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Democratic Reason: Collective Intelligence in Politics

Explore the mechanisms behind democratic reasoning and how cognitive diversity enhances decision-making in governance. Learn how deliberation and majority rule contribute to the epistemic edge of democracy, promoting inclusive and efficient decision-making processes. Discover the importance of cognitive diversity over individual competence and the benefits of democratic representation in preserving diverse perspectives. Uncover the theoretical foundations, such as the Condorcet Jury Theorem and the Miracle of Aggregation. Enhance your understanding of why democracy thrives on diverse inputs and inclusive deliberation.

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Democratic Reason: 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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