Estlund’s Epistemic Filter: Democracy’s ability to Ascertain Truth from Society.

Estlund begins his debate by explaining how certain epistemic criteria are compatible with principles of proceduralism. By asserting this he is forming the basis of an argument around the premise that the legitimacy of an outcome does not entirely depend on it’s moral correctness. Instead, he takes it from the perspective that legitimacy is gained by the epistemic value of the procedure that produced it. Democratic procedure gains its legitimacy from the belief that if all of the qualified points of view are accounted for then the best among those choices is the most acceptable outcome. This means that two people may hold different opinions but it is the opinion of society as a whole that is considered to be the legitimate prescription to the problem. Estlund calls this “Epistemic Proceduralism” because it combines key points from both epistemic and proceduralist philosophies. This allows for some substantively unjust laws to be considered legitimate within large groups of people depending on the prevailing moral trends within society. Epistemic and proceduralism combination of democracy is one of the reasons people accept erroneous decisions have authority and legitimacy as long as proper procedures and guarantees were respected. This means that it is the common acceptable interpretation of justice rather than “true justice.” Anytime debate hits the public arena there will always be a variety of opinions and decisions must derived from procedural means rather than substantive correctness. Citizens are given very few reasons to believe democratic outcomes are correct but they still comply with and enforce its outcomes. This tends to hold true even when they believe the results are incorrect. They are, rather, give when they th...

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... the moral dilemma stems from the fact that much of the disagreement might be reasonable. First, there might be qualified disagreement on what counts as just. Second, even if there is an account of justice that is beyond qualified objection, I assume there will be qualified disagreement in many cases about what actual decisions and institutions meet the agreeable principles of justice. If so, correctness theories of legitimacy, those that say that a law is legitimate simply because it meets the independent standards of justice, will not have a justification that is acceptable to all qualified points of view. Correctness theories cannot meet the qualified acceptability requirement. I take this to be conclusive against them. Theories that avoid the epistemic dimension altogether have been rejected already as well. The space is opened up for epistemic proceduralism.