Thursday, August 19, 2021

I Am Now Immune to Criticism

I've decided to copy-cat a style of argumentation which is prominent among democrats and socialists in the philosophy literature. This move will now render me and my work immune from criticism.
By epistocracy, I henceforth mean not only a system that gives greater weight to the wise during voting, but which actually makes substantively wise decisions! Thus, any time a seemingly epistocratic decision-system makes a bad choice--such as a choice that runs afoul of the demographic objection--it wasn't *true* or *real* epistocracy! Epistocracy by definition always makes the wisest choices. Therefore, to oppose epistocracy is to oppose good choices and favor bad ones.

In the same way, socialists will often say that socialism is not merely a system with a certain kind of ownership and control rights over productive property, but a system that in fact lives by certain norms, including substantive norms about outcomes. For instance, a socialist might say that it's not real socialism unless things are done properly and people are treated as equals, with equal incomes. Democrats say similar things about democracy meaning not merely equal inputs, but substantively liberal and egalitarian results.

If they can do it, so can I.