Why Not Epistocracy?

Abstract

John Stuart Mill argued that the superior wisdom of an identifiable minority justified their having greater political authority. In particular, Mill thought, citizens with a high degree of education ought to have more votes than others, even if all ought to have the right to vote. My strategy is not the more familiar one of arguing that even though we must grant that the educated might rule more wisely, there are reasons of equal respect or procedural fairness that directly and decisively preclude giving some citizens more votes than others. I will not deny (nor accept) that the educated have the superior wisdom Mill’s argument supposes, but deny that such a claim is available as a justification for unequal political authority. In any case, my aim is as much to explain and acknowledge the challenge posed by Millean scholocracy as it is fully to answer it.