Diversity and Epistemic Obligation

2021 ◽  
pp. 11-29
Author(s):  
David Basinger
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Obligation

scholarly journals Epistemic Obligations of the Laity

Episteme ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Boyd Millar
Keyword(s):  
Expert Consensus ◽  
Standard Assumption ◽  
Scientific Issue ◽  
Negative Impacts ◽  
Epistemic Obligation ◽  
Doxastic Attitudes ◽  
Epistemic Obligations

Abstract Very often when the vast majority of experts agree on some scientific issue, laypeople nonetheless regularly consume articles, videos, lectures, etc., the principal claims of which are inconsistent with the expert consensus. Moreover, it is standardly assumed that it is entirely appropriate, and perhaps even obligatory, for laypeople to consume such anti-consensus material. I maintain that this standard assumption gets things backwards. Each of us is particularly vulnerable to false claims when we are not experts on some topic – such falsehoods have systematic negative impacts on our doxastic attitudes that we can neither prevent nor correct. So, when there is clear expert consensus on a given scientific issue, while it is permissible for experts to consume anti-consensus material, laypeople have an epistemic obligation to avoid such material. This argument has important consequences for philosophical discussions of our epistemic obligations to perform or omit belief-influencing actions. Such discussions typically abstract away from the important differences between experts and laypeople. Accordingly, we should reject this typical practice as problematic, and insist instead that laypeople and experts have fundamentally different epistemic obligations.

Responsible Belief, Influence, and Control: Response to Stephen White

2019 ◽  
Vol 44 ◽  
pp. 53-62
Author(s):  
Rik Peels ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Crucial Difference ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Reasons Responsiveness ◽  
Control Response ◽  
The Will ◽  
Doxastic Responsibility ◽  
Epistemic Obligation ◽  
And Control ◽  
Epistemic Obligations

I reply to Stephen White’s criticisms of my Influence View. First, I reply to his worry that my Appraisal Account of responsibility cannot make sense of doxastic responsibility. Then, I discuss in detail his stolen painting case and argue that the Influence View can make sense of it. Next, I discuss various other cases that are meant to show that acting in accordance with one’s beliefs does not render one blameless. I argue that in these cases, even though the subjects act in accordance with their own beliefs, there is plenty of reason to think that at some previous point in time they violated certain intellectual obligations that led to them to hold those beliefs. Even on a radically subjective account of responsibility, then, we can perfectly well hold these people responsible for their beliefs. I go on to defend the idea that reasons-responsiveness will not do for doxastic responsibility: we need influence on our beliefs as well. Thus, doxastic compatibilism or rationalism is untenable. Subsequently, I defend my earlier claim that there is a crucial difference between beliefs and actions in that actions are often subject to the will, whereas beliefs are not. Finally, I respond to White’s worry that if one has a subjective epistemic obligation just because one believes that certain actions are epistemically bad, some people will have a wide range of absurd epistemic obligations, such as the obligation to listen to Infowars.

Von der Pluralität der Wissenschaftssprachen und der Arbeit der Geisteswissenschaften

Paragrana ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-160
Author(s):  
Michael Hagner
Keyword(s):  
Philosophical Thinking ◽  
Lingua Franca ◽  
Universal Language ◽  
Ways Of Thinking ◽  
Epistemic Obligation

AbstractWhen science, regardless of the type, is dependent on language, it is essential that it repeatedly provides assurance in its language. Scientific languages do precisely this. From a scientific perspective, it is usually argued that English has truly proven itself as a universal language. However, no mention is made of the fact that English in these cases only means a communicative obligation, and not an epistemic obligation. For example, physicists are no longer able to portray physical thinking without the range of mathematical means at their disposal. In contrast, for humanists language embodies historical or philosophical thinking, and this means that it cannot be randomly substituted. On this basis I argue in favor of a multilingualism of the humanities, which is not restricted to a single lingua franca, but which is deemed suitable for the diversity of the means of perception and ways of thinking.

Just Say ‘No’: Obligations to Voice Disagreement

2018 ◽  
Vol 84 ◽  
pp. 117-138
Author(s):  
Casey Rebecca Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Moral Norms ◽  
Moral Obligations ◽  
Course Of Action ◽  
Epistemic Obligation ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Epistemic Obligations

AbstractIt is uncontroversial that we sometimes have moral obligations to voice our disagreements, when, for example, the stakes are high and a wrong course of action will be pursued. But might we sometimes also have epistemic obligations to voice disagreements? In this paper, I will argue that we sometimes do. In other words, sometimes, to be behaving as we ought, qua epistemic agents, we must not only disagree with an interlocutor who has voiced some disagreed-with content but must also testify to this disagreement. This is surprising given that norms on testimony are generally taken to be permissive, and epistemic obligations are usually taken to be negative. In this paper I will discuss some occasions in which epistemic obligations to testify may arise, and I will attempt to investigate the nature of these obligations. I'll briefly discuss the relationship between epistemic and moral norms. I'll offer an account of what it takes to discharge epistemic obligations to testify. Finally, I'll look at some accounts of epistemic obligation that might explain these obligations.

Knowledge and Epistemic Obligation

1988 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hector-Neri Castaneda
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Obligation

Virtue Epistemology and Moral Luck

2006 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Silcox
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Epistemology ◽  
Moral Luck ◽  
Alternative Strategy ◽  
Virtue Theory ◽  
Epistemic Virtue ◽  
Thomas Nagel ◽  
General Attitude ◽  
Epistemic Obligation

AbstractThomas Nagel has proposed that the existence of moral luck mandates a general attitude of skepticism in ethics. One popular way of arguing against Nagel’s claim is to insist that the phenomenon of moral luck itself is an illusion , in the sense that situations in which it seems to occur may be plausibly re-described so as to show that agents need not be held responsible for the unlucky outcomes of their actions. Here I argue that this strategy for explaining away moral luck fails because it does not take account of the fact that agents in morally unlucky circumstances are uniformly subject to a very specific type of epistemic obligation. I then proceed to sketch out an alternative strategy for blocking the inference to skepticism, one that makes use of the distinctive explanatory resources provided by epistemic virtue theory.

Mood and Modality

2019 ◽  
pp. 417-438
Author(s):  
Debra Ziegler
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Possibility ◽  
The Other ◽  
English Grammar ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Idiomatic Expressions ◽  
Modal Verb ◽  
Problematic Area ◽  
Epistemic Obligation ◽  
Diachronic Development ◽  
Over Time

Mood in English and other languages has been defined as the inflectional expression of the grammatical categories of the indicative and subjunctive, categories which originally were distinguished in the need to discern fact (indicative) from non-fact (subjunctive). Modality, on the other hand, was a term used by Palmer (1986) to refer to the semantics of mood. The residue of such distinctions may still be found today in the bare subjunctive infinitive or ‘plain form’ (Huddleston and Pullum 2002), and a few idiomatic expressions (e.g., if I were you). However, the binary mood system of indicative versus subjunctive has been largely superseded over time by the modal verb system in English having a range of meanings from non-epistemic obligation and ability to various shades of epistemic possibility or probability. The categorization and diachronic development of such verbs present a perennially problematic area for the study of modality in English grammar.

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