What's So Rickety? Richardson's Non‐Epistemic Democracy

Some normative democratic theories theories attempting to explain how and when democratic political decisions are legitimate, authoritative, or just rely on a tendency for democratic procedures to make good decisions.1 Other theories, especially those relying on purely procedural virtues such as procedural fairness, do not.2 In his important book, Democratic Autonomy: Public Reasoning about the Ends of Policy, Henry Richardson's approach seeks to incorporate some of the advantages of each. In the end, his theory rejects any reliance on democracy's tendency to produce good decisions. I think this lands his underlying normative theory in difficulties. There is a lot in the book that is not affected by the issues I will concentrate on, and, indeed, I will argue that the epistemic approach he rejects an approach in which it is important that democratic decisions tend to get things right would be more congenial to his conception of democratic institutions than his non-epistemic emphasis on what he calls "democratic autonomy." There is a tension in much normative democratic theory, and it is present in this book: on one hand, the model for a proper politics is the activity of reasoning in public with one's fellow citizens about what we as a political community ought to do. On the other hand, there is skepticism about whether there is any answer prior to political decisions about what we ought to do, or at least whether there is one that could be legitimately appealed to in politics. Or, even if it is granted that there is an answer, there