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DEMOCRATIC REASON: the Mechanisms of Collective Intelligence in Politics

DEMOCRATIC REASON: the Mechanisms of Collective Intelligence in Politics. Hélène Landemore Harvard University/Collège de France. Introduction How much does knowledge play a role in our justifications for democracy?

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DEMOCRATIC REASON: the Mechanisms of Collective Intelligence in Politics

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  1. DEMOCRATIC REASON:the Mechanisms of Collective Intelligence in Politics Hélène Landemore Harvard University/Collège de France

  2. Introduction • How much does knowledge play a role in our justifications for democracy? • Including all people in the decision-process means including a lot of “dumb” people • Rule of experts seems more conducive to intelligent decisions • Comparison rule of one, few, many

  3. Introduction (cont.) • My claims: • 1) democracy can be seen a cognitive system designed to turn the lead of individual inputs into the gold of “democratic reason” • 2) democracy epistemically dominates the rule of the few • Reason for this: including more (cognitively diverse) people makes the group smarter

  4. Introduction (cont.) Three parts: I Main concepts II Mechanisms of democratic reason: 1. First mechanism: deliberation 2. Second mechanism: majority rule III Conclusion: the epistemic edge of democracy

  5. Main concepts • Democratic reason: collective distributed intelligence of the people • Mechanisms: political cognitive artifacts • Cognitive diversity: plurality of cognitive “tools”

  6. Epistemic competence • Not virtue (or civic duty or impartiality) • Not information (raw data) • Individual vs. collective competence CoEC= f(iEC, cognitive diversity of the group)

  7. Mechanisms of democratic reason • 1. Deliberation • Epistemic properties comes from: • 1) Enlarging the pool of ideas and information • 2) Weeding out the good arguments from the bad • 3) Leading to consensus on better solution • “the forceless force of the better argument” (Habermas)

  8. Condition of optimal deliberation Cognitive diversity matters MORE than individual epistemic competence “Diversity Trumps Ability Theorem” (Page 2007) Better to have a random group of relatively smart people than two or three Einsteins

  9. E.g. 1: “Twelve Angry Men” (Sidney Lumet 1957)

  10. E.g. 2: Guidingeachother to theglobal optimum Calvados: (Marseille (7), Caen (10)) Corrèze: (Paris (8), Grenoble (9), Caen (10)) Pas de Calais: (Grenoble (9))

  11. Problem: feasibility of deliberation with large numbers. Solution: representation by election: recurrence and accountability (by lot: recurrence and random selection) Hypothesis: democratic representation is meant to preserve cognitive diversity on a smaller scale, rather than select the “best and brightest”

  12. 2. Second mechanism of democratic reason: majority rule Supplements deliberation Has its own epistemic properties 3 theoretical arguments: #1 Condorcet Jury Theorem #2 ‘Miracle of Aggregation’ #3 ‘The Crowd Beats the Average Law’

  13. #1 Condorcet Jury Theorem (CJT) Among large electorates voting on some yes or no question, majoritarian outcomes are virtually certain of tracking the “truth,” as long as three conditions are verified: 1) ‘Enlightenment’ Assumption 2) Independence 3) Sincere voting

  14. #2 The ‘Miracle of Aggregation’ E.g.: Galton’s weight-contest experiment; information-markets’ predictive accuracy 1) Elitistversion 2) Democraticversion 3) Distributedversion Key: errors cancel each other out

  15. The ‘Miracle of Aggregation’ Advantage compared to CJT: the average voter need not be epistemically competent at all Problems: • 1) The rationally irrational voter and systematic cognitive biases (Caplan 2007) • 2) Empirical implausibility of an infinity of independent signals

  16. #3 ‘The Crowd Beats the Average Law’ (Page 2007) Given any collection of diverse predictive models, Collective Prediction Error < Average Individual Error Negative correlations, not independence iEC matters AS MUCH as cognitive diversity =>Democratic majority rule > rule of the random one, but not rule of the smart few

  17. III Conclusion • Inclusive deliberation (direct or indirect) epistemically dominates deliberation among the smart few • 2) Majority rule among the many epistemically matches majority rule among the smart few • 1) + 2) = democracy epistemically dominates oligarchy • And economizes on virtue too!

  18. Preconditions for Democratic Reason: Correlation between numbers and cognitive diversity implies a certain kind of (liberal) society Free market of ideas Diverse economy Liberal education fostering autonomy and individuality New story about democracy’s value

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