Means-Based and Ends-Based Epistocracy

This paper has two aims. First, it defends the claim that liberal-democratic states may rely on experts to determine what the best (i.e. most efficient morally acceptable) ways of realising various public goals are. Whilst such a means-based epistocracy may seem uncontroversial, it has important and surprising implications for a range of political issues. For example, if my argument that democratic legitimacy only requires the demos to be involved in the choosing of policy ends as opposed to their means is sound, then states may implement mandatory vaccination schemes and impose carbon taxes even if some group of citizens (possibly a majority) opposes them. Insofar as these policies best achieve their public goals (protecting people from infectious diseases and perilous climate changes respectively) then implementing them does not undermine democratic legitimacy. Or so I argue. Second, the paper offers a qualified defence of what I will term a ‘ends-based epistocracy’. Drawing on Kolodny’s defence of democracy as necessary for achieving social equality (or avoiding subordinate relations between citizens), I argue that for epistocrats (e.g. moral or political philosophers) to choose the ends of policies is democratically unjustifiable even if this would lead to substantively better result, provided that a threshold of justice is realised (if this is not the case, I concur with Waldron that there is a democratic loss but share Dworkin’s view that doing so is not democratically illegitimate). However, as I go on to argue, states should nonetheless offer citizens the opportunity to live (morally) better lives in ways that go beyond the demands of liberal-democratic citizenship. Specifically, they should offer citizens the opportunity to fund a non-governmental organisation of experts that offers advice on ways to improve their (moral) well-being. Doing so is important, I argue, as it is not clear whether the democratic problems plaguing a full-blown ends-based epistocracy would outweigh the wish of some citizens to live (morally) better lives.