A model of generative democracy

Recent epistemic justifications of democracy follow a joint pattern. They state a mechanism of aggregation (often a jury theorem), argue that the method of aggregation has epistemically beneficial properties, suggest that the mechanism is reflected in democratic procedures, and thus conclude that democracy has epistemic advantages over its competitors, forming the basis of an instrumental reason in favour of democracy. The problem with this pattern is that it typically takes citizen input as an exogenous variable: in jury theorems, for example, citizens are assumed to be competent, to be voting sincerely, and motivated by a pursuit of the public good. We propose to break out of this pattern by endogenizing citizen input. In particular, we argue that democracy is successful because it generates the conditions for constructive citizen input. In making this argument, we draw on old (e.g., Tocqueville, JS Mill) and new (e.g., Kitcher) arguments for the educative function of democracy. We also formalize the generative idea in a simple mathematical model.