ABSTRACT
Deliberative democracy has become one of the most promising ideals in democratic theory, even though there is not a single, privileged account of that ideal. Instead, we can say that there are several views under a common umbrella; deliberative democracy being what James Bohman qualies as “a family of views according to which the public deliberation of free and equal citizens is the core of legitimate political decision making and self-government” (Bohman, 1998, p. 401). The epistemic conception (EC) of deliberative democracy counts as one of these views, stressing particularly a justication of the whole ideal in terms of the epistemic value of the decisions made following a democratic deliberative procedure (Cohen, 1986a and 1989a; Estlund, 1993a, 1993b, 1994, 1997 and 2000a; Nino, 1996; Christiano, 1996, 1997 and 2004; Gaus, 1996, 1997a and 1997b; Manin, 1987).
