Don’t forget forgetting: the social epistemic importance of how we forget

Abstract

We motivate a picture of social epistemology that sees forgetting as subject to epistemic evaluation. Using computer simulations of a simple agent-based model, we show that how agents forget can have as large an impact on group epistemic outcomes as how they share information. But, how we forget, unlike how we form beliefs, isn't typically taken to be the sort of thing that can be epistemically rational or justified. We consider what we take to be the most promising argument for this claim and find it lacking. We conclude that understanding how agents forget should be as central to social epistemology as understanding how agents form beliefs and share information with others.

The Epistemic Role of Diversity in Juries: An Agent-Based Model

“…With an eye to contemporary modeling in social epistemology (Hegselmann & Krause 2002;Zollman 2007;Weisberg & Muldoon 2009;Rosenstock et al 2016;Grim et al 2013;Weatherall et al 2018;Singer et al 2019Singer et al , 2021Mohseni et al 2023), ours is a return to the basic epistemic questions of the earlier models. Whereas much of the contemporary work in social epistemology is in philosophy of science, our focus is on juries.…”

The Importance of Forgetting

“…Perhaps the fundamental interests that we aim to protect through a right to privacy are impossible given the world we find ourselves in, a world in which our ability to forget is being eroded by companies whose raison d'être is to preserve a record of everything so 36 See also Smith (2005) for why we should reject the volitional view of responsibility altogether. See also Singer et al (2021) for an argument for how forgetting is reasons-responsive.…”

“…Following an Aristotelian approach then, what we need to find is the mean between those opposed vices, that is, the right amount of forgetting. Along a different vein, Singer et al (2021) offer an argument for the importance of forgetting but focus on how group learning outcomes can be improved not only by how agents form beliefs, but also how they forget them. In addition, with regard to remembering too much, see the discussion of hyperthymesia as it relates to our ability to forgive in §2.2.…”

Morality of Belief II: Three Challenges and An Extension

“…1 1 See Adams (1985), Smith (2005), Basu and Schroeder (2019), Basu (2019c), Singer et al. (2021) and more for in depth discussions of these points. And of course, as an anonymous referee reminds me, this discussion can go back further in time to Aristotle and the recognition that a person can be morally responsible for a state she did not choose to enter into. …”

“… See Adams (1985),Smith (2005),Basu and Schroeder (2019),Basu (2019c),Singer et al (2021) and more for in depth discussions of these points. And of course, as an anonymous referee reminds me, this discussion can go back further in time to Aristotle and the recognition that a person can be morally responsible for a state she did not choose to enter into.2 Further, as I noted in the first paper in this set, there is recent psychological work to suggest that folk intuitions about belief more closely match the intuitions of proponents of doxastic wronging than detractors (see againCusimano & Lombrozo, 2021.3 This challenge is echoed in by other challenges that aim to locate the wrong elsewhere from belief, e.g., in patterns of attention(Saint-Croix, 2022), in one's reasons or character(Howard, 2021), or other duties in the vicinity of belief (Enoch & Spectre, forthcoming).…”