Expertise, Agreement, and the Nature of Social Scientific Facts or: Against Epistocracy

Taking some controversial claims philosopher Jason Brennan makes in his book Against Democracy (Brennan 2016) as a starting point, this paper argues in favour of two theses: (1) There is No Such Thing as Superior Political Judgement; (2) There Is No Such Thing as Uncontroversial Social Scientific Kn...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Social epistemology 2019-03, Vol.33 (2), p.183-192
Main Author: Reiss, Julian
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Democracy
economics
epistemic authority
epistocracy
Expertise
Experts
Power
Scientific knowledge
social science
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Summary:Taking some controversial claims philosopher Jason Brennan makes in his book Against Democracy (Brennan 2016) as a starting point, this paper argues in favour of two theses: (1) There is No Such Thing as Superior Political Judgement; (2) There Is No Such Thing as Uncontroversial Social Scientific Knowledge. I conclude that social science experts need to be kept in check, not given more power.
ISSN:0269-1728
1464-5297
DOI:10.1080/02691728.2019.1577513