Populism, expertise, and intellectual autonomy

Abstract

Populism is commonly associated with a kind of skepticism about expertise, on which the opinions of non-experts are to be preferred to any expert consensus. In light of all this, populist expertise skepticism appears to be a kind of pathology of excessive intellectual autonomy. Here I argue that this connection between populism and intellectual autonomy is mere appearance: populist expertise skepticism does not involve excessive intellectual autonomy, because it does not involve a disposition for non-deferential belief, but rather a disposition for deference to "alternative" sources of information.