The Democratic Question That Expertise Cannot Answer

Why choosing what we want is not a technical problem requiring expert solution

This is, after all, a philosophy blog. And sometimes philosophy requires clarification—not because the argument is unclear, but because the implications cut so against the grain of contemporary thinking that even sympathetic readers struggle to hear what’s actually being said.

Some readers have suggested that my recent critiques of technocracy make me sound anti-expert, perhaps even feeding into the dangerous anti-intellectualism that’s corroded our capacity for collective sense-making. I understand the concern. When people are demanding ivermectin to treat COVID despite overwhelming evidence it doesn’t work, when confidence has replaced competence across our information landscape, when algorithmic manipulation masquerades as independent thought—the last thing we need is another voice undermining legitimate expertise.

But that’s not what I’m doing. And the confusion itself reveals something crucial about how deeply we’ve internalized a category error that makes democratic breakdown almost inevitable.

Here’s the distinction that matters: Expertise answers how to achieve what we want; it cannot answer what we should want. When technical analysis substitutes for democratic choice about ends, we evacuate citizen agency and sow the anti-expert backlash we then blame on “ignorance.”

Let me be absolutely clear: if I get cancer, I’m going to an oncologist. If my house needs structural repairs, I’m hiring an engineer. If I want to understand climate systems, I’m reading climate scientists. If there’s a novel respiratory virus spreading globally, I’m listening to epidemiologists about transmission dynamics, treatment protocols, and public health interventions. This isn’t about rejecting expertise. It’s about understanding what expertise can and cannot do—and recognizing that the most important questions we face together cannot be answered by experts at all.