ABSTRACTThe normative ideals and feasibility of deliberative democracy have come under attack from several directions, as exemplified by a recent book version of a special issue of this journal. Critics have pointed out that the complexity of the modern world, voter ignorance, partisanship, apathy, and the esoteric nature of political communications make it unlikely that deliberation will be successful at creating good outcomes, and that it may in fact be counterproductive since it can polarize opinions. However, these criticisms were aimed (...) at “micro” theories of deliberative democracy. The new “systemic” turn in deliberative democracy avoids these problems by positing a system-wide division of labor in a nation-state: experts and ordinary citizens “check” each other's opinions; partisanship and even ignorance can spur deliberation among citizens; and citizens may remain apathetic about some issues but deliberate about others. So long as the overall level of systemic deliberation increases, instead of decreases, the ideal of deliberation is still relevant in a society as complex as ours. (shrink)

The controversy over the old ideal of “value-free science” has cooled significantly over the past decade. Many philosophers of science now agree that even ethical and political values may play a substantial role in all aspects of scientific inquiry. Consequently, in the last few years, work in science and values has become more specific: Which values may influence science, and in which ways? Or, how do we distinguish illegitimate from illegitimate kinds of influence? In this paper, I argue that this (...) problem requires philosophers of science to take a new direction. I present two case studies in the influence of values on scientific inquiry: feminist values in archaeology and commercial values in pharmaceutical research. I offer a preliminary assessment of these cases, that the influence of values was legitimate in the feminist case, but not in the pharmaceutical case. I then turn to three major approaches to distinguish legitimate from illegitimate influences of values, including the distinction between epistemic and non-epistemic values and Heather Douglas’ distinction between direct and indirect roles for values. I argue that none of these three approaches gives an adequate analysis of the two cases. In the concluding section, I briefly sketch my own approach, which draws more heavily on ethics than the others, and is more promising as a solution to the current problem. This is the new direction in which I think science and values should move. (shrink)

Epistemic democracy is standardly characterized in terms of “aiming at truth”. This presupposes a veritistic conception of epistemic value, according to which truth is the fundamental epistemic goal. I will raise an objection to the standard (veritistic) account of epistemic democracy, focusing specifically on deliberative democracy. I then propose a version of deliberative democracy that is grounded in non-veritistic epistemic goals. In particular, I argue that deliberation is valuable because it facilitates empathetic understanding. I claim that empathetic understanding is an (...) epistemic good that doesn’t have truth as its primary goal. (shrink)

ABSTRACTAccording to Jonathan Kuyper, deliberative democratic theory, having taken a “systemic turn,” is now better able to deal with the complexity of the real world. Central to this development is the democratic “division of epistemic labor,” under which experts, public servants, and the politically engaged may compensate for the relative ignorance of democratic citizens at large. However, the systemic turn raises the question of whether deliberation has been reconstituted as a means to the end of citizens’ interests, or whether it (...) remains an end in itself. To the extent that deliberation has been accepted as a means to the realization of common interests, the systemic turn begs the question of why we should expect the epistemic division of labor to be effective in identifying public policies that serve those interests. To the extent that deliberative democrats seek to avoid this problem by retaining an a priori commitment to deliberative inclusion, it is more than conceivable that the systemic turn will descend into a simplistic and unedifying form of functionalism. (shrink)

ABSTRACTNormative political epistemologists, such as epistemic democrats, study whether political decision makers can, in principle, be expected to know what they need to know if they are to make wise public policy. Empirical political epistemologists study the content and sources of real-world political actors' knowledge and interpretations of knowledge. In recent years, empirical political epistemologists have taken up the study of the ideas of political actors other than voters, such as bureaucrats and politicians. Normative political epistemologists could follow this lead (...) if they were to focus on the technocratic orientation of nearly all political actors in the West: that is, on their desire to solve social and economic problems. Since most technocratic policy is made by political elites, the reliability of elites' knowledge of the causes of and cures for social and economic problems is a natural topic for normative political epistemology. (shrink)

On August 30, 2013, the American Political Science Association sponsored a roundtable on political epistemology as part of its annual meetings. Co-chairing the roundtable were Jeffrey Friedman, Department of Government, University of Texas at Austin; and Hélène Landemore, Department of Political Science, Yale University. The other participants were Scott Althaus, Department of Political Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Mark Bevir, Department of Political Science, University of California at Berkeley; Rogers Smith, Department of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania; and Susan (...) Stokes, Department of Political Science, Yale University. We thank the participants for permission to republish their remarks, which they subsequently edited for clarity. (shrink)