Democracy as Heuristic: the Ecological Rationality of Political Equality

In this lecture, I intend to recast the epistemic argument for democracy¡ªthat many heads are better than one--in terms familiar to the psychology and behavioral economics literature. I will thus offer a reading of democracy as a ¡°smart and frugal heuristic¡± that groups of human beings rationally resort to in the circumstances of politics, which I argue are characterized by complexity and radical uncertainty. The emphasis on radical uncertainty, in particular, will allow me to account for the superiority of democracy as a specifically egalitarian type of inclusive political rule.