Linda Liu

Does Epistemic Democracy track liberal values

Started May 12, 2023

Abstract or project description

This project will evaluate and discuss epistemic models of democracy. Epistemic democracy is the view that democracy is better than other forms of government at assessing and coming to policies that lead to justice, equality, and freedom (and other liberal democratic values) than other forms of government. This model is similar to forms of natural law theory in that both claim to track the aforementioned values, but the derivation of these outcomes is not clear. This paper will provide some critiques of epistemic democracy, and offer suggestions for how epistemic democracy could improve its epistemic goals. It also considers how other forms of government could similarly track these values to show that this phenomenon is not necessarily unique to democracy and why.