The Epistemic Conception of Deliberative Democracy Defended

Chapter 2

The Epistemic Conception ofDeliberative Democracy DefendedReasons, Rightness and Equal Political

LibertyJosé Luis Martí1

ABSTRACT

Deliberative democracy, whatever it exactly means, has

become one of the most promising ideals in democratic

theory, even when, as one could expect, there is not a

single, privileged account of such ideal. Instead, we can

say that several views have been developed under a common

umbrella, being thus deliberative democracy (DD) what James

Bohman qualifies as “a family of views according to which

the public deliberation of free and equal citizens is the

core of legitimate political decision making and self-

government” (Bohman, 1998, 401). The epistemic conception

1 Different versions of this work have been presented in the workshopin Legal Philosophy at the Universidad Pompeu Fabra de Barcelona andin the Special Workshop “Deliberative Democracy and Its Discontents”,at the 22nd IVR World Congress celebrated in Granada (España) on May2005. I thank all the participants in both events for their useful andintelligent comments that help me to improve the first text. I wantalso thank particularly to Jorge Rodríguez, Roberto Gargarella andSamantha Besson, who read rigorously the paper and still identify somemistakes in it. Finally, I thank Jillian Reynolds for the Englishlinguistic advice.

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(EC) of DD emphasizes particularly one of the reasons that

justify the whole ideal, a justification in terms of the

epistemic worth of the decisions made by democratic

deliberative procedures, and so determines some of the

views under such a family (Cohen, 1986a, 1989a; Estlund,

1993a, 1993b, 1994, 1997, and 2000a; Nino, 1996;

Christiano, 1996, 1997 and 2004; Gaus, 1996, 1997a and

1997b; and Manin, 1987). My purpose here is to sketch and

clarify such conception and to show that (1) each defender

of DD should endorse some (even a weaker) version of the

epistemic conception to be coherent, and hence such

conception becomes unavoidable for deliberative democrats.

But, at the same time, in order to avoid some elitist

trends to non-democratic principles of government implicit

in some epistemic justifications, I will also defend that

(2) an adequate account of DD should combine the epistemic

justification with an intrinsic one, being both perfectly

compatible.

Before exploring the epistemic conception, let me

begin introducing roughly DD, in that what is necessary for

my argumentation below.

1. On the Justification of Deliberative Democracy

Deliberative democracy is a normative, qualified ideal

of democracy. Namely, the adjective ‘deliberative’

aggregated to democracy refers to a particular way of

decision-making, based on deliberation, as opposed to

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bargaining and voting (Elster, 1995, 239 and 1998a, 5-8).2

Ideally speaking, in DD political decisions are made

through a collective procedure of argumentation, and

arguing consists in exchanging reasons for or against such

and such proposal, with the goal of rationally convincing

others, instead of strategic participation in order to

impose on others personal political preferences or desires

(Manin, 1987, 352 and 353; Cohen, 1989a, 21; Estlund, 1993a

and 1993b; Gutmann and Thompson, 1996; Christiano, 1996,

53-55; Fishkin and Laslett 2003, 2). Thus, DD is based on

discursive decision-making procedures that are supposed to

lead us, at least ideally, to consensus. If we had a

perfect rationality, no restrains on time and costs, and

could be engaged in an ongoing deliberative procedure,

consensus around the right proposal would be expected to be

the result of the whole process (Mansbridge, 1983 and 1992,

36; Cohen, 1989a; Sunstein, 1988 and 1993; Gaus, 1996 and

1997a; Estlund, 1997; Bohman 1998).3

2 Among those who have distinguished explicitly between deliberationand negotiation, see Sunstein, 1988; Cohen, 1989a; Gutmann andThompson, 1996; Bohman, 1998; Pettit, 2003. Among those who havedistinguished explicitly between deliberation and pure voting, seeManin, 1987; Sunstein, 1988 and 1991; Cohen, 1989a and 1998; Gutmannand Thompson, 1996, 1-4, and 2004, 13-21; Bohman, 1998, 400. 3 Some deliberative democrats have denied this, affirming thatconsensus is a too demanding ideal, since it seems unreasonable toexpect that all participants will finally agree on controversialmatters. Deliberative procedures, then, they affirm, must necessarilyconclude by voting (Manin, 1987, 359; Gutmann and Thompson, 1996, 52-94; Waldron, 1999a, 91-93, and 1999c; Goodin, 2003, 1; Besson, 2003).However, in my opinion such argument is misleading. That deliberativeprocedures necessarily conclude by voting is certainly true so far asactual procedures are concerned, because of the fact of pluralism anddeep (and reasonable) disagreement. But this has nothing to do withthe end of the ideal procedure. That an ideal deliberative procedurealways reaches rational and reasonable consensus can only be rejected

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As a democratic ideal, DD claims for the inclusion of

all those (potentially) affected by a decision in the very

process of decision-making (Manin, 1987, 352; Cohen, 1989a,

1996, and 1998; Dryzek, 1990, 2000, and 2001; Benhabib,

1994; Bohman, 1996 and 1998; Nino, 1996; Elster, 1998a, 8),

recognizing to each of them an equal capacity of

influencing the final decision (Cohen, 1989b; Bohman, 1996,

Ch. 3 and 1997a; Christiano, 1996; Brighouse, 1996; Gutmann

and Thompson, 1996, Ch. 8; Gaus, 1996). As a deliberative

ideal, it “is a sequence of propositions aiming to produce

or reinforce agreement in the listener. In this sense, it

is a discursive and rational process” (Manin, 1987, 353)

that “ought to be different from bargaining, contracting

and other market-type strategic interactions, both in its

explicit attention to considerations of the common

advantage and in the ways that attention helps to form the

aims of the participants” (Cohen, 1989a, 17).4 As a

discursive process based on reasons, deliberation assumes

the existence of rightness in political decisions, and the

possibility to know which is the right decision (Cohen,by holding some sort of ontological pluralism of values, and it is notwhat these authors are prompt to hold. Although this is certainly apossibility not explicitly excluded by the mainstream of DDliterature, it will not be explored here for it is completelyirrelevant for my argument. Another different thing is to observe thatdisagreement and pluralism are not only a necessary condition fordeliberation. The more different reasons and preferences to becontrasted by argumentation, the more deliberative quality of thefinal decision (Manin, 1987, 352-357; Sunstein, 1993, 24 and 253;Benhabib, 1994, 33-35; Gutmann and Thompson, 1996, 1 and 41;Christiano, 1997, 249-250; Waldron, 1999a, 105-106). 4 According to Elster, there are three pure logics of making collectiveand democratic decisions: arguing, bargaining and voting. Of course,the actual decision-making procedures usually combine elements fromtwo of them, or from all the three (Elster, 1998a, 5-9).

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1986a, 54ff; Estlund, 1993a, 1993b and 1997, 174ff;

Christiano, 1997). To argue in favour of decision A means

briefly to show other people that decision A is the right

decision, or at least, that A is better in terms of rightness than

other decisions being compared. To the extent that DD

involves the possibility of exchanging reasons and rational

communication, participants in deliberation must assume the

existence of some intersubjective criterion of validity of

their claims, a criterion that should at least be partly

independent from the participants’ preferences and from the

process itself.5 Such procedure-independent standard

defines what is politically right and wrong, two categories

which the reasons afforded by deliberators necessarily

refer to.6

This is precisely the reason why arguing and

bargaining are different things. Both are processes of

5 This implies that those who think that political truth is constitutedby the very procedure, like David Gauthier for example, are misguided,for the participants in a deliberative procedure do presuppose theexistence of some independent standard that makes their judgmentsright or wrong, which is precisely the standard they are appealing towhen arguing. In other words, if the political process itselfconstituted the rightness of a political decision, decision-makerscould not appeal to any reason during the procedure and deliberationwould be impossible, leaving aside the instrumental reasons (Estlund,1993a). 6 Rightness here is still compatible with different meta-ethicalpositions (Estlund, 1997, 180 and 181). DD as such is not committed toa particular meta-ethical point of view. It is compatible, forinstance, with moral realism as much as with moral constructivism, oreven with some qualified versions of expressivism. However, somepositions are excluded since the rightness criterion must be at leastintersubjectively valid and partly independent from people’s desiresand preferences. Skeptic or radical non-cognitivist views are henceincompatible with DD. Hence, although the meta-ethical question ispartly irrelevant, it is not so much irrelevant as people as Waldronthink (Waldron, 1999a, Ch. 8).

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communication in which participants try to persuade others

to accept a particular proposal. But in bargaining

negotiators can openly use some ways of persuading others

like deceptions, threats, promises, concessions, and so on,

that cannot count as reasons, that is, that do not appeal

to what is right or wrong. Deliberators, instead, must be

motivated by the common good or the rightness of political

decisions (Sunstein, 1988; Cohen, 1989a and 1998; Gutmann

and Thompson, 1996 and 2004; Bohman, 1996 and 1998;

Christiano, 1997; Young, 2001; Pettit, 2003), and only try

to convince others rationally7 by the force of arguments:

that is, by showing that their proposal is better than any

other on fair terms, and not on a self-interested basis

(Habermas, 1981; Elster, 1983 and 1998a; Mansbridge, 1983;

Cohen, 1989a and 1989b; Gutmann and Thompson, 1996 and

2000; Young, 2001; Pettit, 2003; Fishkin and Laslett, 2003,

2). A theory of democracy based basically on the ideal of

democratic negotiation is Dahl’s and others’ pluralist

theory (Dahl, 1956 and 1989; Truman, 1959; Ely 1980).

On the other hand, pure voting consists in expressing

preferences in ballots, without any kind of previous

communication. In ideal terms, citizens come to ballots and

cast their votes based on their internal, subjective

preferences, and, as Rousseau stated, they should not

deliberate or discuss previously about the proposals since7 While expressions of self-interest are permitted in bargainingcontexts, in deliberations they are not. As deliberation, bargainingis presumed to lead us ideally to unanimity or consensus. But whileunanimous agreement is rational and reasonable in the case ofdeliberation, it is only strategic and self-interest-based in the caseof bargaining.

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any kind of communication could pervert and manipulate

opinions and thus mislead the volonté général, the final

results of voting (Rousseau, 1762, Second Book, Ch. III,

and Fourth Book, Ch. II).8 Citizens can vote according to

their opinions about what the common good is, as in

Rousseau’s model, or according to their self-interest, as

in many economic theories of democracy (Schumpeter, 1942;

Downs, 1956; Buchanan and Tullock, 1962; Riker, 1982 and

1986). Both motivational assumptions are compatible with

the ideal of pure voting.9

Of course, arguing, bargaining and voting are only

pure ideals that can be and usually are mixed in real

democratic decision-making procedures. Further, all of them

are probably inescapable features of real (as opposed to

ideal) democracy. As Bohman puts it, “[f]ew deliberative

democrats now think of deliberation independently of voting

and bargaining. The question is only how to make them more

consistent with deliberation rather than undermining it”

(Bohman, 1998, 415). However, it is crucial to be aware

that they define the contours of different democratic8 Although it seems to me the best interpretation of Rousseau, and manyauthors think so (Shklar, 1985, 18-20, and 179-186; Manin, 1987, 345-347; Sunstein, 1988), some others disagree and defend a deliberativeinterpretation of him (Cohen 1986b, 288-292; Pettit, 2003, 140). 9 Note, notwithstanding, that the Rousseauean model needs to begrounded on some epistemic conception of democracy (of pure voting inthis case) - a view that denies epistemic value to deliberation butconcedes it to voting (without deliberation). The economic theory ofdemocracy, instead, shares with the pluralist theory (and with allother theories based on the ideal of bargaining) the denial of theexistence of the common good or any other equivalent notion ofrightness, moral truth, and so on, and thus rejects the epistemicconception, for there is nothing to know but electorate’s desires(Sunstein, 1985, 32, and 1988; Cohen, 1986a, 26ff; Estlund, 1993a and1993b).

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models, in the sense that what democratic theories purport

is to give precedence to one of these three ideal models

over the other two in real decision-making procedures,

being DD one of these theories. Therefore, we should show

that DD is better or preferable than other alternatives

based on the other ideals, mainly the pluralist model of

democracy and the economic theory of democracy, in order to

defend or justify DD.

Now, it is usual to distinguish between fair or pure

proceduralist and epistemic accounts, that is, roughly

speaking, intrinsic justifications versus instrumental

ones, though not always the differences between them are

totally clear (Estlund 1997; Bohman 1998; Christiano 2004).

The reason seems to be that while supporters of epistemic

DD have explicitly defended this conception, the other

deliberative democrats have simply not mentioned the

epistemic case for democracy, and thus we do not count with

explicit rejections of such conception to be compared.

2. The Epistemic Conception of Deliberative Democracy

The epistemic conception of DD, as it has been

developed by authors like Joshua Cohen, David Estlund,

Carlos Nino, or Gerald Gaus, among others, has become one

of the most powerful and dynamic accounts of such model.

The main claim of this epistemic conception runs as

follows:

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EC: Deliberative democracy is justified, and then political decisions

made through a deliberative procedure are legitimate, because

democratic deliberative procedures have more epistemic value than the

other democratic alternatives. And this means that decisions made by

such procedures are more likely to be correct or right in general,

where rightness must be some process-independent and intersubjectively

valid standard, than decisions made by other democratic procedures.

The reason why this conception is called ‘epistemic’

is that the procedure it endorses is considered reliable

(in a sufficient degree) to know which are the right

political decisions, even though it is not necessary for

such condition to be met in every case. That is the reason

why I said ‘in general’. Perhaps we can find other

democratic procedures that are more reliable in a

particular case, but it does not invalidate the general

thesis.10 On the other hand, what the EC sustains is the

epistemic superiority of the deliberative procedure in

comparison to other democratic procedures, and not to the

non-democratic ones.11 This does not mean yet, of course,10 We could find some circumstances in which it would be better (inepistemic terms) for citizens to cast their votes directly without anyprevious deliberation. This is the case, for instance, when we areabsolutely sure that the deliberative quality of communication wouldbe so low if we permitted it, that we have more chances to make theright decision if we block such communication. But note that theseshould be very extreme conditions, such as massive threats, absoluteasymmetry in information apportionment, a great mutual disrespect, andother circumstances that make participation in deliberation unfree orunworthy. Beyond such extreme conditions, a relatively lowdeliberative quality is probably enough to make DD more reliable thanpure voting. But this is precisely what I want to show in this paper.11 Indeed, as I will try to show below, if we are only concerned withthe epistemic value of a procedure, we are likely to find a non-democratic process more epistemically reliable than DD.

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that such a procedure is infallible, and hence political

decisions made through it can be perfectly wrong. Still

worse, since the deliberative procedure politically

legitimates all the decisions made through it, we will find

that some political decisions are legitimate and morally

wrong at the same time. This is one of the points I will

explore below. For now, let me examine what I consider the

two basic thesis of the EC of DD, connected to some relevant

questions.

First, considering that we refer to an epistemic

conception, we necessarily presume that we can and want to

know something. Then, the obvious question is what do we want

to know? As we are engaged in the context of political

decision-making, the answer is: we want to know which the

right decision is to be made in every case. But, then,

another question emerges: what does ‘right decision’ mean? We can

answer that a decision is right if it meets some standard

of rightness. Now, first, such standard must be at least

partially independent of beliefs, preferences and desires

of decision-makers, for otherwise consistent people could

never make wrong decisions, and the epistemic case becomes

irrelevant. And second, such standard must also be at least

partially independent from the very decision-making

procedure,12 for otherwise the rightness of political12 This is the first of the three “main elements” of the Cohen’s‘epistemic interpretation of voting’ (Cohen, 1986a, 34ff; Estlund,1993a, 1448ff and 1993b, 74, 79-81). I say “at least partially”because considering such standard as dependent of an ideal(counterfactual) procedure (or beliefs or desires), but logicallyindependent of real (actual) procedures (or beliefs or desires) isenough to make sense of the epistemic conception (Estlund 1997, 180-181). In other words, in a constructivist approach, such as that

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decisions would be constituted by such procedure and then

there would be nothing epistemic stricto sensu in the process

– in other words, participants in the procedure could not

be truth or rightness-oriented and there would be no space

for argumentation.

Note that if the rightness of a decision has to be

constituted by a real decision-making procedure,

participants in such a procedure cannot argue, cannot

afford and confront reasons, since affording and

confronting reasons conceptually means appealing to some

intersubjective standard that must be at least partially

independent from the process and from the participants’

beliefs and desires.13 This conceptual implication derives

from the distinction between arguing and bargaining

defended for instance by Nino, one could say that what is correct orright is what people under ideal circumstances (that could grant, forinstance, impartiality) would choose. According to Nino, “moral truthis constituted by the satisfaction of formal or proceduralpresuppositions of a discursive practice directed at attainingcooperation and avoiding conflicts”, and “intersubjective discussionand decision is the most reliable procedure for having access to moraltruth, since the exchange of ideas and the need to justify oneselfbefore others not only broaden one’s knowledge and reveal defects inreasoning but help satisfy the requirement of impartial attention tothe interests of everybody concerned” (Nino, 1996, 112-113). Notehowever that appealing to ideal conditions in defining the regulativeideal of deliberative democracy not necessarily implies suchconstructivist approach. One could say, in a realist approach, thatwhat is correct or right is also logically independent of the idealprocedure, and then, what people under ideal conditions do is only toknow, and not to decide, what is correct. For a criticism of the idealprocedure constituting the standard, see Bohman 1998, 402ff.13 At least to the extent that substantive rationality (rationality offinal ends) is involved. Of course that this does not affect theinstrumental reasoning, but this kind of technical reasons is not theonly one that is expected to be produced and appealed to in adeliberative setting.

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(Estlund, 1993a, 1448ff).14 However, this still does not

imply that DD should be, by conceptual necessity,

understood under the epistemic conception. It only means

that the very practice of argumentation presupposes the

existence of some ‘at least partially’ independent standard

of correctness or rightness. This ‘at least partial’

independence of the standard implies, then, that this

standard is objective, in a weaker or a stronger sense. The

EC is neutral, as I said, in respect to which kind of

objectivity is appropriate (if it presupposes a moral

realism or a constructivism), and it is neutral also to

14 Consider a paradigmatic case. If we want to share some ice cream andhave therefore to decide the ice cream’s taste before buying it, eachpersonal preference or desire will be relevantly at stake in a contextin which there is no intersubjective standard of rightness. Supposethat our preferences are in conflict because you prefer chocolate andI prefer vanilla. We can then negotiate. I can promise you, forinstance, that “if you accept to choose the vanilla ice cream I willpay for it”. Or you can threaten me saying that “if we do not choosethe chocolate ice cream I will go home (alone)”. But it seems quitestrange to say that we can argue for one taste or the other – that wecan afford reasons in favor of one of them. The case changes whenafter six days eating chocolate ice creams, I say “hey, this isunfair, we always choose chocolate and never vanilla. Be reasonableand let’s choose vanilla today”. In such case, I am certainly arguing(or implicitly presupposing some arguments), but I am also appealingto some standard of fairness. The critic could say that such standardis valid only to the extent that it is accepted by the participants(by us), and then it is not independent of our beliefs, preferences ordesires. But this would miss the point. Of course, a Humean skeptic canalso believe that deliberation is possible in considering means-endsrelations, as Hume himself accepted. If a community share somedeterminate values, its members can argue and deliberate about how toreach and maximize those values. But the significant point of DD isthat deliberation about ends and values is possible and meaningful –that it is possible to afford reasons in favor of showing thatabortion is right or wrong, that social rights should be protected ornot in terms of justice, etc. In other words, the idea of deliberationpresupposes that we can resolve, at least ideally, our disagreementsabout the very standards of correctness or rightness.

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which degree of independence is required. Therefore, I will

leave these difficult issues aside here.

Now, to the extent that we refer to an epistemic

conception, knowledge and beliefs are necessarily involved.

More precisely, we have to assume that people engaged in a

deliberative procedure have some beliefs about which the

right political decision is. These beliefs are essential to

the practice of argumentation (because they are its inputs)

and at the same time they can be transformed through it, in

the light of the best argument (Elster, 1983a and 1995;

Mansbridge, 1983; Manin, 1987; Cohen, 1989a). And then we

say that people argue from (political) beliefs, with

(political) reasons, and for (political) proposals in order

to reach a (political) decision.15 On the other hand, an

epistemic conception must assume that we can know the

content of the independent standard. Considering all of

this, we can identify the first basic thesis of the EC:

15 The inputs in a deliberative procedure can be beliefs about what isright to do in a particular case or statements about which proposal ispreferred. Of course, beliefs and preferences are not the same thing.To begin with, they have different ilocutionary qualification, andthen they cannot be mutually reduced. Notwithstanding, they areinterrelated under some assumptions of rationality. Thus, from theindividual point of view, to say that “I believe that proposal A isright and the others are wrong” implies that “I should prefer proposalA to the others”, and if I am rational I certainly do, counting suchpreference as a desire, at least a second-order one. Of course, I canactually have other preferences or desires, even stronger oroverriding ones, as a matter of fact. It only means that, if peopleare rational, they should prefer those political proposals theybelieve to be right to those they believe to be wrong. And it isenough to characterize the ideal model, since it works on idealizedcircumstances as such of participants’ rationality (Martí, 2004, Ch.2). If so, then we can affirm that beliefs and preferences are bothinputs of the deliberative procedure. In this work, I will refer tobeliefs, since the epistemic model seems to require it.

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Thesis 1: One or several standards of correctness or rightness of

political decisions exist as something ‘at least partially’ independent of

the beliefs, preferences and desires of both participants and the very

decision-making procedure. And such standard is knowable.

Once we have affirmed that there is something to know

and that it is possible to know it, and further that it

would be worth knowing, another question pops up: how can we

know it? Or, if there were several cognitive ways, how can we

better come to know it? If we indeed aspire to know which

political decision is right in every case in order to enact

it, we surely need some particular procedure: the most

reliable procedure on cognitive basis. Now, it is widely

accepted that an infallible procedure (in cognitive terms)

does not exist. In other words, perfect procedural justice

in politics is not possible, and therefore the question is

about which imperfect procedure is more reliable than

others – being then legitimacy a matter of imperfect

procedural justice (Rawls, 1971; Goodin and List, 2001).

Such procedure is, according to the EC of the DD, the

democratic deliberative one, and thus the second thesis:

Thesis 2: Democratic deliberation is in general the most reliable

democratic procedure to identify which are the right political

decisions, and therefore it is the best method to make right political

decisions.

14

Although both theses are necessary conditions (and, in

my view, together they are sufficient conditions) for the

EC of DD, the second one is particularly characteristic of

it, because it appeals to cognitive reliability, while the

first does not and can also be hold by other non-epistemic

conceptions. Further, from my point of view, the EC affirms

the reliability of the deliberative procedure in respect to

the other alternative democratic procedures, and not in

respect to other non-democratic processes. On the other

hand, such reliability is general, but does not exclude the

possibility that in some particular case other democratic

procedures can be more epistemically worthy.16 Anyway, that

DD as a decision-making procedure is epistemically reliable

implies that its results are also reliable. The epistemic

reliability means just this: that decisions made through a

democratic deliberative procedure are more likely to be

correct than those made through other democratic

procedures. In other words, as we have good reasons to

consider the decisions made by such procedure correct, we

can say, first, that our “basic institutions” are

“legitimate so far as they establish the framework for free

public deliberation” and, second, that “outcomes are

democratically legitimate if and only if they could be the

object of a free and reasoned agreement among equals”

16 As Gaus rightly shows, since we have not afforded any reason todemonstrate that DD, or any, is the best procedure in terms ofreliability, because we lack a precise criterion of bestness (Gaus,1997b, 277-281). But this problem can be avoided weakening this thesisand claiming only that “no method for resolving moral disputes can beshown beyond a reasonable doubt to be epistemically better thandemocracy” (Gaus, 1997b, 282).

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(Cohen, 1989a, 21 and 22). Although this Cohen’s phrase

refers to hypothetical conditions (“if they could”), and

this could suggest that we do not need real deliberation at

all, indeed we can say that real democratic deliberative

procedures legitimate its outcomes even when disagreement

persists and the procedure must end with voting. All the

defenders of DD coincide in this point: such procedure

provides political legitimacy to its results (Manin, 1987;

Cohen, 1989a; Benhabib, 1994 and 1996; Dryzek, 1990, 2000,

and 2001; Habermas, 1992 and 2001; Estlund, 1993a and 1997;

Gutmann and Thompson, 1996 and 2004; Bohman, 1996 and 1998;

Young, 2001, 103; Pettit, 2003).

The crucial and open question is, then, if political

decisions are legitimate because they have been produced

through a fair political process (with intrinsic value), or

if the democratic deliberative procedure is

(instrumentally) justified because it is more likely, in

general, to produce correct decisions than other democratic

alternatives. And this question shows the contrast between

the two main ways of justifying DD: on the basis of some

intrinsic features of the very process (the intrinsic

justification), or by reference to the probability of the

correctness of its outcomes (the instrumental justification). Since

DD is an (idealized) procedure, offering an intrinsic

justification collides with attributing value to the

procedure itself, generally in terms of honoring such

values as autonomy and equality of respect and

consideration, or political equality (Manin, 1987, 352-359;

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Sunstein, 1988; Cohen, 1989a; Elster, 1995; Bohman, 1996;

Gutmann and Thompson, 1996 and 2004; Young, 2001; Pettit,

2003). Therefore, those who subscribe this intrinsic

justification may be (and usually are) called pure (or fair)

proceduralists (or ‘democratic expressivists’, as Gutmann and

Thompson label them in Gutmann and Thompson 2004, 21-23.

See also Christiano, 2004, 267, fn3, and Estlund, 1997,

176-179). Since DD, as a procedure, tends to provide

political decisions for particular cases, to offer an

instrumental justification consists mainly (though not

exclusively) in attributing value to the decisions made

through the procedure.17 Therefore, considering that such

decision’s value consists in being considered right or

correct, the procedure can be seen as a way for identifying

rightness or correctness and, hence, it is supposed to have

epistemic value itself. However, to the extent that what we

consider valuable for instrumental reasons is a procedure,

the epistemic conception must also be procedural, and,

then, it may be called, as Estlund does, epistemic

proceduralism (Estlund 1993a, 1467-1470, and 1997, 181ff ).17 Other instrumental justifications, which have really been alleged bysome authors, consist in i) affirming that deliberative politicsappear more legitimate from the citizens’ point of view, as they havebeen able to participate in it, revealing and defending publicly theirviews in a context of mutual respect, or in ii) recognizing todeliberation positive effects for the participants in terms ofpolitical education, public virtues, and so on (Christiano, 1997,244ff). For some of these justifications, see Manin, 1987, 354 and363; Mansbridge, 1992, 36; Estlund, 1993b, 82; Cohen, 1998, 186-187;Elster, 1998a, 11; Gargarella, 1998, 261. But, as Estlund has pointedout, “the self-education justification is too thin to support agency-based hope of citizens as democratic participants. Without somefurther public reasons for a democratic system other than self-development, citizens are likely to lack reasons and motivation forthe form of activity that would be educative.” (Estlund, 1993b, 84).

17

This is the classic presentation of the problem of

justification (Estlund, 1993a and 1997; Gutmann and

Thompson, 1996, 26-39 and 2004, 21-23; Christiano, 1997 and

2004; Fearon, 1998; Goodin and List, 2001, 277-278).18

Notwithstanding, such characterization may be misleading

unless we are aware of the following two related remarks.

First, even when it seems the contrary, the intrinsic

justification and the instrumental one are not mutually

exclusive, but can be simultaneously combined. They are not

logically incompatible, and then it is possible to say that

DD has epistemic value and at the same time that as a

procedure it honours such values as autonomy and political

equality (Cohen, 1989a; Gutmann and Thompson, 1996 and

2004, 22; Christiano, 1997 and 2004; Estlund, 1997; Gaus,

1997b, 284). If so, we are not obliged to choose between

one of these two options. Instead, a lot of intermediate

positions are available. And this leads us to the second,

related remark: to claim for the EC of DD does not imply

renouncing to the intrinsic justification. Further, one who

espouses intrinsic and instrumental values of DD, even

giving priority to the former over the latter, is still a

defender of the EC. The only way to abandon such view is to

reject one of the two basic theses that I have explored18 Christiano includes a third way of justifying DD - what he callspolitical justification - that claims that DD is a necessary andsufficient condition of the political justification of the outcomes ofthe process (Christiano, 1997, 245-246, 262-274). Although it has todo with the idealization that some authors have drawn in theirdescription of the model, I am not able to see why such conception isat the same level with the other two, or why they are mutuallyexclusive. In my view, and part of Christiano’s argument tends to showthis, such third justification is either a specification of theinstrumental one or of the intrinsic one.

18

above. I will consider this point in the fourth section of

this paper. And this is a crucial point because many

authors seem wrongly think that to defend the EC implies to

consider other values irrelevant. But there is much more

agreement among deliberative democrats of that it could

seem at first sight.19

Now, all deliberative democrats have indeed defended

one of these intermediate positions: I certainly do not

know clear supporters of pure or fair proceduralism or pure

epistemic theory among them.20 If so, then representing the case

by confronting such extreme positions would seem

misleading. Furthermore, one could consider the case of

intrinsic procedural values being at odds with instrumental

epistemic ones as an example of the more general and

unavoidable tension between procedure and substance in

their role of relevant values to characterize legitimacy

(Cohen 1994 and Bohman 1998).21 In effect, if we want to

19 Gutmann and Thompson, for instance, that explicitly affirm that“participants [in a deliberation] do not argue for argument’s sake;they do not argue even for truth’s own sake”, in Gutmann and Thompson2004, 5, state later that “any adequate theory must recognize both[the instrumental and the expressive views of deliberation]”, in p.22, and admit in the same page that “[t]he instrumental view remindsus that because the stakes of political decision-making are right, anddeliberation is a time-consuming activity, a deliberative processshould contribute to fulfilling the central political function ofmaking good decisions and laws.” 20 Estlund rightly attributes fair proceduralism to Robert Dahl,although Dahl is not a deliberative democrat, and also doubts ofextending this label to Joshua Cohen and Thomas Christiano (Estlund,1997, 176 and fn 5). And he does well. Both are clear cases, in myview, of intermediate positions. On the other hand, he attributes whathe calls the correctness theory (pure epistemic) to Rousseau, but,again, he was not a deliberative democrat (Estlund, 1997, 181ff;Christiano 1997, 245).21 I have deeply explored this issue in Martí, 2004, Ch. 4 and 2005.

19

build a satisfactory notion of political legitimacy we

should address two irreducible (and potentially

conflictive) questions: 1) which is the legitimate

procedure to make political decisions?22 and 2) which is

the substantive content required for a decision to be

legitimate? They are irreducible because we cannot give the

same answer to both. They are potentially conflictive

because they serve as two different criteria of legitimacy

and, since they are not reducible, can provide opposed

qualifications to some events: the same political decision

can be legitimate under the procedural criterion but

illegitimate under the substantive one.23 I will not

analyze here the whole problem because it does not

centrally affect my point. Let me only introduce what seems

to me the first (necessary) step to solve this problem that

will be very relevant for my argument: the distinction

between political legitimacy and moral rightness.24

22 The question about the procedure implicitly includes a thirdquestion about who is the authority, and the complete version shouldrun as follows: who can legitimately make political decisions and how?On the notion of legitimate authority referred to the issues I amanalyzing, see Christiano, 2004. 23 Some authors have rejected the existence of such internalcontradiction and have defended some way of harmonizing them at thesame level: Habermas, for instance, has said that they are co-original(Habermas, 2001 and 2003. See also Rawls 1971; Cohen 1994; Dworkin1997; and Gutmann and Thompson, 1996, 27). Few have tried to pick uponly one of these values. And finally others, including myself, haveaccepted the existence of an unavoidable dilemma between procedure andsubstance and have explored ways of giving priority to one of themover the other. 24 See, for a similar distinction, Estlund, 1993a, 1468-1470, and 1997,174, 187-188; Rehg, 1997 and 1999; Bohman, 1998; Lafont, 2003. Thesame distinction is implicit in Christiano, 2004, 271ff. I havedefended it largely in Martí, 2004, Ch. 4 and 2005.

20

As I said earlier, disagreement about public affairs

in unavoidable, and all decision-making procedures, even

those with epistemic value, are fallible because it is

impossible to find perfect procedural justice in politics –

there are only imperfect procedures. Notwithstanding, we

aspire to find some procedure that is legitimate and that

legitimizes the decisions it produces. Obviously, even if

we had found such a procedure, we could still wonder about

the moral rightness of some decisions made through it. But

we cannot consider political legitimacy to be the same

thing as moral rightness, for if the two categories collide

(and if I have some procedure-independent access to moral

rightness) then all procedural matters become irrelevant.

In other words, I can say that a political decision is

legitimate if and only if it is morally right,

independently of any other consideration. But then I have

no way of justifying the imposition of such a decision to

those who disagree with me about its rightness.

More accurately, perhaps I could justify this

imposition in general as long as it is true that the

political decision is right – something certainly difficult

to establish -, but I could not offer good reasons for

convincing them that even accepting that they disagree with me about

this point, they must accept such decision as legitimate. By

definition, if they disagree with me about the moral

rightness of the decision, they will consider it

illegitimate.25 This is the reason why the fact of

25 Of course, this does not imply that the decision indeed isillegitimate (nor legitimate). The legitimacy only depends on if it is

21

pervasive disagreement makes the distinction between

political legitimacy and moral rightness necessary.

Furthermore, if political legitimacy and moral rightness

are equivalent, none of the procedural matters are

relevant, as I said, and then we could say that a decision

is legitimate even if it has been made by a tyrant, or by a

fool, or by tossing a coin, and this is really

counterintuitive.26

Once we accept the distinction between political

legitimacy and moral rightness, we must find a ground for

the former. As I have shown, even when we have strong

reasons to keep them separated, since moral rightness

remains important to us because we believe that some

independent standard of rightness exists, the political

legitimacy should be grounded basically (though not

exclusively, as we will see later) on some kind of

“tracking-the-truth” feature of decision-making

procedures.27 That is, the legitimacy of political

decisions must be viewed as a procedural criterion. A

political decision is legitimate if and only if it is the

product of a legitimate procedure. But to evaluate the

true that it is morally wrong (or right), and we never cannot be sureabout it being true. But if we define legitimacy as moral rightness,then by definition one considers legitimate all that he considers morallyright.26 It certainly has a non-counterintuitive part: that the decision islegitimate because its content is morally right. But this would meananswering to the substantive question leaving aside the proceduralone. What I try to show is precisely that our political practicepresupposes that both questions are unavoidable.27 I emphasize “basically” because we have to remember that theinstrumental justification is not necessarily the only one, and indeedI believe that other intrinsic considerations are worthy.

22

legitimacy of the procedure itself we should focus on its

epistemically reliability. Thus, we have to choose the

procedure that better tracks the truth, because the

decisions made through it tend to be morally right. In this

way, someone can reasonably think that a political decision

A is morally wrong, but still legitimate and hence

acceptable.28

3. Two Versions of the Epistemic Conception

In the last section I explored very broadly the two

basic theses of the EC of DD, and we have seen that

something like a distinction between political legitimacy

and moral rightness is required. All of this is well-known

by those who defend the EC and those who criticize it.

However, there is a subtle further distinction concerning

the second thesis that has not been sufficiently observed

in this literature as far as I know, and I think it is

crucial in order to defend the EC from many of its critics.

It depends on two possible interpretations of the second

basic thesis. One interpretation leads us to what I call a

strong version of the EC, and the other to a weak version

of it. Let me analyze each of them:

28 I leave aside a very controversial issue about the implications ofthis acceptability. Some tend to see political legitimacy as adefinitive and exclusive reason for citizens to obey the law. Othersthink that it only provides another reason for action. Others stillmaintain that it has nothing to do with obedience. As far as I know,however, this is not relevant for my argument.

23

The strong version of the EC: Deliberative democracy is

justified, and then political decisions made through a deliberative

procedure are legitimate, because democracy itself (voting procedures of

decision-making with majority rule inclusive) has epistemic value in

general and deliberative procedures (democratic or not) have also

epistemic value in general. Hence, deliberative democracy

incorporates the epistemic value both from democracy and from

deliberation.

If according to this first, strong version, DD has

epistemic value due not only to deliberation, but to

democracy itself, then we should affirm that pure voting

has some epistemic value: that decisions made by majority

rule after aggregating the votes of all (all adult, sane

people) engaged in the political process or the potentially

affected by the decision are more likely to be correct in

general that those made by only a part of them. Some

defenders of the EC hold a version quite similar to this,

mainly by appealing to the Condorcet Jury Theorem (CJT). I

am not going to analyze the Theorem and its applicability

here, but I would like to roughly present the main problems

I find in holding an EC based on such grounds, and some

possible solutions that are certainly relevant for my

argumentation.

As known, the Theorem says that when some particular

conditions are met, the probability that the right decision

is supported by a majority of voters is an increasing

function of the number of participants as well as of the

24

epistemic competence of each one, converging to 1 as the

number of participants tends to infinity (Condorcet, 1785,

Part 5, 279-304).29 The conditions to be met are four, and

whenever they are actually met, the Theorem mathematically

grants its conclusion. And then, if such conclusions could

were respected in real political decisions, we could state

that, in our democracies, what is preferred by the majority

is more likely to be right than what is preferred by the

minority, and that such a probability increases to the

extent that the number of voters and its epistemic

competence do. And it would be a devastating argument in

favor of the EC of democracy. Of course, the critics of the

CJT emphasize that indeed such idealized conditions are

impossible to be met in practice. So, the principal

discussion about the Theorem is on the feasibility of such

four conditions. Anyway, many authors have shown that most

of them can be relaxed and the Theorem still works. The

four basic conditions are the following:

1) Participants must vote sincerely for what they think correct and therefore

strategic behaviors are excluded. As a matter of fact, again, it is

not possible to guarantee that each participant votes

sincerely. People actually behave strategically and such

feature is unavoidable in practice. However, Austen-Smith

and Banks seem to have demonstrated that the CJT still29 This Theorem was supposed to be applicable to the members of juriesin trials. The precedent can be found in Rousseau, 1762, Book Four,Ch. 2. For the modern reception, see Black, 1958, 162-165; Grofman,Owen and Feld 1983, 261-278; Kornhauser and Sager, 1986; Cohen, 1986a,35ff; Grofman and Feld, 1988; McLean and Hewitt, 1994, 32-54; Austen-Smith and Banks, 1992 and 1996; Estlund, 1993b, 92-94, and 1997;Goodin and List, 2001, 283-288; Goodin and Estlund, 2004. Anaccessible proof of it in Estlund, 1994b.

25

works with strategic motivations (the critic in Cohen,

1986a, 36-37; the defense in Austen-Smith and Banks, 1992

and 1996).

2) Votes (or individual participation) must be independent amongst each

other. That is, participant A’s being correct must be

independent from participant B’s being correct, excluding

interferences. Once again, it is a matter of fact that it

is impossible to guarantee voters’ independence if a

necessary condition for such independence consists in

having no communication at all between them. Communication

is obviously inevitable in politics, and then, interference

among voters is unavoidable. However, as many authors have

suggested, the condition required by the CJT is not the

whole absence of communication, but only avoiding absolute

dependence in voting. That is, what affects the results of

the Theorem is that some people vote under pressure, force,

threatens, logrolling, and so on (Estlund, 1994; Waldron,

1989; Goodin and List, 2001; Berg, 1993). It seems

reasonable, since what could damage the Theorem’s

conclusions is that aggregating a voter would not alter the

result significantly, and this is what would happen if the

vote of A is really decided by B. Communication is not a

problem; further, it can become a factor which improves

epistemic competence, and then contributes on other ways to

increase the expected results of the CJT.

3) Voters have to choose between only two alternatives. If there were

more than two, then the conclusion would not be guaranteed.

In effect, the original CJT only works if the alternatives

26

are two. If there are three or more, as Condorcet himself

observed, and later Kenneth Arrow proved, we run the risk

of cycling majorities and in doing so the collective

results are irrational (Riker, 1982, 60; Estlund, 1997,

189). However, this objection is less effective than it

seems. First, as Gerry Mackie has suggested, in a more-

than-two-options political issue, such options are usually

interdependent in the face of some general, political

principle, and then the conclusions of the Arrow’s

Impossibility Theorem are avoided by relaxing one of its

conditions (Mackie, 2003, 386-392). But, second, and most

important, Goodin and List seem to have demonstrated that

the CJT can be extended to plurality voting over k-options

as well (Goodin and List, 2001).

4) The epistemic competence of each voter has to be more than 0.5. That

is, each participant is more likely to be right than wrong.

Of course, as a matter of fact, the epistemic competence of

all the participants cannot be the same since we all have

different probabilities to be right or wrong. Anyway, as

many authors have shown, it is not necessary for all to

have the same competence, as Condorcet presupposed, in

order to maintain the Theorem. All required is for the mean

epistemic competence of the group (the mean probability of

being right across the group) to be above 0.5. Indeed,

according to Grofman, Owen and Feld, a mean epistemic

competence of 0.471 would be enough (Grofman, Owen and

Feld, 1983, 268ff). Furthermore, in the Goodin and List

extended version of the CJT to k-options, the required

27

competence is only for each voter to be more likely to

choose the correct option than any other option, and this

certainly relaxes such condition (Goodin and List, 2001;

Goodin and Estlund, 2004, 138).

Amongst all the objections that the CJT has received,

those that challenge this fourth condition seem the most

attainable to me. The main problem from my point of view

lies in how we can know if people have a mean epistemic

competence higher than 0.5. And the CJT is implacable if

this condition is not met: when people have an epistemic

competence lower than 0.5, the probability for majoritarian

decision to be wrong increases as the number of voters

does. And this is certainly discouraging. The problem with

such condition is that it is absolutely impossible to know

which the epistemic competence of anyone is, unless we have

independent access to truth, and this is not the case

(Estlund, 1993b, 93, and 1997, 185-186). Therefore, if we

cannot know when this fourth condition is met, we can only

presuppose it is. But then the obvious question is why

should we make such presupposition, even in the case of its

more relaxed version?

First of all, as we have to find reasons for making a

presupposition (to believe in a fiction), and not to

scientifically prove something, we do not need to seek an

evidence that people are epistemically reliable. This is

important because some of the arguments presented in favor

of presupposing that the fourth condition is met are

rejected because they are not definitive or they do not

28

prove the content of the presupposition. But once we have

abandoned the hope to find such proof, all we can do is to

find some reason to presuppose it, that is, some reason to

act as if people have a mean epistemic competence higher

than 0.5, even when they have not.

One reason to believe this would be that if someone,

being a member of a Jury, was to decide about the

culpability or innocence of someone else by tossing a coin,

with no rational deliberation at all, the probability of

making the right decision is exactly 0.5. Then, it seems

reasonable to suppose that if such a person examines the

information available and deliberates (within), that is, if

this person introduces rationality in decision-making, the

probability should be higher than 0.5. Another reason to

make the presupposition is what Goodin and Estlund, taking

the Davidson expression, call “the principle of charity”:

that “our fellow citizens are more likely to be right than

wrong and therefore that the winning outcome is quite

probably the correct one” (Goodin and Estlund, 2004, 136).

Maybe adopting the principle of charity is only a way of

making sense out of our political practice, which assumes

that rational deliberation among citizens is possible.30

But note that there is a fact that makes us hesitate

in accepting both reasons. People’s beliefs are30 A third reason is suggested by Goodin and Estlund themselves andconstitutes the main argument of their work: “knowing that thedemocratic outcome was 60:40, we have then to decide which possibilityis more credible. Is it more credible that in this sort of case theaverage voter is 60 percent likely to choose correctly (...)? Or is itmore credible that the average voter is in this sort of case only 40percent likely to choose correctly (...)?” (Goodin and Estlund, 2004,140).

29

interrelated and some of them are certainly false. Thus, it

is not true that with introducing rational (but individual)

deliberation, as in the first argument, the probability to

be right necessarily increases. When a Nazi has to decide

about the Jews’ future he has a higher probability to make

the right decision if he tosses a coin than if he tries to

rationally consider the decision. The burdens of judgment,

to use the Rawls’ expression, and other biases in

individual reasoning surely introduce some distortions in

our presuppositions about peoples’ competences, and then

the question about the feasibility of the fourth condition

of the CJT still remains open and the whole CJT fails.31

Furthermore, what the problems of biases suggest is that if

this fourth condition cannot be met is at least partly due

to a failure of the second condition (the independence of

voters), since burdens of judgment and biases of this sort

are caused by irrational interdependencies and “show up

(...) as ‘bloc voting’” (Goodin and Estlund, 2004, 137).32

Furthermore, we should be aware that “the principle of

charity” is not a reason to presuppose that people are more

likely to be right than wrong, but the presupposition

itself. And then we still have to find a justification for

adopting it.

31 On the notion of ‘burdens of judgment’ see Rawls 1993, 54-58. For aninteresting attempt to neutralize the bias, as one of the main tasksfor moral theory, see Hurley 2003.32 In my opinion, Goodin and Estlund do not realize enough thatprecisely because of this, we cannot rely on the ‘inverse CJT’ whichthey purpose to make sense of the presupposition of epistemiccapacity. A similar objection to the CJT in Cohen 1986a, 35ff.

30

Therefore, since all these problems have still not

been satisfactorily resolved, we should be careful and not

jump to conclusions. I am not saying that such problems

could not be solved, and the CJT is not applicable to

reality. All I hold here is that we cannot still take the

Condorcet Theorem as a solid basis for an EC of democracy.

Anyway, even if the CJT does not ground by itself the

epistemic value of democracy, and furthermore, even if

simple democracy has no epistemic value at all, it does not

imply that the EC cannot be sustained, since there is still

another version of it that could be held.

In a second weaker version, the EC can accept the

problems in applying the CJT because it does not need to

defend the epistemic value of simple democracy. Affirming

the epistemic value of deliberation itself is enough, and

we can relax such requirement about democracy. Then:

The weak version of the EC: Deliberative democracy is justified,

and therefore political decisions made through a deliberative procedure

are legitimate, because although democracy (voting procedures of

decision-making with majority rule inclusive) does not have epistemic

value by itself, deliberation does in general and makes democracy

epistemically worthy.

According to this weak version of the EC of DD, it is

true that simple voting does not always have epistemic

value, but deliberative procedures (democratic or not) do,

and then the sum of deliberation and democracy (DD)

31

possesses such value. I will argue this later, but before

examining some of the reasons to believe that deliberation

can have epistemic value, let me say something about ideal

and real deliberations.

In the ideal model, democracy basically means inclusion

of all those potentially affected by the reached decision

and equal consideration and concern for everyone; in other words,

to respect the equal political liberty of all. Under ideal

conditions, again, such inclusion does not affect the

epistemic value of deliberation, since participants are

engaged in the process of arguing with impartial

motivations, respecting and taking others’ arguments

seriously, with no time constraints, etc. Of course, real

conditions differ considerably. People can behave self-

interestedly or hypocritically; they do have time

constraints (and other sunk costs); and they definitively

disagree even after deliberation and then simply have to

vote: the fact of pervasive disagreement undoubtedly makes

voting an essential part of real deliberation (Manin, 1987,

359; Gutmann and Thompson, 1996, 52-94; Waldron, 1999a, 91-

93, and 1999b; Besson, 2003). In such actual conditions,

democracy means not only respecting the equal political

liberty of all, but also voting with some sort of majority

rule. But even in this case, DD keeps the epistemic value

to the extent that it comes closer to the ideal model.

First, I do not see why the simple ending fact of voting

could take epistemic value from the whole deliberative

procedure, considering that such value depends on

32

procedural features preserved in real situations (and not

damaged by voting) as those I am going to examine right

now. And second, given that DD defines a regulative ideal,

what we can affirm is that the more real procedures

resemble the ideal ones, the more epistemic value they

have. To the extent that they are affected by time and cost

constraints, hypocritical behavior, manipulation, etc.,

they certainly lose epistemic value. That is the reason why

we can affirm that in some extreme conditions of

deliberative failure, democratic decisions do not count

with epistemic value at all.33

And now: which are the reasons why deliberation must

be acknowledged to have epistemic value? There are, at

least, the following six reasons:

(1) Deliberation increases the exchange of information,

including information concerning the interests of others. Hence,

it increases relevant knowledge.

To the extent that we think that the interests of all

are politically relevant to define what is politically

right, then knowing which these interests are is relevant

(perhaps necessary) to know which is the right political

decision. And deliberation of all those potentially

affected certainly allows the expression of such interests

in an articulated way, increasing our awareness of these

33 This weaker understanding of the EC seems preferable to me to a moredogmatic one. We are not necessarily committed to an intransigentbelief in the epistemic merit of all democratic decisions. To defendthe EC is a further reason to try to improve actual democraticdecision-making procedures, and not to justify them.

33

interests. Furthermore, deliberation allows us to pool

other relevant information. Through deliberation several

experts can be consulted and their arguments contrasted. Or

simply people can afford some private information that was

hidden before. All of this increases relevant knowledge and

makes deliberation epistemically worthy (Manin, 1987;

Cohen, 1989a; Dryzek, 1990; Nino, 1996, 117-128; Bohman,

1996; Elster, 1998a, 11; Fearon, 1998, 45-49).34

(2) Deliberation permits the expression of intensities of

preferences.

As Fearon puts it, “the voting procedure will rarely

if ever allow individuals to send as many ‘messages’

characterizing their preferences or private information as

free discussion would”, because deliberation “allows people

to express diverse intensities of preference – that is,

whether they have strong or different feelings about

particular choices” (Fearon 1998, 45-46). And expressing

such intensities can not only contribute to solving some

dilemmas in transforming individual preferences into

collective ones, but also improves the knowledge of the

interests of others in the way we said earlier, specially

in comparison to simple or pure voting (Fearon, 1998, 45-

49; Mackie, 2003, 391-392).

34 Since this exchange of information depends on the participation ofthose potentially affected, the epistemic value refers here todemocratic deliberation only, and not to the non-democraticdeliberation.

34

(3) Deliberation permits and improves the detection of factual

and logical mistakes.

Individuals usually make factual and logical mistakes

in their reasoning (both in their beliefs about the world

and in the –coherent- formation of their preferences). A

greater information flow allows us also to contrast our

beliefs with new and qualified sources of information or

simply makes it possible for others to detect some of our

false beliefs or inconsistencies in our beliefs and

preferences (Nino, 1996, 124; Fearon, 1998, 49-52).

(4) Deliberation permits the control of emotional factors and helps

to filter irrational preferences.

As Nino said, “the presence of some emotional factors

in moral discussion and the democratic process can work

against the discovery of moral truth”, although it is true

that “there are important ways in which emotions assist in

the progress of a genuine process of argumentation” (Nino,

1996, 125). Since deliberation is essentially a rational

procedure of will formation, it avoids or minimizes the

emotional or irrational distortions. It certainly does this

better than other alternatives as simple voting and

bargaining (Manin, 1987; Cohen, 1989a; Dryzek, 1990; Nino,

1996, 124-125; Bohman, 1996; Knight and Johnson, 1997, 313,

fn 31; Elster, 1998a, 11; Fearon, 1998, 45-49; Pettit 2003,

157).

35

(5) Deliberation makes the manipulation of information and political

agenda more difficult.

Contrary to what some opponents of DD have held

(Sanders, 1997; Przeworski, 1998; Stokes, 1998), true

democratic deliberative procedures do not lead to

“ideological domination” by the way of increasing the

probabilities of manipulation of information and political

agenda. First, deliberation tends to avoid inequalities of

information, the very cause of such manipulation in

Przeworski’s view. Second, if we want to assess different

competing decision-making procedures, we must do it fairly.

That is, I can only confront ideal models with other ideal

models, and real ones with the other real ones. Thus, ideal

deliberation and ideal voting do not allow manipulation,

since it is a failure of the very practice of argumentation

for the former, and there is no room for communication in

the latter, while ideal bargaining is not only compatible

with such manipulation, but puts incentives to it – indeed,

it basically consists in it. On the other hand, it is true

that in real deliberations there can be manipulations, even

strong or intense ones, to the extent that not all the

participants (if any) are impartially motivated and that

information is unequally distributed. But it is also true

that in real voting there is also communication and then

manipulation of information or in the agenda setting - does

somebody really believe that in actual democracies there is

no manipulation at all? The issue at stake here is, then,

if real deliberative procedures incentive manipulation more

36

than simple voting procedures do. And it seems to me that

the obvious answer is negative. Even more, to the extent

that deliberation, if real, allows to contrast reasons and

arguments, and to pool new information, etc., the room for

manipulation is not so wide (Fearon, 1998, 48).

(6) Deliberation is a filter of impartiality and substantive justice.

The deliberative procedure is not an infallible means

to produce just and impartial decisions. As we saw, there

is no such infallibility. Anyway, deliberation leads to

justice and impartiality to the extent that the very

process implies a ‘quest for justification’ of personal

claims that excludes some inputs that work against such

impartiality. As Nino affirms, “all participants are

required (...) to justify their proposals to the others”

(Nino, 1996, 121). Therefore, people engaged in ideal

deliberation must make genuine arguments - “normative

propositions which could be accepted from an impartial

point of view”. Of course, participants in practice are not

necessarily impartially motivated and then their arguments

are not ever genuine. That is, people can behave

hypocritically and disguise their crude self-interest with

the appearance of an argument. What Elster calls ‘the

strategic uses of argument’ is certainly possible (and

surely usual) (Elster, 1995).

Nevertheless, some attitudes remain excluded, and then

people are obliged to behave as if they were impartially

motivated, as if their statements were genuine arguments,

37

and as if they take others’ arguments into consideration.

And, by doing so, they will be partially constrained. That

is, in Elster’s eloquent terms, the ‘civilizing force of

hypocrisy’ (Elster, 1995 and 1998b). And the statements

that remain excluded by the process for not having the

appearance of impartiality are the following: “the mere

expression of wants or description of interests”, “the mere

description of facts, such as a tradition or custom, that a

human authority has enacted, or a divinity has ordered”,

“the expression of normative propositions that are not

general, in the sense that the cases to which they apply

are accounted for with proper names or definite

descriptions”, “the expression of normative propositions

one is not prepared to apply to cases which are

indistinguishable from the present one on the basis of

properties relevant to the propositions themselves”, “the

obvious practical inconsistencies”, “the expression of

normative propositions that do not seem to take into

account the interests of individuals”, “the expression of

normative propositions that do not purport to be moral,

that is, acceptable from an impartial point of view, but

are only prudential or aesthetic and thus cannot provide

reasons for resolving a conflict of interests among

different people” (Nino, 1996, 121-124).

The central idea here is that even accepting that

deliberative practice cannot totally avoid strategic

behaviour, it can, and in fact does, fight against

partiality better than voting and bargaining (the latter,

38

indeed, presupposes it conceptually). In other words, even

though it is not totally successful in doing so, deliberation

works as a filter of impartiality and substantive justice, for it leaves

aside some partial and/or openly unjust claims (Sunstein,

1988; Cohen 1989a and 1996; Gargarella, 1995 and 1998;

Gutmann and Thompson, 1996 and 2004; Bohman, 1996 and 1998;

Nino, 1996, 121-128; Fearon, 1998, 52-55; Pettit 2003,

157). Hence, to the extent that what we consider right or

correct has to do with impartiality, deliberation is more

likely to produce right or correct results than its

democratic alternatives.

It is through such six factors that we can attribute

epistemic value to deliberation. Moreover, at least four of

them (1, 3, 4 and 5) increase insofar as deliberation is

more inclusive (more democratic) and less exclusive (less

elitist). They are, then, good reasons to favor democratic

deliberation before non-democratic one. But we will come

back to this point in section 5. Note that all these six

reasons favor both the strong version of the EC and the

weak one. But nevertheless, to the extent that the latter

rests only on the epistemic value of deliberation itself,

they are crucial for it.

Now, the weak version of the epistemic conception can

still be understood in two different ways. According to a

first interpretation, simple democracy has no epistemic

value by itself precisely because of the problems in the

application of the Condorcet Jury Theorem revised above,

39

but such problems can be solved or avoided precisely by

deliberation, because, by tending to impartiality, it

reduces what appear to be the sources of the main problem

for the applicability of the CJT: the burdens of judgement

and the biases in individual reasoning. Therefore, DD

possesses epistemic value because of deliberation in two

ways: first, deliberation makes the CJT possible and then

it attributes epistemic value to democracy itself; and

second, deliberation itself has epistemic value. Note that

this first interpretation collides pragmatically with the

strong version of DD. That is, it shares the strength of

its thesis (that both democracy and deliberation have

epistemic value), but avoids its main weakness (the

problems of the CJT with applicability) being grounded on a

more realist account of democracy.

According to the second interpretation of the weak version, the

problems in the application of the CJT are something that

deliberation cannot solve, even if it is acknowledgeable

that it helps in such way. Thus, simple democracy has no

epistemic value at all, even with deliberation. In short,

“numbers or counting heads never count” in the epistemic

sense. What then has epistemic value is only deliberation.

And, as it is an interpretation of a version of the EC of

DD, it must affirm that the sum of democracy and

deliberation has epistemic value only because of the six

factors explored above. Even though I sympathise more with

the first interpretation of the weak version, what I want

to point out here is that we can reject some of these

40

versions of the EC without rejecting the whole EC. In other

words, if only one of these interpretations is true, it is

enough to embrace the EC of DD. But, how can the EC be

rejected then?

4. Three Ways of Rejecting the EC

One way of defending a conception consists in showing

that all the possibilities of rejecting such conception do

not work: call it the negative strategy of justification. If proving

this is possible, and I could do so, I would surely have

justified the EC of DD against all possible, reasonable

criticism. Of course, I will not exactly do this. Instead,

my aim is weaker and consists in showing that some possible

rejections of the EC should imply a general refusal of DD.

If so, a coherent defender of deliberative democracy should

embrace the epistemic conception as well. Therefore, I will

not prove that any rejection of the EC is possible. Many of

them are indeed significant challenges for the general

model of DD. My point, here, is only internal to DD

discourse.

In my view, and considering the reconstruction of the

EC I have just presented, there are three and only three

ways of trying to reject the EC of DD – which consist in

refusing alternatively the first basic thesis of the EC,

the strong version of the second thesis, or the weak

version of the second thesis, although this third refusal

can be intended in three different strategies.

41

1) The refusal of the first basic thesis

Strictly speaking, there are two ways of refusing the

first basic thesis of the EC, which defends the existence

of an “at least partially” independent standard of

rightness or correctness. The first one is directly denying

its existence. The second one is denying the possibility of

knowing it, even if it exists. In both cases, the

consequence is that a political ideal that needs to

presuppose the independent standard necessarily fails:

therefore, it is a misleading or a mistaken practice,

something that cannot have value at all.

The problem with this first way of rejecting the EC,

in its two variants, is that DD itself presupposes the

existence of an “at least partially independent” standard

of rightness or correctness. This is what distinguishes

arguing from bargaining, and makes sense of the practice of

offering reasons and arguments, and of DD itself. Any

alternative to such assumption would make deliberation

collapse into negotiation. Even though some deliberative

democrats have not emphasized such conceptual connection,

they need to assume it in order to maintain the very core

of DD (Estlund, 1993a, 1437-1444, 1448-1453), even when

some of them prefer avoiding the language of common good or

independent standards, but appeal to intersubjective or

enlightened interests in an equivalent way (Mansbridge,

1983, 24-28; Bohman, 1996 and 1998, 405; Knight and

42

Johnson, 1997, 313 fn 31; Gargarella 1998, 261; Pettit

2003, 157; Christiano 2004, 269ff).

It is obviously not easy to justify this first basic

thesis. And since it is impossible to prove the truth of

the denial of an existential statement (like the first

thesis), those who affirm such statement have the burden of

prove and evidence.35 If they fail, maybe we should presume

its denial. Thus, maybe we should presuppose that there are

no independent standards of rightness in politics. But,

then, be aware that a significant part of our political

practice fails and we have to renounce to it as well as to

any discourse of political legitimacy, if it is understood

as something more than mere subjective adhesion. However,

my point here is not about the truth or falsity of the

first thesis of the EC, but only to show that a coherent

defender of DD cannot renounce to such thesis, and

therefore cannot reject the EC due to this first reason. If

independent standards of rightness do not really exist, DD

in general is worse off.

2) The rejection of the strong interpretation of the second

basic thesis

It is relatively easy to reject the strong interpretation of

the second thesis and I have done part of the work. To

refuse it, rejecting the applicability of the CJT to actual

democratic procedures is enough. As I said, there are in

35 Indeed, what it is impossible to prove is the truth of an empiricalexistential statement, not the truth of an analytical one. But, eventhough the existence of independent standards of rightness is notempirical, it is certainly not a matter of analytical truth.

43

effect some serious problems in applying the CJT to

reality. And, if so, the strong version is not true.

Indeed, I am not sure that we can condemn the CJT so

quickly. In my opinion, this is yet an open issue. Anyway,

rejecting the strong version does not imply a general

rejection of the EC, for we have still another version of

it, the weak one, to be defended. And, then, this second

rejection is possible, but not enough to refuse the whole

EC.

3) The rejection of the weak interpretation of the second

basic thesis

If the rejection of the strong version of the EC is

not enough to reject the whole EC, we then have to refuse

the weak version too: that deliberation has more epistemic

value than any other democratic alternative. There are

several ways of doing this, at least the following three:

a) by affirming that bargaining has more epistemic value

than arguing or voting; b) by affirming that voting has

more epistemic value than arguing or bargaining; or c) by

denying that any procedure has epistemic value or that we

cannot know if some have. Note that in each case, not only

the weak version would be refused, but also the strong one,

and then the whole EC.

The first one is the easiest to be rebutted.

Bargaining is conceptually unable to have epistemic value,

as that there is no independent standard of rightness over

such issues we negotiate is supposed. All that can be known

44

through a procedure like that are the pure interests or

desires of those who take part in it. On the other hand,

the second way of rejecting the weak interpretation sounds

quite implausible. To affirm that voting has more epistemic

value than democratic deliberation we need first to hold

something like the CJT, beyond all the problems it has, and

second to say that deliberation, that is, the exchanging of

reasons and arguments, not only cannot afford more

epistemic value to the procedure, but indeed reduces that

of simple voting. In other words, we should deny all the

six reasons in favor of the epistemic value of deliberation

and add that collective offering and considering reasons

and arguments makes the practice of voting worse.36 As I

said, such conception seems quite implausible and I will

simply not consider it here.

Obviously, the most sensible strategy for rejecting

the weak version is the third one: denying that any

procedure has epistemic value or that we cannot know if any

has it. But this strategy can be understood in two

different ways. Strongly understood, in its hard version, it

would coincide with the first way of rejecting the weak

version, the rejection of the existence of the independent

standard of rightness. If we think that there is an

independent standard of rightness and then that it is worth

knowing it, but at the same time we hold that we cannot

know which procedure is reliable to find this standard out,

36 Note that we do not say that rhetoric and persuasion could make theresults of simple voting worse. This is probably true, but rhetoricand persuasion have nothing to do with deliberation.

45

if any, then we are in the same place that we would be by

simply denying its existence or the very possibility of

knowing it. To the extent that this strategy is equivalent

to the first way of rejecting the EC, the same conclusions

I reached there are valid here: that a defender of DD

cannot hold this without renouncing to the DD itself.

But there is another way of interpreting this

strategy, a weaker one that I call the soft version (or I

could say the soft versions, since there are several). What

such weaker version can affirm is that there are cases in

which other democratic alternatives, mainly voting, have

more epistemic value than deliberation. But this

misunderstands the EC, since as I said the second basic

thesis only holds that DD is the more reliable procedure in

general. It could claim, instead, that even when

deliberation has more epistemic value that the other

democratic alternatives, we could find more reliable some

non-democratic procedures. But this misunderstands the EC

again, since as I said the second thesis is relative to

democratic alternatives, even though there certainly is an

important tendency to elitism in epistemic views that will

be explored in the next section. Or finally this soft

version could say that even if we have different good

reasons to attribute epistemic value to DD, we cannot be

sure about its reliability since human knowledge is always

fallible, and for judging the reliability of an epistemic

procedure one should know first what it is supposed to be

known. This strategy is interesting and it seems true to

46

me. But we cannot ground our rejection of the EC on the

basis of a healthy skepticism like that. As occurs with

general knowledge (about the existence of the world), we

can always doubt about our assumptions or beliefs. But this

is not enough to reject them.

As far as I can see, there is no better understanding

of the third way of rejecting the EC of DD. If so, and

considering my answers to the other strategies, we should

finally conclude that a coherent defender of DD should

embrace the EC of it as well. Therefore, we must be

concerned with the rightness of political decisions and

recognize democratic deliberation as the legitimate

decision-making procedure. Here we have an interesting way

of justifying a procedural account of political legitimacy

based on substantive concerns. But is the substantive

rightness of political decisions all that matters?

5. The Tendency to Elitism and the Justification of Deliberative Democracy

One of the main fears about the EC of democracy in

general is that it can lead us to elitist views (Estlund,

1993a, 1464ff and 1993b). And it is true it can do so. We

have seen that political legitimacy depends significantly

on the reliability of the decision-making procedure used to

find or produce the substantively right decisions. And

since some agents are wiser than others, such reliability

increases dramatically when participation in the decision-

process is restricted to the wiser. Remember, first, that

47

according to the CJT there are two ways of increasing the

likelihood of truth or a certain decision: increasing the

number of participants or increasing the average epistemic

competence and the most efficient means is undoubtedly the

latter (Estlund, 1993b, 95). Second, besides the CJT, it is

reasonable to think that if we restrict participation in

deliberation to those wiser and more capable of sound

argumentation, the probability of the final decision being

correct is higher than if we open deliberation to all. In

other words, a deliberative procedure is epistemically more

reliable if it is restricted (and thus, less inclusive).

If so, one could hold that the EC of DD enhances a

tendency to elitism, as it favours restrictions in the

participation in decision-making (Estlund, 1993a, 1463-

1464, 1993b, 71, 1997, 181-183, and 2000, 123; Bohman,

1996, 3 and 111; Sanders, 1997, 354-359; Goodin and List,

2001, 280 fn 13; Dryzek, 2001, 655). If we were only

concerned with the substantive quality of political

decisions, and since the elitist restriction increases the

probability to produce right decisions, political

legitimacy would require democratic elitism. We could then

endorse representative institutions to the extent that they

filter out people not capable to participate in decision-

making. Thus, division of labour can be useful not only to

overcome the size and complexity difficulties for direct

participation, and can also be something similar to natural

political selection, following a principle of distinction

(Manin, 1997). Elitist representative institutions could

48

maximize the deliberative quality of political decision-

making, as deliberation in courts among Justices is

supposed to do, leading us to a democratic elitist system

of excellence, being democratic legitimacy still guaranteed

through periodic elections by universal suffrage.

David Estlund has analyzed this problem accurately,

calling such position the Normative Epistemic Authoritarianism

(Estlund, 1993b). As he states it, this authoritarianism

endorses three tenets:

“1. The Cognitivist Tenet: Normative political claims (at

least often) are true or false.

2. The Elitist Epistemic Tenet: Some (relatively few) people

know the normative political truth significantly

better than others.

3. The Authoritarian Tenet: The normative political

knowledge of those who know is a strong moral reason

for their holding political power” (Estlund, 1993b,

72).

As we have seen, the first tenet is presupposed by the

EC, so it cannot be rejected. The second one is empirical,

but difficult to deny. The negation of this second tenet is

affirming that we all have the same epistemic competence,

that we are “equally morally and politically wise”, and

this is surely false. Holding this second elitist tenet

still does not imply any differentiation in treatment or

consideration or respect – it is only a matter of fact

about our capacities. It can also be distinguished from the

statement of inequalities in epistemic capabilities. The

49

case could be that we all had the same epistemic

capabilities - the same possibility to have an equal

knowledge -, even when I think this is not the case, and

that we actually have different knowledge. Indeed, as

occurred with the epistemic competence condition of the

CJT, we cannot be sure whether we have different or equal

epistemic knowledge, since we do not have independent

access to political truth. The only way to ascertain

something both in the case of the CJT condition and of the

Elitist Epistemic Tenet is to know independently what is

politically true all the time and to measure the number of

times people are right or wrong. And this is impossible.

Anyway, I think we cannot reasonably doubt this elitist

empirical claim. All our intuitions and our practices head

in this direction.

The problem with the authoritarian elitism is, of

course, the step from the first two tenets to the third

one. In my view, there are at least three arguments against

such step and then against the elitist conception. On the

one hand, as Estlund says, the elitist must respond to the

challenge of “who will know the knowers?” (Estlund, 1993b,

84-89) That is, if some people are entrusted to make

political decisions because of their better knowledge,

wisdom and capacities, how do people who do not share such

knowledge, wisdom and capacities identify the wiser? They

surely cannot. First, they will not be able to recognize

the character features necessary to be distinctively

considered. Second, they will not be able to verify if

50

those who make decisions are making the right ones. In

Estlund’s words, “[e]ven if some have knowledge, others

have no way of knowing this unless they can know the same

thing by independent means, in which case they have no use

for the other’s expertise” (Estlund, 1993b, 84).37 This

problem is more dramatic because of reasonable

disagreement. People reasonably disagree about

controversial political matters. And then even wiser and

capable people disagree about such matters. Hence “a

putative knower can be doubted by some reasonable people,

and so knowledge cannot give moral legitimacy to political

power” (Estlund, 1993b, 94). If this argument is correct,

then the possibility of enhance representative (elected)

elitist institutions was only a mirage. And what it was

democratic elitism quickly becomes a non-democratic one.

Roughly, if we do not trust in people to make political

decisions, then we cannot trust in them for electing the

proper representatives.

However, in my opinion, this first argument is not

enough to reject political elitism. In effect, we have a

lot of problems in knowing who the knowers are. But it is

probably easier to know who they are not. Therefore, we

could maintain restrictions for participating in political

decision-making. Though we cannot know who are the wiser

and capable 0.1 % in our society for governing us, we

37 This brings Estlund to reject what he calls “The Second-Order EpistemicTenet: The knowers can be known by sufficiently many nonknowers toempower them, and to practically and morally legitimate their power.”And being skeptic about this forth tenet, he rejects NormativeEpistemic Authoritarianism.

51

surely can identify the more ignorant and incapable 20% and

leave them out of the political processes. For instance,

those who lack high school studies or who are under 80 IQ,

are probably less reliable to make right political

decisions, and then we should leave them out. Perhaps we

could do the same with the 50% of the population. Why would

it be unfair or unjust?

Let me explore the other two arguments for rejecting

political elitism. The second argument is provided by

classic liberal thought: the issue is not only who knows

the knowers, but also who controls those who govern. Even

if we could select the wisest and most capable people to

govern, how can we be sure that they will be making the

right decisions, and not promoting their own private

interests? We can establish, following the classical

liberal solution, some ‘checks and balances’, like division

of power, bicameralism, judicial review, etc. But it will

not be enough if all such institutions are integrated by

the wiser. How can the rest of people be protected against

tacit or explicit conspiracy by all the empowered to

maintain the status quo and keep the power in their hands?

Further, there are not equilibrium-solutions available to

avoid the risk of domination. When the political decisions,

including those about basic matters, are involved, someone

has to make the final decision.38 But this second argument

is still not enough. Note that the risk of having an

38To forbid or allow abortion is a decision that necessarily has to bemade. If not explicitly, then the status quo is maintained and it is madeimplicitly.

52

uncontrolled government increases when the number of those

involved in government decreases. The more people engaged

in politics, the less chance for conspiracy.39 Then, the

elitist could say, as before, that what he purports is to

leave out only a little part of the population. If 80% of

the people were engaged in politics, there would be enough

guarantees against conspiracy.

However, the problem is not so much the risk of

conspiracy, but domination. To leave a part of the

population out of decision-making, even a little one,

implies that such part will be dominated by those who

remain in.40 To be dominated does not imply to be actually

oppressed or pursued or interfered, but to be in a

situation that makes this possible. And this leads us to

the third argument. In order to reject political elitism,

we necessarily need to find an intrinsic value in

democratic procedure, something that makes it worthy

independently of its epistemic (or another instrumental)

value (Estlund, 1993b, 82). And deliberative democrats

usually agree in attributing the following value to DD: it

better respects something like “the equal political

autonomy” (Christiano, 1997, 258-262, and 2004, 269ff;

Cohen, 1996; Brighouse, 1996; Bohman, 1996, Ch. 3 and 1997;

Nino, 1996, 117; Gutmann and Thompson, 1996, Ch. 8; Gaus,

1996, 246-257; and Estlund 2000a), something based in a39 I am assuming, of course, that those who are not politically wiseare not (or should not to be) in politics, since they are not able tojudge and assess those wiser than them.40 Here I mean by domination something close to Philip Pettit’s accountof individual liberty, but referred now to public autonomy (Pettit1997 and 2001).

53

principle of equal consideration and concern or basic

equality or human dignity.

That DD is a procedure that promotes such a value

means that it is procedurally fair with everyone’s claims

(Estlund, 1997, 189-198, and 2000a, 140ff). Since the

procedure is democratic, it promotes inclusion. Since it is

governed by the force of arguments, and not by any

particular or private or selfish consideration, it treats

all the participants impartially and enhances impartiality

in their results. Finally, DD pays attention not only to

people’s interests or brute preferences (as bargaining or

voting do) but to people’s reasons and arguments in favor

of their proposals. Hence, it treats people as reason

bearers and capable of rationally articulating their

political views. And since it permits everyone to

politically express theirselves, it is more sensitive to

people as reasonable and autonomous agents. Public autonomy

here means the capability to pursue rational aims freely

chosen or, paralleling the individual notion, to pursue

their own plans of political life. If private autonomy is

not to choose arbitrarily, as a matter of whim, but to

choose deliberately, as a matter of reason, public autonomy

is not to choose on the basis of mere interests or desires,

but on the basis of public reasons. Therefore, DD is more

appropriate to respect and promote the value of political

autonomy than other models based on bargaining or pure

voting, for it conceptually assumes that participants are

54

politically autonomous, and allows them to develop such

autonomy.

I do not want to accurately analyze this intrinsic

justification of DD, since this is not my aim in this

paper. I would finally want to point out that we do not

necessarily need to find, neither in deliberation nor in

democratic deliberation, an intrinsic value, this is,

something that justifies it in front of the other

democratic alternatives. Finding such value in democracy

itself is enough, since all we need now is to justify

democracy before political elitism (Estlund, 2000a, 137).

Of course, it is not my intention to do this now. Instead,

I will take it for granted. My only purpose in this section

was to show that the justification of DD requires both an

instrumental-epistemic argument (to be consistent with the

very notion of DD) and an intrinsic one (for rejecting

political elitism).

(6) Conclusion

I have revisited in this paper the epistemic

conception of deliberative democracy. And what I tried to

argue was that, first, a coherent deliberative democrat has

very good reasons to defend the epistemic conception,

because the core of the DD model implicitly assumes what is

claimed by such a conception (and that such EC is not so

unreasonable as some seem to think), and, second, that even

if the epistemic view is true, it yet cannot be the only

55

justification of DD, for the epistemic concerns puts us in

an elitist trend that has to be rejected in order to defend

democracy itself, and then, that we have to recognize some

intrinsic values in democratic deliberative procedures. In

order words, roughly speaking, I tried to show that both

intrinsic and instrumental justifications of DD, far from

being incompatible, are indeed welcomed. If I am wrong, and

this can perfectly be the case, we will always be able to

track the truth together. Deliberating, I guess.

56

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