Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-c4f8m Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-20T01:29:45.876Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

COGNITIVE DIVERSITY, BINARY DECISIONS, AND EPISTEMIC DEMOCRACY

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 September 2015

John A. Weymark
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In Democratic Reason, Hélène Landemore has built a case for the epistemic virtues of inclusive deliberative democracy based on the cognitive diversity of the group engaged in making collective decisions. She supports her thesis by appealing to the Diversity Trumps Ability Theorem of Lu Hong and Scott Page. This theorem is quite technical and the informal statements of it aimed at democratic theorists are inaccurate, which has resulted in some misguided critiques of the theorem's applicability to democratic politics. This paper provides an exposition of the Diversity Trumps Ability Theorem that does not sacrifice precision for accessibility. It also shows that it is not possible to satisfy the assumptions of this theorem when there are only two options. Thus, the Diversity Trumps Ability Theorem cannot provide support for the epistemic virtues of inclusive democratic deliberation for binary collective decisions.

Type
Articles
Information
Episteme , Volume 12 , Issue 4 , December 2015 , pp. 497 - 511
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Anderson, E. 2006. ‘The Epistemology of Democracy.’ Episteme, 3: 8–22.Google Scholar
Austen-Smith, D. and Banks, J. S. 1996. ‘Information aggregation, rationality, and the Condorcet Jury Theorem.’ American Political Science Review, 90: 34–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blinder, A. S. 2007. ‘Monetary Policy by Committee: Why and How?’ European Journal of Political Economy, 23: 106–23.Google Scholar
Cohen, J. 1986. ‘An Epistemic Conception of Democracy.’ Ethics, 97: 26–38.Google Scholar
Estlund, D. M. 2008. Democratic Authority: A Philosophical Framework. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Gunn, P. 2014. ‘Democracy and Epistocracy.’ Critical Review, 26: 59–79.Google Scholar
Hong, L. and Page, S. E. 2004. Groups of Diverse Problem Solvers can Outperform Groups of High-ability Problem Solvers. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 101: 16385–16389.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Landemore, H. 2013. Democratic Reason: Politics, Collective Intelligence, and the Rule of the Many. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Landemore, H. 2014. ‘Yes, we Can (Make it up on Volume): Answers to Critics.’ Critical Review, 26: 184–237.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Landemore, H. and Page, S. E. 2015. ‘Deliberation and Disagreement: Problem Solving, Prediction, and Positive Dissensus.’ Politics, Philosophy and Economics, 14: 229–54.Google Scholar
LiCalzi, M. and Surucu, O. 2012. ‘The Power of Diversity over Large Solution Spaces.’ Management Science, 58: 1408–21.Google Scholar
List, C. and Pettit, P. 2011. Group Agency: The Possibility, Design, and Status of Corporate Agents. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Page, S. E. 2007. The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Peter, F. 2009. Democratic Legitimacy. New York, NY: Routledge.Google Scholar
Quirk, P. 2014. ‘Making it Up on Volume: Are Larger Groups Really Smarter?’ Critical Review, 26: 129–50.Google Scholar
Risse, M. 2004. ‘Arguing for Majority Rule.’ Journal of Political Philosophy, 12: 41–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Surowiecki, J. 2004. The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many are Smarter than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies, and Nations. New York, NY: Doubleday.Google Scholar