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345Political Equality and Epistemic Constraints on VotingPhilosophy and Public Affairs 52 (2): 147-176. 2024.As part of recent epistemic challenges to democracy, some have endorsed the implementation of epistemic constraints on voting, institutional mechanisms that bar incompetent voters from participating in public decision-making procedures. This proposal is often considered incompatible with a commitment to political equality. In this paper, I aim to dispute the strength of this latter claim by offering a theoretical justification for epistemic constraints on voting that does not rest on antiegalita…Read more
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384The Epistemic Responsibilities of Voters: Towards an Assertion-Based AccountJournal of Moral Philosophy 20 (1-2): 111-131. 2023.It is often claimed that democratic voters have epistemic responsibilities. However, it is not often specified why voters have such epistemic responsibilities. In this paper, I contend that voters have epistemic responsibilities because voting is best understood as an act that bears assertoric force. More precisely, voters perform what I call an act of political advocacy whereby, like an asserter who states or affirms that something is the case, they state or affirm that a certain course of poli…Read more
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53The State's Duty to Foster Voter CompetenceEpisteme 21 (3): 719-732. 2024.In this paper we discuss an often-neglected topic in the literature on the ethics of voting. Our aim is to provide an account of what states are obligated to do, so that voters may fulfil their role as public decision-makers in an epistemically competent manner. We argue that the state ought to provide voters with what we call a substantive opportunity for competence. This entails that the state ought to actively foster the epistemic capabilities that are necessary to achieve competent participa…Read more
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91Rule of the knowers : the epistocratic challenge to democracyDissertation, University of Warwick. 2020.In recent years, scepticism about democracy’s ability to deliver good political decisions has resurfaced. In response, some political philosophers have argued that we should replace democracy with epistocracy. In this political system, the exercise of political decision-making powers – including the exercise of the right to vote – is made formally conditional on a sufficient degree of political competence. The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate the normative justifiability of epistocracy. Whe…Read more
Munich, Bavaria, Germany
Areas of Specialization
Social and Political Philosophy |
Justification of Democracy |
Political Legitimacy |
Democratic Authority |