Epistemic Blame

Download or read book Epistemic Blame written by Cameron Boult and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2024-07-12 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Epistemic Blame is the first book-length philosophical examination of our practice of criticizing one another for epistemic failings. People clearly evaluate and critique one another for forming unjustified beliefs, harbouring biases, and pursuing faulty methods of inquiry. But what is the nature of this criticism? Does it ever amount to a kind of blame? And should we blame one another for epistemic failings? Through careful analysis of the concept of blame, and the nature of epistemic normativity, this book argues that there are competing sources of pressure inherent in the increasingly prominent notion of "epistemic blame". The more genuinely blame-like a response is, the less fitting in the epistemic domain it seems; but the more fitting in the epistemic domain a response is, the less genuinely blame-like it seems. These competing sources of pressure comprise a puzzle about epistemic blame. The most promising resolution of this puzzle lies in the interpersonal side of epistemic normativity. Drawing on work by T. M. Scanlon, R. J. Wallace, and others, Cameron Boult argues that members of epistemic communities stand in "epistemic relationships", and epistemic blame just is a way of modifying these relationships. By thinking of epistemic blame as a distinctive kind of relationship modification, we locate a response that is both robustly blame-like, and distinctly epistemic. The result is a ground-breaking new theory of epistemic blame, the relationship-based account. With a solution to the puzzle of epistemic blame in hand, a new project for social epistemology comes into view: the ethics of epistemic blame. Boult demonstrates the power of the relationship-based account to contribute to this project, develops a systematic analysis of standing to epistemically blame, and defends the value of epistemic blame in our social and political lives. He shows that epistemic relationships can also be used to illuminate foundational questions about epistemic normativity, responsibility for our beliefs and assertions, and a wide range of epistemic harms, such as epistemic exploitation and gaslighting. Throughout the investigation, a more structured and precise understanding of the parallels and points of interaction between the epistemic and practical domains emerges.

Download or read book The Beam and the Mote written by Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2023-11-03 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ""Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye" (Matthew 7:3-5), says the Bible. The "porridge-pot calls the kettle black-arse," says the non-religious proverb, making its first known literary appearance in Cervantes' (2008, 736) Don Quixote. Both sayings point to the same deep fact about the nature of blame-i.e., that blame is interpersonal in that there is something problematic about one person blaming another when the blamer's faults are similar (the pot is black too) or even greater (one would rather have a mote than have a beam in one's eye). Such blaming is hypocritical and, typically, we see ourselves as entitled to dismiss any hypocritical blame that is directed at us. In fact, we often react quite strongly to being subjected to hypocritical blame. When we dismiss hypocritical blame, we might not deny that we have done something blameworthy (though, of course, we might). Accordingly, nor need we think that we would be entitled to dismiss blame from those who have a better moral record than our blamer. After all, those who dismiss their hypocritical brother's blame in the biblical saying do have a mote in their eye. Some think this renders our typical responses to hypocritical blame puzzling. If we have done something blameworthy, should not others-even people worse than us-be in a position to blame"--

Download or read book Knowledge and Evidence written by Paul K. Moser and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1989 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Philosophers have sought to define knowledge since the time of Plato. This inquiry outlines a theory of rational belief by challenging prominent skeptical claims that we have no justified beliefs about the external world.

Download or read book Responsibility written by Jan Willem Wieland and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Philosophers have long agreed that moral responsibility might not only have a freedom condition, but also an epistemic condition. Moral responsibility and knowledge interact, but the question is exactly how. Ignorance might constitute an excuse, but the question is exactly when. Surprisingly enough, the epistemic condition has only recently attracted the attention of scholars. This volume sets the agenda. Sixteen new essays address the following central questions: Does the epistemic condition require akrasia? Why does blameless ignorance excuse? Does moral ignorance sustained by one's culture excuse? Does the epistemic condition involve knowledge of the wrongness or wrongmaking features of one's action? Is the epistemic condition an independent condition, or is it derivative from one's quality of will or intentions? Is the epistemic condition sensitive to degrees of difficulty? Are there different kinds of moral responsibility and thus multiple epistemic conditions? Is the epistemic condition revisionary? What is the basic structure of the epistemic condition?

Download or read book Responsible Belief written by Rik Peels and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book develops and defends a theory of responsible belief. The author argues that we lack control over our beliefs, but that we can nonetheless influence them. It is because we have intellectual obligations to influence our beliefs that we are responsible for them.

Download or read book Epistemic Responsibility for Undesirable Beliefs written by Deborah K. Heikes and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-10-23 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book considers whether we can be epistemically responsible for undesirable beliefs, such as racist and sexist ones. The problem with holding people responsible for their undesirable beliefs is: first, what constitutes an “undesirable belief” will differ among various epistemic communities; second, it is not clear what responsibility we have for beliefs simpliciter; and third, inherent in discussions of socially constructed ignorance (like white ignorance) is the idea that society is structured in such a way that white people are made deliberately unaware of their ignorance, which suggests their racial beliefs are not epistemically blameworthy. This book explores each of these topics with the aim of establishing the nature of undesirable beliefs and our responsibility for these beliefs with the understanding that there may well be (rare) occasions when undesirable beliefs are not epistemically culpable.

Download or read book Blameworthy Belief written by Nikolaj Nottelmann and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2007-07-18 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Believing the wrong thing can have drastic consequences. The question of when a person is not only ill-guided, but genuinely at fault for holding a particular belief goes to the root of our understanding of such notions as criminal negligence and moral responsibility. This book explores the conditions under which someone may be deemed blameworthy for holding a particular belief, drawing on contemporary epistemology, ethics and legal scholarship.