The distribution of authority

This article challenges David Estlund's claim that epistocracy involves an extra element of authority when compared to democracy. I argue there is no more authority in epistocracy than democracy, at least not in a way that would make the former subject to a higher justificatory burden than the latter. I suggest Estlund reaches his democratic conclusion by implicitly relying on an undefended presumption that egalitarian, or prioritarian, distributions of political authority face a lower justificatory burden than other distributions. The latter sections of the article propose a Rawlsian justification for this presumption. © 2010 McDougall Trust.