Are knowledgeable voters better voters?

Abstract

It is widely believed that democracies require knowledgeable citizens to function well. But the most politically knowledgeable individuals tend to be the most partisan and the strength of partisan identity tends to corrupt political thinking. This creates a conundrum. On the one hand, an informed citizenry is allegedly necessary for a democracy to flourish. On the other hand, the most knowledgeable and passionate voters are also the most likely to think in corrupted, biased ways. What to do? This paper examines this tension and draws out several lessons. First, it is not obvious that more knowledgeable voters will make better political decisions. Second, attempts to remedy voter ignorance are problematic because partisans tend to become more polarized when they acquire more information. Third, solutions to citizen incompetence must focus on the intellectual virtue of objectivity. Fourth, some forms of epistocracy are troubling, in part, because they would increase the political power of the most dogmatic and biased individuals. Fifth, a highly restrictive form of epistocracy may escape the problem of political dogmatism, but epistocrats may face a steeper tradeoff between inclusivity and epistemic virtue than they would like.

The Case for Partisan Motivated Reasoning

“…They have much greater political knowledge and hold more stable beliefs that are more consistently aligned with the dominant ideological packages of the time (Converse, 1964;Federico & Malka, 2021). Importantly, however, their attitudes and behaviours appear to be even more influenced by party allegiances (Brennan, 2021;Hannon, 2022). For example, they more strongly identify with political parties, and their beliefs-even on seemingly straightforwardly factual issues-are highly correlated with their partisan identities (Achen & Bartels, 2016;Federico & Malka, 2021;Joshi 2020).…”

“…According to numerous theorists, partisan cognition manifests a kind of bias: it involves the distorting influence of partisan allegiances on cognitive processes (Brennan, 2016;Hannon, 2022;Kahan, 2017;Mason, 2018;Somin, 2006;Williams, 2021b). In technical terms, this perspective is typically understood in terms of directionally motivated reasoning (henceforth just "motivated reasoning"), which occurs when beliefs are unconsciously biased away from accuracy by "directional goals", so-called because they direct cognition towards conclusions that are favoured for reasons independent of their evidential support (Kunda, 1990).…”

“…Not only is this the question that most theorists in the relevant social-scientific literature attempt to address (D. Kahan, 2017;Pennycook et al, 2022;Tappin et al, 2020;Williams, 2021c), but it also seems to have the greater importance. To the extent that partisan cognition involves motivated cognition, this has pessimistic implications for our understanding of public discourse and democratic accountability, implying that citizens routinely subordinate the pursuit of truth to practical goals rooted in partisan allegiances (Achen & Bartels, 2016;Bisgaard, 2019;Brennan, 2016;Hannon, 2022;Somin, 2006;Williams, 2021c). To the extent that partisan cognition involves the genuine and disinterested pursuit of truth, in contrast, this seems to have far more optimistic implications when it comes to our collective capacities to address misinformation, respond to rational persuasion, and converge on the facts, and these more optimistic implications hold even if citizens are not ideal Bayesian reasoners (Federico & Malka, 2021;Lepoutre, 2020;Pennycook & Rand, 2019;Tappin et al, 2020).…”

Debunking creedal beliefs

“…Another study suggests that subjects tend to (mistakenly) judge co-partisans as more reliable in getting things right even in non-political matters; in this case, an incentivized shape recognition task (Marks et al 2019). Importantly, being more knowledgeable about politics in general does not mitigate such effects-in fact, it typically exacerbates them (Hannon 2022).…”

The Epistemic Significance of Social Pressure

“…Su (2022) finds that subjects are comparatively hesitant to update their beliefs in light of even highly reliable information, when doing so challenges their political beliefs. Furthermore, even highly knowledgeable partisans are prone to these biases (Hannon 2022).…”