Epistemic Blame and the Normativity of Evidence

Schmidt, Sebastian

doi:10.1007/s10670-021-00430-9

Cited by 14 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 59 publications

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“…Arguably, they are among the most important ways that people can be epistemically blameworthy. The literature on epistemic blame has tended to focus on the blameworthiness of individuals for their own epistemic failings (Boult 2021; Brown 2020 a , 2020 b ; Piovarchy 2021; Schmidt 2021). The focus is almost exclusively on things like individual epistemic vices, irrational beliefs and faulty inquiry.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Epistemic Complicity

Boult

2023

Episteme

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There is a widely accepted distinction between being directly responsible for a wrongdoing versus being somehow indirectly or vicariously responsible for the wrongdoing of another person or collective. Often this is couched in analyses of complicity, and complicity's role in the relationship between individual and collective wrongdoing. Complicity is important because, inter alia, it allows us to make sense of individuals who may be blameless or blameworthy to a relatively low degree for their immediate conduct, but are nevertheless blameworthy to a higher degree for their implication in some larger (or another person's) wrongdoing. In this paper, I argue that there is a distinctively epistemic kind of complicity. First, I motivate the distinction between direct and vicarious responsibility with three interlocking arguments, respectively appealing to: (i) the structure of rational agency; (ii) linguistic considerations; (iii) the role of ‘principal' vs. ‘accomplice’ in legal doctrine. I show how these arguments naturally extend to the epistemic domain, motivating an epistemic form of vicarious responsibility. I then examine complicity as a mechanism of vicarious epistemic responsibility. To fill this out, I engage with an epistemic analogue of the debate about the role of intention versus causal contribution in complicity. I propose a Casual Account of Epistemic Complicity, arguing that it accommodates a wide range of cases, and enables fine-grained explanations of degrees of culpability for epistemic complicity. With an adequate account of epistemic complicity on hand, we can explain what is objectionable about an important class of epistemic agent who, on an individual level, may be epistemically blameless or blameworthy to a relatively low degree, but whose relation to other individuals or collectives nevertheless makes them epistemically blameworthy to a higher degree. I explore some broader implications of this result.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Epistemic Complicity

Boult

2023

Episteme

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“…If there is such a form of assessmentand I'm inclined to think that there is 21then we can ask about the conditions under which it is appropriately taken up towards a person. If Katlyn is appropriately subjected to some form of criticism on account of her failure to believe the disjunctive claims (as Paakkunainen's remarks suggest), then it seems that a distinctly epistemic form of criticism would perhaps be our 21 I thus disagree with Schmidt (2021) who suggests that the existence of a distinctly epistemic form of criticism supports evidential minimalism. According to Schmidt, "the reactive attitudes within our epistemic practice [of interpersonal criticism] reveal the normative significance of purely evidential considerations."…”

Section: Andmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…The thought is that, in order to count as "criticism", the form of response at issue must somehow go beyond mere assessment vis-à-vis a standard. For instance, blaming someone is sometimes 17 Brown (2020), Boult (2020Boult ( , 2021aBoult ( , 2021bBoult ( , 2021c, Schmidt (2021).…”

Section: An Argument Against Minimalismmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Against Evidential Minimalism

Buckley

2022

Episteme

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Evidence is often taken to be “normative” for doxastic agents. What accounts for the normativity of evidence? According to the view that I'll call “evidential minimalism”, there is a close connection between strong evidence for the truth of p and a normative reason to believe p: evidence is either itself a normative reason for belief, or evidence gives rise to such a reason when certain other minimal conditions are met. In this paper, I argue against evidential minimalism. I will argue that there are cases where: (i) an individual S possesses strong evidence E for the truth of p at time t, (ii) all other minimal conditions for the normativity of E are met at t, (iii) S doesn't believe p at t, yet (iv) S isn't open to any form of criticism on account of (i)–(iii) at t. I will then formulate a plausible linking claim connecting openness to criticism and the existence of normative reasons for belief. The minimalist can either accept or reject this linking claim. I will argue that, either way, the minimalist view falters.

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“…This view has primarily been defended byBoult (2020Boult ( , 2021aBoult ( , 2021b). It's also accepted inSchmidt (2021Schmidt ( , 2022 and discussed in Greco (forthcoming).…”

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confidence: 99%

Scepticism about epistemic blame

Smartt

2023

Philos Stud

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I advocate scepticism about epistemic blame; the view that we have good reason to think there is no distinctively epistemic form of blame. Epistemologists often find it useful to draw a distinction between blameless and blameworthy norm violation. In recent years, this has led several writers to develop theories of ‘epistemic blame.’ I present two challenges against the very idea of epistemic blame. First, everything that is supposedly done by epistemic blame is done by epistemic evaluation, at least according to a prominent view about the social role of epistemic evaluation. Parsimony considerations count against introducing an idle mechanism that does the same work as an existing one. Second, no current theory of epistemic blame includes a plausible account of the force of epistemic blame or the practices that could express it. I conclude that we should give up the notion of epistemic blame.

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Epistemic Blame and the Normativity of Evidence

Cited by 14 publications

References 59 publications

Epistemic Complicity

Epistemic Complicity

Against Evidential Minimalism

Scepticism about epistemic blame

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