Disagreement, Epistemic Paralysis, and the Legitimacy of Technocracy

ABSTRACT

Jeffrey Friedman convincingly argues that technocrats may often lack the knowledge required to enact public policies that will effectively promote their consequentialist goals. Friedman’s argument is strong enough to produce technocratic paralysis, in many cases, but “epistemic gambles” may present a way out of this problem. His discussion of exitocracy also raises the question of how to square his internal form of technocratic critique with the question of democratic legitimacy.

Keywords:

• democratic legitimacy
• epistemic gambles
• exitocracy
• technocracy
• tertiary public goods

Notes

1 Alternatively, we can picture a citizen-technocrat or epistocrat who rejects health-care system x even though she agrees with others that it would optimally promote health in the American population, for instance because she believes that an alternative system y would provide individuals with fairer access to health care. In this case, fairness would be conceived by some (but not by all) technocrats as a deontic constraint on the pursuit of welfare. We thank Joseph Stenberg for suggesting this example.

2 For example, it is estimated that the pharmaceutical industry spent over $280 million in government lobbying in the United States in 2018.

3 We thank Anand J. Vaidya for suggesting this example.

4 According to a recent Gallup poll (Witters 2019), 13.4 percent of Americans have reported that there has been a time in the last five years when a friend or family member passed away after not receiving treatment for their condition due to their inability to pay for it. In addition, 22.9 percent reported that there has been a time in the last 12 months when their household has been unable to pay for medicine or drugs that a doctor had prescribed for them because they didn't have enough money to pay for them.