Postgraduate "Work In Progress" Seminar

Michele Giavazzi will present a paper titled 'A Civic Arguement for Epistocracy', followed by discussion and drinks at The Dirty Duck. The seminar will take place at 4pm on Wednesday in S0.17. All students and staff are welcome.

Abstract:
Most political philosophers converge on the idea that an equal right to vote is a requirement of democratic political legitimacy. The purpose of this talk, on the contrary, will be to defend the claim that it can be legitimate to disenfranchise some citizens, namely those who are politically incompetent.
The structure of the argument is the following. (1) I start with outlining a generic civic that all members of a political community should comply with. (2) Subsequently, I argue that voting is to be conceived as an institutional practice that serves to identify and pursue what represents the common interest of the polity. As such, the civic duty’s demands apply to whomever takes part in a procedure of voting. (3) Among these demands, epistemic responsibility has a crucial place. If the argument is correct, then incompetent voters fail to honour a commitment implicit in their institutional role, violating a duty that they have towards institutions and fellow citizens as well.
Given that violations of this kind usually justify some form of reproach, their power of voting can be justifiably removed or reduced.