 13; X, 82). Presumably because lacking independent means of subsistence makes one more vulnerable to influence and corruption, Condorcet restricts citizenship rights to property owners who can live off the annual net revenue generated by their (landed) property. The social dependence of non-property-owners materializes in the precariousness of their legal situation as well. Non-property-owners, such as tenants and workers, live and work at the discretion of landowners to whom they owe their rights, except for their basic right to live. Property owners can dispose of their land at will and have the discretionary power to deny anyone use, occupancy, or residency. Non-property-owners therefore depend on them for their right to work the land and reside on it. From this observation, Condorcet concludes, in 1788, that property-owners can “rightfully consider themselves the only citizens of the state” (1847: IX, 13; VIII, 129).

Condorcet's reasons for excluding non-property-owners from citizenship rights are evidently inconsistent with his defense of women's rights. In the immediate wake of the Revolution, then, his reflections on what grounds political rights and the extent to which social dependence is an obstacle to their exercise are contradictory and inconclusive. Revolutionary events, starting with the decree of the marc d’argent and the law passed by the National Assembly distinguishing “active” and “passive” citizens in October 1789, forced Condorcet to clarify his positions. Condorcet was fiercely opposed to these measures, which introduced hierarchical political distinctions between persons—ranked from simple political subjects to eligible citizens—based on the level of their tax payments. In writings from 1790 to 1793, he insists that granting citizenship rights based on tax payment amounts to allowing constitutional rights to be altered with every change in fiscal policy (1847: X, 79). More importantly, going back on his previous claims, he also argues that propertyless individuals, who are unable to pay significant taxes, nevertheless enjoy the social independence necessary for exercising citizenship rights. This is so because the Revolution has granted non-property-owners enforceable legal rights. Tenants’ claims over the land or houses they occupy for a given time are protected by contract and are opposable to property-owners’ claims. Far from living and working by the good grace of landowners and being expellable at will, non-property-owners are now protected by law and equally entitled to citizenship rights—which, according to Condorcet in 1791, belong to any inhabitant of a territory having the right to reside there (1847: X, 217; XII, 386). Legally protected from the most pressing forms of precariousness and private domination, non-property-owners are consequently able to exercise their political rights without key structural obstacles limiting their independence of mind. In accordance with CJT's independence condition, here the rights of political participation are justified insofar as social—and consequently intellectual—independence is secured, in the present case by equal legal protection and status recognition.

In other writings, however, Condorcet develops a different rationale. In his 1790 essay on women's citizenship rights, Condorcet responds to the argument that women's legal and financial dependence on men reduces them to a state of domestic subjection that prevents them from having opinions of their own by arguing that an unjust state of affairs cannot justify yet another injustice. One cannot invoke the oppressive laws and practices that keep women in an artificial state of dependence to justify further violations of women's natural rights. Instead, the right conclusion to draw from women's dependence and domination is that women ought to be granted citizenship rights and that the laws impeding women's social and possibly intellectual independence ought to be abolished (1847: X, 126; IX, 16). Far from being a precondition for political participation, here women's independence begins with the democratic recognition of their citizenship (including voting and eligibility) rights. Three years later, in a text defending his constitutional plan (1847: XII, 387), Condorcet puts forward a similar argument.

Dependence, which does not allow one to believe that an individual obeys their own will, could doubtless be legitimate grounds for exclusion; but I did not think it possible to assume the existence of this kind of dependence under a truly free constitution, and among a people where love of equality is the distinctive characteristic of public spirit. The social relations that would imply such humiliation cannot subsist among us and must soon take another form. Lastly, since our entire code enshrines civil equality in law, is it not better that political equality should also reign entirely in it, and work to remove what remains of this dependence, instead of enshrining it, as it were, in our new laws?

Several elements complicate the relationship between individual independence and the granting of political rights here. First, the legal recognition of dependence would establish “humiliating distinctions” and political exclusions among citizens that are unacceptable in a democratic republic committed to freedom and equality (1847: X, 83, 86, 128–29). To even imply that such dependence exists is by itself an insult to equality, for it would suggest that some individuals are incapable of autonomous agency. Therefore, every member of the republic ought simply to be assumed intellectually independent and granted citizenship rights. Second, Condorcet suggests that “political equality”—that is, the indistinct granting of equal political rights to the people ⁸ —can help make intellectual and social independence a reality. Democratic values and demands therefore have a twofold transformative effect on social reality. The public declaration that citizens are equals, regardless of the unequal abilities to judge for oneself that may exist among them, institutes new social relations between citizens, devoid of humiliation and subservience. But the political recognition of freedom and equality—in the constitution, the republican form of government and the legal system—also helps achieve citizens’ intellectual and social independence, by ensuring their equal political inclusion and by hastening educational, social, and economic transformations toward equal social relations between independent citizens. ⁹ In Condorcet's writings from 1793, social independence is the goal of democratic practice, not its precondition.

Condorcet thus came to change his views on the relationship between individual independence and the rights of political participation. While he consistently held individual intellectual independence to be a condition for justified democratic rule, he gradually conceded that such independence had to be presupposed in all and cultivated by instruction and equal-status recognition, rather than tested by unreliable standards that would enshrine humiliating distinctions between citizens (1847: XII, 397). As for social independence, which Condorcet first saw as an acceptable precondition for voting rights and the advent of democracy, he came to conceive it as a democratic demand, one that a legitimate democratic republic ought to address: the demand for equal emancipation from domination and vulnerability.

Epistemic democracy à la Condorcet

The evolution of Condorcet's conception of independence, from a precondition to democracy to a democratic demand, signals a significant shift in his perspective on democracy. As the Revolution unfolded, Condorcet came to see democracy primarily as a comprehensive social and political ideal of emancipation and only secondly—although still significantly—as a form of government likely to foster good political decisions, when certain conditions are met. In this concluding section, I will suggest that such a shift in perspective has implications for the use of CJT that might call for a re-evaluation of the place occupied by epistemic considerations in the justification of democracy.

The standard account of CJT's independence condition is that it makes legitimate democratic rule conditional on voters’ intellectual independence. Focusing on the 1785 Essay alone, democratic theorists see Condorcet as an epistemic democrat primarily concerned with the truth of political decisions. On such a reading, Condorcet is willing to defend the institution of democracy only insofar as it will result in a high enough probability of good political decisions. As one of the conditions of his simplified model for the greater probability of good decision-making, individual intellectual independence is therefore taken to be a necessary, though insufficient, condition for the adoption of democratic rule. Intellectual independence is a precondition for the exercise of political rights and, along with the other assumptions of the theorem, it provides the grounds for a strictly conditional justification of democracy (Estlund, 1994; Estlund et al., 1989; Goodin and Estlund, 2004; Goodin and Spiekermann, 2018). As the early Condorcet himself acknowledged, the jury theorem suggests that the people of Ancien Régime France should rightly be kept from exercising decisional power.

There is, however, another way to use CJT that is both more consonant with Condorcet's later stance on citizenship rights within a democratic republic and less prone to anti-democratic flipping. In response to the Revolution, Condorcet developed a comprehensive understanding of democracy as a social and political ideal of equal emancipation. Such an ideal required, among other things, the realization and protection of intellectual and social independence through a complex set of legal protections, political procedures, educative institutions, economic policies, and social security schemes. In other words, the primary value of individual independence is not that it provides a necessary basis for good collective decisions. If this were the case, given the persistent dependence of significant swaths of the French population in the years following the Revolution, relying on a small body of independent voters to make collective decisions would have been justified. Yet in the passage quoted above, Condorcet recommends the exact opposite. More generally, as his evolution on suffrage extension makes clear, Condorcet grew wary of the exclusionary nature of any independence condition for the democratic right to vote. This is because individual independence is constitutive of emancipation. A democratic republic must therefore strive to protect its citizens against dependence “of body” and “of mind” (1847: VIII, 476), and it is in meeting the demand for individual independence, among other things, that democracy earns its primary justification. In other words, individual independence is not what society must tend toward (among other conditions) for democracy to be instituted in the first place; it is what ensues from the realization of the democratic ideal.

Within this broader conception of the democratic ideal, the epistemic argument for democracy becomes secondary. Democracy's appeal lies not primarily in the high probability of good political results, but in citizens’ political, intellectual, and social emancipation, which in turn creates the conditions for those good political results. Democracy's value in part lies in the achievement of individual independence as protection against domination and vulnerability; when such independence is achieved, democratic rule is likely to produce good political decisions. The epistemic justification of democracy is thus secondary in time rather than in importance. Condorcet maintains throughout that democratic laws are legitimately binding in virtue of the high probability of them being consistent with justice and the public interest and that vote independence is a necessary condition for the likelihood of good political decisions (1785: 17; 1847, X, 177). But, though of central importance, the independence condition cannot be invoked to dismiss the institution of democracy as unjustified in the first place, for there are nonepistemic reasons to pursue democracy as a political and social ideal. The epistemic argument for democracy comes into play only once certain democratic requirements, such as individual independence and competence, have been structurally met. CJT can then be interpreted as giving strong secondary epistemic reasons for thinking that democratic decision-making will likely result in good political decisions, only when democratic requirements, such as intellectual and social independence, tend to be met within a democratic republic committed to freedom and equality. Voters’ independence must first be publicly recognized and promoted by the institution of democracy and by democratic policymaking so as to then help increase the probability of good democratic decisions. From this perspective, CJT's independence condition is not a prerequisite for democracy, but the formal expression of a democratic requirement: that social conditions be arranged so that citizens may enjoy social and intellectual independence and contribute to enlightened democratic government as a result.

Though this article primarily focuses on Condorcet's democratic thought, the revised account of the role of the independence condition in his argument for democracy may hold interesting implications for epistemic democrats. The account suggests that epistemic arguments for democracy are effective only in specific social and political contexts, where citizens are structurally protected against domination and vulnerability. Now epistemic justifications of democracy have traditionally focused on the institutional design of deliberative and decision-making procedures or, alternatively, on citizens’ individual abilities and virtues, that are most conducive to good political decisions (Brown, 2019; Estlund, 2008; Estlund and Landemore, 2018; Farrelly, 2012; Hannon, 2022). Beyond ritually stressing the crucial importance of education for a well-functioning epistemic democracy, epistemic democrats have not paid much attention to the social conditions of epistemic democracy. ¹⁰ While political procedures and voters’ personal abilities certainly play a role in the likelihood of good democratic decision-making, Condorcet's first lesson is that these will not be enough, and that institutional design needs to be backed up by a set of legal and social protections, rights, and educational institutions aimed at equally securing voters’ intellectual and social independence. In attending to the social conditions for independent (and competent) individual judgments, the Condorcetian democratic republic turns itself into an epistemic democracy. Arguably, if epistemic democrats paid as much attention to the social conditions in which democratic procedures are likely to result in good political decisions as they do to the design of such procedures, epistemic theories of democracy could gain in plausibility as well as in robustness. I have suggested that these social conditions can be seen as characteristic of a democratic society committed to the equal emancipation of all its members.

At this point, epistemic democrats might want to object to the correlation between social and intellectual independence and to the consequent inclusion of protection against domination and vulnerability among the conditions for epistemic democracy. They might argue that Condorcet's suggestion that poverty and social vulnerability risk impairing independent political judgment is a questionable assumption that democratic theorists should not accept. Appealing to standpoint theory, they even might claim that the situation of social dependence in which members of oppressed groups find themselves potentially gives their vote a unique epistemic insight. One might reply that, as a matter of fact, epistemic democrats do assume a correlation between political competence and social circumstances, when they raise “demographic objections” against epistocracy. ¹¹ Nevertheless, the concern remains valid: in following Condorcet and claiming that social vulnerability affects the ability to have independent (and competent) political opinions, wouldn’t epistemic democrats be denying agency and voice to individuals whose social situation arguably gives them an epistemically valuable perspective on social and political matters? Some of Condorcet's claims—e.g., about the alleged stupidity resulting from repetitive manual labor—are evidently biased and unsubstantiated. It would be wrong to dismiss Condorcet's account of the interrelation between social and intellectual dependence as the mere expression of an outdated preconception about the cognitive abilities of the worst-off, however. In fact, the underlying notion that an individual's autonomous thinking depends in large part on various social resources for its development and exercise resonates with the work of many political theorists today, who suggest that social protections and opportunities have a significant impact on the development of agential abilities, including the cognitive, emotional, and conative abilities that lie at the basis of judgment-formation (Garrau, 2018: 153, 155; Mackenzie, 2014; Nussbaum, 1988; Oshana, 2006: 157). Independence of mind is an achievement rather than a given, and, while the voice of the vulnerable must not be discounted, its epistemic value is partly conditional on such independence. Situated experiential knowledge of domination and vulnerability arguably cannot develop in a state of complete alienation, and, in any case, the fact that such knowledge informs the votes of vulnerable citizens is not sufficient evidence of a well-functioning epistemic democracy, that is, one that does its best to warrant the equal independence of all its members. This is where Condorcet's revolutionary thought can be of help. In associating an ideal of emancipation with the refusal to ground political rights in “humiliating distinctions” between citizens’ intellectual abilities or social statuses, Condorcet shows how, in a democracy, independence must be at once an assumption and a demand. ¹² It is to be both the object of what Ian Carter (2011) calls “opacity respect”—that is, the respectful assumption that all citizens are capable of independent judgment—and the objective of a democratic politics aimed at realizing citizen's security against domination and vulnerability.

If Condorcet is right to see independence as a democratic demand best realized through democratic means, then epistemic democrats may have a reason to adopt a conception of democracy as a comprehensive social and political ideal, where epistemic arguments, though important, may not act as stand-alone justifications for democracy. As Condorcet's evolving thoughts on political rights show, the role of epistemic arguments for democracy cannot be foundational, only secondary. By this I do not mean only that epistemic arguments for democracy do not suffice to ground democratic legitimacy, which epistemic democrats generally admit (Cohen, 1994; Estlund, 2008). I mean that it is inoperative, counterproductive even, to appeal to epistemic considerations to justify the adoption of decision-making procedures such as universal suffrage, when the broader social democratic conditions for equal emancipation are not close to being met. For doing so automatically opens the door to the opposite, anti-democratic argument, according to which the lack of necessary epistemic qualities within subgroups of the electorate justifies voting rights restrictions in existing democracies, regardless, first, of the domination structures and systemic vulnerabilities that may exist in such a society and, second, of the transformative effects that democratic inclusion and emancipation may have on them. By contrast, epistemic arguments are most powerful when they act as a secondary justification in a broader account of democratic legitimacy. Democracy promotes equal emancipation and, as such, is an ideal worth pursuing. When the social and political requirements of a democratic society are structurally met, such as the intellectual and social independence of its members, Condorcet's jury theorem gives us reason to think that the right political decisions are more likely to result from well-designed democratic procedures than from a small decision-making body.