Democracy and Truth

The article considers the role of truth and objectivity in democracy. Democratic decisions usually take account of empirical truths and can be regarded as objectively correct according to various metaethical accounts such as moral realism, conventionalism, and majoritarianism. Epistemic theories of democracy aim to demonstrate the high reliability of democratic decisions. One of its main arguments rests on the Condorcet Jury Theorem, which can be applied if decision makers, e.g. members of parliaments, vote to some extent sincerely, independently, and competently. However, under the assumption of moral realism, it is doubtful that they are sufficiently competent to track moral facts, since democratic legislatures make widely differing decisions. But even under the assumption of conventionalism or majoritarianism, we cannot expect decision makers to vote both competently and sincerely, because they often have differing motivations for voting the way they do. This casts doubts on the assumption that democracy is highly likely to reach objectively correct decisions.