The Epistemic Significance of Social Pressure

Abstract

This paper argues for the existence of a certain type of defeater for one’s belief that P—the presence of social incentives not to share evidence against P. Such pressure makes it relatively likely that there is unpossessed evidence that would provide defeaters for P because it makes it likely that the evidence we have is a lopsided subset. This offers, I suggest, a rational reconstruction of a core strand of argument in Mill’s On Liberty. A consequence of the argument is that on morally and politically laden issues in particular, a high degree of doxastic openness might be appropriate.

Diversity Is Diverse: Social Justice Reparations and Science

“…As such, the scientific benefits of diversity that come from clashing perspectives, dueling biases, and motivated skepticism will have been lost to psychological science. In such a situation, the extent to which the "scientific" literature reflects the underlying reality risks being severely compromised ( Joshi, 2022).…”

“…Free inquiry includes the intense organized skepticism that Merton (1942Merton ( /1973 argued was a critical norm of science; as such, it is some insurance that bad policies and bad conclusions will be identified. It is insurance against the epistemic follies identified by Joshi (2022) that can be produced by an academic culture of denunciation and suppression. As such, free inquiry by a diversity of voices in the first, broad definitional sense of diversity, unfettered by the demands and sanctions of those who would impose their subjective values on others, is maximally inclusive in the most meaningful sense.…”

“…Nonetheless, the best way to resolve controversies is to air them so people can see the evidence and arguments. Referring to the modern development within academia of denouncing claims that gaps and inequalities result from anything except oppression—and not referring to the Roberts et al (2020) article per se, which did not denounce anyone—suppression is often something sought by political activists seeking power (Stevens et al, 2020), but it is terrible for science (Joshi, 2022; Krylov, 2021).…”

“…Hrishikesh Joshi (2022, p. 409; philosophy): “Social pressure to avoid sharing evidence against a particular claim undermines the confidence we can place in that claim, because it makes more likely the possibility that the (first-order) evidence that does make its way to us is a lopsided subset of the total. This has the perhaps tragic implication that we can typically be less confident of morally and politically laden issues than we can about ‘dry’ subjects like chemistry or cell biology.”…”

Bad language makes good politics

“…In the case of epistocratic institutions, epistemic democrats worry that diminishing the political power of politically ill-informed citizens may lead to a collectively less competent electorate (Landemore, 2013;Goodin and Spiekermann, 2018). They argue that, under appropriate conditions, individually ignorant citizens can together constitute a collectively competent electorate-indeed, a more competent electorate than one constituted by individually better informed but less numerous 32 For related discussion, see Joshi (2022). and diverse citizens.…”