The Case for Democratic Patients: Epistemic Democracy Goes Green

Abstract

In mainstream democratic theory, non-agents are only considered indirectly: their interests matter if and only if a group of agents cares about them. In this paper, I argue that democratic patients, non-agents whose interests are affected by democratic decisions, have a place of their own in democratic theory. That is, they are entitled to the fair consideration of their interests in the democratic decision-making process. I defend the case for democratic patients by building upon the idea of epistemic democracy as proposed by David  Estlund . If democratic procedures ought to be epistemically designed towards achieving right decisions, as  Estlund argues, they should consider all relevant evidence fairly, like a jury does. Since democratic patients’ interests are affected by democratic decisions, I argue that they do count as relevant evidence via the All-Affected Principle, which lies at the core of democracy. Then I present some candidates for being democratic patients, which include young children, severely cognitively disabled humans, non-existent future humans, sentient animals and even non-sentient life forms. Whether they turn out to be democratic patients depends on what theories one accepts about agency, interests, and the impact of the outcomes of democracy on interests. I illustrate that point by discussing future humans as possible candidates. Finally, I briefly explore the challenge of designing real-world institutions derived from my argument, outlining what objectives they should aim for and some of the problems they might face.