scholarly journals REPRESENTATION IN MODELS OF EPISTEMIC DEMOCRACY

Episteme ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 498-518
Author(s):  
Patrick Grim ◽  
Aaron Bramson ◽  
Daniel J. Singer ◽  
William J. Berger ◽  
Jiin Jung ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Information Aggregation ◽  
Epistemic Democracy ◽  
Condorcet Jury Theorem ◽  
Analytic Work ◽  
Direct Participation ◽  
Epistemic Virtues ◽  
Collaborative Search ◽  
Jury Theorem ◽  
Group Search

ABSTRACTEpistemic justifications for democracy have been offered in terms of two different forms of information aggregation and decision-making. The Condorcet Jury Theorem is appealed to as a justification in terms of votes, and the Hong–Page ‘diversity trumps ability’ result is appealed to as a justification in terms of deliberation in the form of collaborative search. Both results, however, are models of full and direct participation across a population. In this paper, we contrast how these results hold up within the familiar structure of a representative hierarchy. We first consider extant analytic work that shows that representation inevitably weakens the voting results of the Condorcet Jury Theorem. We then go on to show that collaborative search, as modeled by Hong and Page, holds its own within hierarchical representation. In a variation on the dynamics of group search, representation even shows a slight edge over direct participation. This contrast illustrates how models of information aggregation vary when put into a representative structure. While some of the epistemic merits of democracy are lost when voting is done hierarchically, modeling results show that representation can preserve and even slightly amplify the epistemic virtues of collaborative search.

Truth-tracing versus truth-tracking: Lafont, Landemore and epistemic democracy

2020 ◽  
pp. 019145372097471
Author(s):  
Peter Niesen
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Public Reason ◽  
Epistemic Democracy ◽  
Condorcet Jury Theorem ◽  
The Public ◽  
Plausible Account ◽  
Jury Theorem ◽  
Theory Of Democracy

Cognitivist theories of democratic decision-making come in two flavours, which I label transparently and intransparently epistemic. Lafont’s deliberative theory of democracy has strengths in accounting for the transparently truth-tracing power of justification but lacks a plausible account of the intransparently truth-tracking power of aggregative approaches highlighted by, among others, Hélène Landemore, such as the Condorcet Jury Theorem or the Diversity Trumps Ability Theorem. I suggest opting for an approach that includes semi-transparently epistemic mechanisms, that is, truth-tracking mechanisms, the workings of which can be explained, passing the public reason test, to all citizens.

scholarly journals Information Aggregation, Rationality, and the Condorcet Jury Theorem

1996 ◽  
Vol 90 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Austen-Smith ◽  
Jeffrey S. Banks
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Nash Equilibrium ◽  
Information Aggregation ◽  
Collective Decision Making ◽  
Single Individual ◽  
Condorcet Jury Theorem ◽  
Jury Theorem ◽  
Sincere Voting ◽  
Two Alternatives ◽  
Better Than

The Condorcet Jury Theorem states that majorities are more likely than any single individual to select the “better” of two alternatives when there exists uncertainty about which of the two alternatives is in fact preferred. Most extant proofs of this theorem implicitly make the behavioral assumption that individuals vote “sincerely” in the collective decision making, a seemingly innocuous assumption, given that individuals are taken to possess a common preference for selecting the better alternative. However, in the model analyzed here we find that sincere behavior by all individuals is not rational even when individuals have such a common preference. In particular, sincere voting does not constitute a Nash equilibrium. A satisfactory rational choice foundation for the claim that majorities invariably “do better” than individuals, therefore, has yet to be derived.

scholarly journals EPISTEMIC DEMOCRACY WITH DEFENSIBLE PREMISES

2013 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Franz Dietrich ◽  
Kai Spiekermann
Keyword(s):  
Small Groups ◽  
Wisdom Of Crowds ◽  
Contemporary Theory ◽  
Epistemic Democracy ◽  
Current Form ◽  
Condorcet Jury Theorem ◽  
Jury Theorem ◽  
Misleading Conclusion ◽  
Better Than ◽  
The Wisdom Of Crowds

The contemporary theory of epistemic democracy often draws on the Condorcet Jury Theorem to formally justify the ‘wisdom of crowds’. But this theorem is inapplicable in its current form, since one of its premises – voter independence – is notoriously violated. This premise carries responsibility for the theorem's misleading conclusion that ‘large crowds are infallible’. We prove a more useful jury theorem: under defensible premises, ‘large crowds are fallible but better than small groups’. This theorem rehabilitates the importance of deliberation and education, which appear inessential in the classical jury framework. Our theorem is related to Ladha's (1993) seminal jury theorem for interchangeable (‘indistinguishable’) voters based on de Finetti's Theorem. We also prove a more general and simpler such jury theorem.

scholarly journals The metaethical dilemma of epistemic democracy

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Christoph Schamberger
Keyword(s):  
Moral Realism ◽  
Epistemic Democracy ◽  
Condorcet Jury Theorem ◽  
Correct Alternative ◽  
Jury Theorem ◽  
High Chance ◽  
Moral Facts

Abstract Epistemic democracy aims to show, often by appeal to the Condorcet Jury Theorem, that democracy has a high chance of reaching correct decisions. It has been argued that epistemic democracy is compatible with various metaethical accounts, such as moral realism, conventionalism and majoritarianism. This paper casts doubt on that thesis and reveals the following metaethical dilemma: if we adopt moral realism, it is doubtful that voters are, on average, more than 0.5 likely to track moral facts and identify the correct alternative. By contrast, if we adopt conventionalism or majoritarianism, we cannot expect that voters are both competent and sincere. Either way, the conditions for the application of Condorcet’s theorem are not met.

scholarly journals Consequences of the Condorcet Jury Theorem for Beneficial Information Aggregation by Rational Agents

1998 ◽  
Vol 92 (2) ◽  
pp. 413-418 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew McLennan
Keyword(s):  
Nash Equilibria ◽  
Information Aggregation ◽  
Common Interest ◽  
Condorcet Jury Theorem ◽  
Rational Agents ◽  
Incorrect Decision ◽  
Jury Theorem ◽  
The One ◽  
Sincere Voting

“Naïve” Condorcet Jury Theorems automatically have “sophisticated” versions as corollaries. A Condorcet Jury Theorem is a result, pertaining to an election in which the agents have common preferences but diverse information, asserting that the outcome is better, on average, than the one that would be chosen by any particular individual. Sometimes there is the additional assertion that, as the population grows, the probability of an incorrect decision goes to zero. As a consequence of simple properties of common interest games, whenever “sincere” voting leads to the conclusions of the theorem, there are Nash equilibria with these properties. In symmetric environments the equilibria may be taken to be symmetric.

scholarly journals Epistemic Democracy: Generalizing the Condorcet Jury Theorem

2001 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 277-306 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian List ◽  
Robert E. Goodin
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Democracy ◽  
Condorcet Jury Theorem ◽  
Jury Theorem

scholarly journals Information Use and the Condorcet Jury Theorem

Mathematics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (10) ◽  
pp. 1098
Author(s):  
Keiichi Morimoto
Keyword(s):  
Monetary Policy ◽  
Voting Behavior ◽  
Imperfect Information ◽  
Information Use ◽  
Information Aggregation ◽  
New Keynesian ◽  
Strategic Complementarity ◽  
Keynesian Model ◽  
Jury Theorem

Using a simple model of a coordination game, this paper explores how the information use of individuals affects an optimal committee size. Although enlarging the committee promotes information aggregation, it also stimulates the members’ coordination motive and distorts their voting behavior through higher-order beliefs. On the determination of a finite optimal committee size, the direction and degree of strategic interactions matter. When the strategic complementarity among members is strong, a finite optimal committee size exists. In contrast, it does not exist under strategic substitution. This mechanism is applied to the design of monetary policy committees in a New Keynesian model in which a committee conducts monetary policy under imperfect information.

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