The Priority of the Epistemic

Abstract

Epistemic burdens – the nature and extent of our ignorance (that and how) with respect to various courses of action – serve to determine our incentive structures. Courses of action that seem to bear impossibly heavy epistemic burdens are typically not counted as options in an actor's menu, while courses of action that seem to bear comparatively heavy epistemic burdens are systematically discounted in an actor's menu relative to options that appear less epistemically burdensome. That ignorance serves to determine what counts as an option means that epistemic considerations are logically prior to moral, prudential, and economic considerations: in order to have moral, prudential, or economic obligations, one must have options, and epistemic burdens serve to determine our options. One cannot have obligations without doing some epistemic work. We defend this claim on introspective grounds. We also consider how epistemic burdens distort surrogate decision-making. The unique epistemology of surrogate cases makes the priority of the epistemic readily apparent. We then argue that anyone who accepts a principle similar to ought implies can is committed to the logical priority of the epistemic. We also consider and reject several possible counterarguments.

Societal Collapse and Intergenerational Disparities in Suffering

“…While some might disagree that ought implies can , it is at least plausible that such a principle holds true [ 29 ]. 3 If so, and it’s impossible to change the post-collapse world such that it fits the pre-collapse mind, then one might wonder whether there is any moral justification to attempt to remediate the intergenerational injustice.…”

Power to the People? Opportunities and Challenges for Participatory AI

“…This involves the knowledge of technical experts, but also the local knowledge embedded in the lived-experience of communities. There is an epistemic burden on all stakeholders in the participatory process to gather enough information to reason, questions, act or decide [69,76]. The need then to always learn and gather information requires participatory approaches that occur at different time frames, over various duration, and with different groups.…”

Ignorance and moral judgment: Testing the logical priority of the epistemic

“…A philosophical argument ("from the armchair") has recently been offered for the logical priority of the epistemic (Scheall and Crutchfield 2020). According to this thesis, epistemic considerations "pre-consciously shape our incentive structures" (Scheall and Crutchfield 2020, 2).…”

“…What determines whether a particular course of action constitutes an option for a decision-maker and, if so, where it is initially ranked relative to other options in their incentive structure? According to Scheall and Crutchfield (2020), the answer is the decision-maker's epistemic burdens with regard to contextually relevant courses of action.…”

“…It is only after (logically and temporally) courses of action have been pre-consciously culled and remaining options ranked in an initial menu of options that other normative considerations (e.g., moral or prudential) enter the conscious decision-making frame and a choice is ultimately made. Scheall and Crutchfield (2020) offer two philosophical arguments in support of the logical priority of the epistemic.…”