Contemporary normative theories of democracy generally aim to show that democratic outcomes are legitimate and hence they ought to be obeyed. As it is known, the battlefield is split between two major approaches: instrumentalism and proceduralism. Yet, many philosophers of both approaches seem to overlook one distinction that ought to be crucial in their reasoning - or so I argue in this paper. First, I highlight this distinction between the justification of outcomes on one hand, and their legitimacy on the other. If the justification of outcomes is unachievable given circumstances of pluralism and disagreement, their legitimacy derives from the procedures that bring them about. Hence both accounts present a justification of democratic procedures by reference to a criterion that is independent from the procedures themselves. Second, I propose to distinguish between instrumentalism and proceduralism on the basis of the connection that these approaches draw between the justifying criterion and democratic procedures. While for instrumentalism this is contingent and indirect, for proceduralism it is direct and necessary. Finally, I take into account two well-known taxonomies in epistemic democracy, which are provided by David Estlund and Fabienne Peter, and I argue that both blur the distinction between the justification of outcomes and their legitimacy and are thus unsatisfactory and misleading.
