The paradoxes of democratic voting and the Peircean justification of democracy

The Peircean defence of democracy purports to ground the appeal of democratic government on universal epistemic interests that we simply have qua individual epistemic agents. The problem with this view is that it seems to obliterate the distinctive way in which democratic deliberation and decision making socialise our knowledge and beliefs, making democracy a very special epistemic game, quite different from the games that we play as individual knowers in non-political, non-democratic contexts. The shortcomings of the Peircean defence of democracy fully emerge when confronted with the paradoxes of democratic voting, which can only be overcome if we model the democratic processes of deliberation and belief formation as deeply collectivised and socialised. Thus, the neglect of the distinctive way in which democratic deliberation and decision making socialise knowledge grounds the Peircean defence of democracy on an inaccurate account of democracy’s epistemology, and leaves it helpless before the paradoxes of majoritian voting.