On The Jury Theorem and Epistemic Proceduralism

The Jury Theorem seems to imply that, in groups of much size, if it is correct more often than not then it is also virtually infallible. Majority rule is only better than random if voters are better than random; but if they are, then in large groups majority rule is virtually infallible. In that case, the minority voter would have no basis for thinking the procedure tends to be correct which was not an equally good basis for thinking it is almost certainly correct every time. To accept this is to surrender one’s judgment to the process. The proceduralist version would seem to provide no advantage on this score.

In reality, however, the fates of proceduralist and non-proceduralist epistemic accounts are not as closely linked as this suggests. It is possible to have majority rule perform better than .5 (random) even if voters are on average worse than .5, so long as individual competences are arranged in a certain way. For majority rule in a given society to be correct more often than not, all that is required is that, more often than not, voters have, for a particular instance of voting, an average competence only slightly better than .5. Then the group is almost certain to get it right in every such instance, and so more often than not. After that, it does not matter how low voter competence is in other instances, and so they could drag the overall average competence, across instances of voting, well below .5....

The weaker use of the Jury Theorem, as presented here, still depends on that model’s applicability to real contexts of democratic choice. This cannot be confidently maintained, owing to at least the following two difficulties. First, there are still many questions about what kinds and degrees of mutual influence or similarity among voters are compatible with the Jury Theorem’s assumption that voters are independent. Independence is not automatically defeated by mutual influence as has often been thought, but whether actual patterns of influence are within allowable bounds is presently not well understood.
Second, the Jury Theorem assumes there are only two alternatives. In some contexts it does look as if there are often precisely two alternatives. Consider the choice between raising the speed limit or not raising it, or forbidding abortion or not. These are genuine binary choices even though the “not” in each case opens up many further choices. Of course, they have been somehow selected from a much larger set, and we would want to know how the choice came down to these.--David Estlund (1997) "Beyond Fairness and Deliberation" (p. 188-9)

Estlund's paper addresses the question, what justifies majority rule to those that also demand that majority decisions also reliable track moral truth, or the demands of morality? In particular, to those that are not just content with procedural fairness and impartiality or other such moral claims grounded in moral equality. (Obviously, there are also justifications of majority rule that are purely consequentialist or pragmatic; these do not concern us here.) Condorcet's jury theorem is often taken to meet this challenge (here's a more technical recent treatment). Today my students were not moved initially. Some students were skeptics of the very idea of moral correctness. In response, I noted that if they were genuine moral skeptics then they would also have to reject the norms of equality (fairness/impartiality) that ground proceduralism and so give up on the enterprise of a normative justification of democracy independent of the contingent good consequences. (Estlund's approach is compatible with moral relativism, constructivism, or contextualism, although it is not articulated in those terms.)

I like the application of the jury theorem because it generates its result by assuming an "average competence only slightly better than .5." That's a low threshold. If it were routinely violated in ordinary societies (i.e., without conditions of civil war, tyranny, etc.), then we would have very different and a lot more mistrustful ways of dealing with each other. This competence may be institution-dependent, but still it's not very demanding. This fits my methodological analytical egalitarianism and hostility to moral experts. Note that such .5 competence is compatible with also holding extremely immoral attitudes toward particular groups of fellow citizens. That's not good, of course, but it does not undermine the approach.

So far so good.

But my students noted that moral competence may itself be expressed badly when the moral issue at hand demands skills and knowledge that are not part of ordinary moral competence.  In fact, with a nod to Estlund's example,  even if we stipulate that "forbidding abortion or not" is, indeed, a simple binary decision (as Estlund notes this may be a problematic assumption), it does not follow that there are not a whole lot of cognitively demanding considerations or fine-grained metaphysical distinctions that may enter into the morality abortion. So, it is by no means obvious that appealing to the jury theorem in providing a reason to justify so-called "Epistemic Proceduralism" is going to work in precisely those cases in which one would want it to work: in cases of fierce moral disagreement over complex moral questions. [In reality majority rule can also screw up in other cases, but we leave those aside.]

In response, Estlund may say, fair enough. But this is why I suggest that laws must be obeyed without abdication of moral responsibility. Epistemic proceduralism "requires obedience, not surrender of moral judgment." But the critic could respond that this is only true of moral cases where we have no ex-ante reason to suspect that majority rule will screw up. But this is not true of cases where we have good reason to suspect that they exceed ordinary moral competence. [To be sure: that they exceed ordinary moral competence need not entail that there are experts who can decide such cases.] So, Epistemic Proceduralism fails to justify majority rule where it is most needed.

Comments

[Jason Brennan]

Empirically, we have strong evidence that the public's average competence is below .5, so it seems the more reasonable thing is to presume that democracies are always wrong.

[Eric Schliesser]

Perhaps the public's average competence is below .5 in economics (as you often seem to claim), Jason. But what's your evidence for average low moral competence?