Post on 21-Apr-2023
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Matthew
Fritz
PHIL 393
The Responsibility to Know: The Moral Argument for Epistemic
Responsibility
Abstract: As epistemic agents, we have certainresponsibilities as "knowers"--there are behaviors andactions which are conducive to knowledge building, andothers which are not. I argue that these epistemicresponsibilities are not completely removed from theethical sphere, and there are cases in which aresponsible moral agent must also be epistemicallyresponsible.
1. Establishing the Problem
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I write this at a time in which nearly unfathomable
information exchange is possible. The existence and
proliferation of modern technology (the internet, smart phones,
social media, etc.) allows individuals in the Western and Eastern
hemispheres to quickly and easily communicate with each other.
Even language barriers can be overcome without looking away from
the screen; rough “cut and paste” translation programs are easily
accessible, while for those willing to invest a little more time
and effort there are many of language-learning programs. Online
databases such as the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy collect
and compress a mass of scholarly knowledge and render it into a
concise and readable format, while others enable researchers to
utilize documents that are physically unattainable. Anyone today
with a device and internet connection has access to more evidence
—about almost anything, really—than was dreamed possible before
the twentieth century. I like to imagine if we could tell our
predecessors about this Golden Age of Information, and asked them
to predict how it has affected society, they would postulate an
age of cooperation and community. The ease with which
ideological opponents could access each other’s evidence and
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arguments would, if not resolve disputes, at least lend itself to
an increase of sympathy and consideration for a disagreeing
interlocutor.
Yet it seems the opposite effect is occurring. As easy as
it is to seek out differing viewpoints to temper our own, it is
even more palatable to find like-minded individuals with whom to
commiserate over the sorry state of the world, to pet and flatter
their opinions which so closely mimic ours. Or perhaps we mimic
them; after a few reiterations, it becomes a pointless question.
As much as I strive to avoid this pitfall, I find myself
habitually visiting and participating in certain online
environments more than others, if for no other reason that it is
just more bearable to not be constantly arguing the same points
over and over again with people whom, if I am honest, I find
silly.
The epistemic problems with this situation are quickly
apparent. If we continue to remain in the same evidential
environment, implicitly or explicitly rejecting exposure to
markedly different sets of evidence, then we are left
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indefinitely with what is essentially the same set of evidence.
Perhaps an argument becomes more sophisticated here, or a tenet
is slightly modified there, but the overall body of evidence is
substantively the same. One does not need to be a hard
evidentialist to think evidence should play some role in belief
formation, and refusal to admit new evidence which may modify
beliefs is hardly truth-seeking. Indeed, we could go as far as
to say that any truth attained while operating with this static
evidence is merely a lucky guess, unbefitting most definitions of
knowledge.
Allow me to make a clarification. I am not concerned with
evidence that is currently being presented to an epistemic agent
(let us call her Charley) which Charley chooses to ignore. I am
instead discussing evidence that is available in potentia to
Charley; she has not yet accessed it, she has not placed herself
in the environment where such a thing is possible. But she knows
she could if she so wished. But she does not wish, and so does
not admit the evidence to her epistemic system.
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My intuition is that in cases like this, Charley and others
like her have an epistemic duty to engage in motivated,
responsible evidence gathering. That does not seem terribly
controversial to me. If Charley does not fulfill her epistemic
duties then it is her loss; she is missing out on a chance for
responsible truth seeking. A shame, perhaps, but it seems
confined to the realm of epistemology; it is not a necessarily
ethical issue, and the duty remains epistemic, not normative.
My belief is that responsible evidence gathering may be more
than an epistemic duty; it may have normative elements. That is,
moral agents have an ethical duty to engage is responsible
evidence gathering. I think the motivation for making this
argument can be easily outlined. As of this writing, ISIS, an
Islamist organization, is overtaking the Middle East. The
turmoil in recent years certainly aids ISIS in gathering support
and seizing control of areas, but there is another aspect of ISIS
(and violent extremist groups in general) which I find troubling.
It seems that a significant portion of its members are converts
to radicalism; oftentimes these recruits are not themselves from
strictly Muslim countries, but are the Westernized children of
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Muslim immigrant parents. Somehow, these children are exposed to
a radical ideology and embrace it, engaging in a network of like-
minded individuals, all mutually reinforcing each other’s
beliefs. Not, I think, too dissimilar to the situation I
described above. The crucial element, however, is that these
ideologues become so firmly entrenched in their beliefs they
willing to not only passively die for these beliefs, but kill
other people. Specifically the deliberate targeting of civilians
—non-combatants, the uninvolved, the innocent. Such actions are
reprehensible to agents operating outside of that system of
belief, but the people within this system truly, sincerely,
believe in the righteousness of their deeds. They even have
evidence for their actions, since everyone close to them—their
friends and mentors—have provided testimony as to the rightness
of their actions.
My question, generally stated, is if an epistemic duty has a
direct causal relationship with (im)moral acts, does that mean it
is also a normative moral duty? More specifically, does the
epistemic duty of responsible evidence gathering to the end of
proper belief formation also have an ethical aspect? I argue
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that it does, and agents have a moral duty to follow correct
belief-forming processes.
In the next section I will discuss Feldman’s distinction
between moral and epistemic “oughts” and how these different
kinds may relate to each other; specifically, when the
fulfillment of certain moral duties may entail the fulfillment of
epistemic duties. Once this has been established, I will spend
the main part of the paper arguing that as moral agents, we have
responsibility to seek evidence which may have an impact upon our
assessment of a situation and how to respond ethically. After
detailing my thesis, I will seek to answer some apparent
objection.
2. Different “Oughts”
In the case of ethics, we say that a person ought to
perform a certain action, that someone should not do a
certain thing, that people have obligations to act in some
ways, that they have rights and duties, and that they
deserve praise or blame for what they have done. We make
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seemingly analogous epistemic judgements about beliefs
(Feldman, pg. 166).
Feldman calls these “deontological judgements about beliefs (Feldman, pg.
167).” He thinks deontological formulations of justification
“are sometimes true and that good sense can be made of the idea
that we can have epistemic requirements, obligations, and the
like (ibid., pg. 168).” One objection to this deontological
conception is that it is improper to speak of obligation and
requirement in regards to things over which we may have no
control, such as our beliefs or inaccessible evidence. In his
defense of epistemic deontologism, Feldman makes a distinction
between the traditional normative “ought,” of which we say “ought
implies can,” and an epistemic “ought:”
One way to defend deontological epistemic judgements in
the light of doxastic voluntarism is to argue that we
can have epistemic obligations even though we can’t
fulfill them (or even if we can’t help but fulfill
them). This is to deny that “epistemically obligated
to” or “epistemically ought to” implies “can.” And one
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way to make this denial plausible is to show that there
are other kinds of ought statements that don’t imply
voluntary control (Conee and Feldman, pg. 173).
After considering several alternatives, Feldman argues that
epistemic oughts are similar to role oughts: individuals in
certain roles ought to perform up to a certain standard. Whether
the individual is capable of attaining that standard is
irrelevant to the epistemic use of “ought.” One example of a role
ought Feldman provides is “Parents ought to take care of their
kids (ibid., 175).” That is, individuals in the role of parents
ought to perform caring for their children. Now, there are many
situations which may render a parent unable to care for their
child, such as death. It seems strange to blame a dead parent
for their inability to care for their child, particularly if the
parent could not have prevented their demise (ibid). After all,
they really can’t do anything for their kid. Yet we still say
“Parents ought to take care of their kids.”
Feldman makes a key qualification about these role/epistemic
oughts: “These oughts are not based on what’s normal or expected.
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They are based on what’s good performance (ibid., pg. 175).” In
Feldman’s view, role oughts are not meant to guide agents in
their behavior; they are a tool of external assessment.
It seems the crucial difference between role oughts and
normative oughts is role oughts dispense with the implication of
“can,” while normative oughts maintain it. As Feldman puts it:
“These oughts are not based on what is normal or expected. They
are based on what’s good performance (ibid., pg. 175).” Feldman
thinks it is possible to set the issue of voluntary control
(“can”) completely aside while still referring to epistemic
behaviors that should either be engaged in or refrained from by
agents.
I find Feldman’s distinction plausible and appealing. It
dispenses with the problem presented by “ought implies can” while
still allowing us to use a deontological language about epistemic
behaviors. There are many circumstances in which we might say
an individual ought to believe some proposition or other, while
fully recognizing the individual involved is incapable of
altering belief for good or ill. A person with severe psychosis,
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let’s call him Stephen, may be completely incapable of believing
his vivid hallucinations are false, or that he is not the target
of a global conspiracy. It does not seem problematic to me to
say that Stephen, in his role as a believer, ought not to believe
such things on the grounds that well-performing believers should
not believe them (the epistemic ought) while simultaneously
acknowledging that since he cannot believe otherwise, the blame
of having violated a normative ought is not attached to him.
My concern in this section has been demonstrating that what
we refer to as epistemic duties and normative duties are not
necessarily synonymous. My next section will attempt to find
some connection between the two types of duties, or at least
establish that in some situations, fulfilling or failing
epistemic duties may have moral consequences.
3. The Connection Between Moral and Epistemic Duties
I am attempting to argue that moral agents ought, in a
normative sense, to fulfill certain epistemic oughts; responsible
moral agents should also be responsible epistemic agents. The
usage of the term “ought” and the related term “responsible” may
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be taken to have different connotations based on whether they are
used in an epistemic or ethical sense, and even conflict. The
epistemic ought which tells us to seek knowledge is not
necessarily identical with the normative ought which commands us
to perform right action (or refrain from wrong action). Cases in
which the two different oughts conflict are easily conceivable.
Consider an academic who is concerned her arch-rival will soon
publish an article which not only anticipates the academics’
research but also presents unknown and significant arguments
against it. Having access to these arguments would present
significant utility to the academic, not only in professional
capacity but also in her role as a researcher--she “ought” to
have a complete consideration of her topic. The academic has no
reason to think her arch-rival will allow her to preview the
article, due to the decades of bitter competition for funding and
accolades, and her only means of obtaining the draft is through
skulduggery. The ethical “ought,” however, may check this course
of action; a deontological formulation of morality may have a
universal injunction against breaking and entering, bribes, etc.;
a utilitarian perspective may require that the benefit derived
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stealing this draft outweighs suffering, loss of trust, etc.; by
the lights of virtue epistemology, perhaps the researcher lacks
the epistemic virtue of self-reliance, or honesty.
In this scenario and others like it, there is clearly some
interaction occurring between the epistemic and normative oughts,
but perhaps this is just an irrelevant, brute descriptive fact.
I will grant that; I merely raised this example to demonstrate
how the epistemic ought may conflict with the normative. It
seems to me, however, there are other cases in which the two
interact positively and fulfilling an epistemic duty is not just
a laudable, supererogatory normative action, but an actual
requirement for acting morally.
Consider a criminal jury. As epistemic agents, they ought
to know the truth. Reinforcing this is that in their role as a
criminal jury, they ought to establish innocence or guilt, and
decide upon an appropriate punishment. That is what a well-
performing jury does. But didn’t Feldman derive his non-
normative epistemic oughts from non-normative role oughts? It
would be absurd to now attach ethical values to the role ought.
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So I will not do that. Instead I will focus upon the jury’s role
as a dispenser of justice.
Justice, and the conduct of acting justly, are almost always
taken to be moral goods, and moral agents have a responsibility
to be just. At the very least, there is enough of a recognition
of this that arguing otherwise is outside the scope of this
paper. The members of the jury have a responsibility to be just;
since this is based on their status as moral agents and not on
their role as jurors, this responsibility is normative, not a
non-normative duty, epistemic or otherwise. And in this
situation, they have the ability to at least attempt to fulfill
their epistemic duty. Jurors are somewhat limited in what
evidence they are allowed to pursue; they can only respond to the
information presented to them in court. It was the role of the
law enforcement agencies and the lawyers to furnish the jury with
the relevant evidence, and now the jury is responsible for
responding positively and correctly to that evidence.
But suppose that one of the jurors, coming from a small town
in which a one-trick pony would have been hailed as the apogee of
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the fine arts, is over-awed by the grandeur of the courtroom. He
has a tendency to zone out during eyewitness testimony and cross-
examination, only focusing during recess. When the jury retires
to deliberate, our sole inattentive juror is thoroughly confused
as to what his colleagues are referring, and why is everyone so
upset about this glove? While the inattentive juror may not have
the relevant evidence immediately present in his mind, he would
easily be able to gain this access by asking one of his fellows
to catch him up to speed. Indeed, he is so obligated, if he
wants to be a responsible juror and moral agent; a person’s life
hangs in the balance. It is quite plausible the jurors will be
able to determine the truth of the matter (fulfilling their
epistemic duty) which will give them the means to act morally,
that is, properly dispense justice in their role as a jury. If
they neglect their epistemic duty, it will have direct
consequences on their fulfillment of their moral duties.
My argument, in short, is that there are situations in which
success or failure in satisfying epistemic oughts may have direct
consequences on the fulfillment of moral oughts. Responsible
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moral agents, in these scenarios, must be particularly
conscientious of their epistemic responsibilities.
4. The Moral Responsibility to Seek Good Evidence
I have so far been discussing the general relationship
between moral considerations and epistemic responsibilities.
Using this groundwork, I will make the particular argument that
we have a moral responsibility to engage in responsible evidence
gathering.
First on the epistemic obligation to seek out evidence.
Evidentialism, as defined by Conee and Feldman, is “the view that
the epistemic justification of a belief is determined by the
quality of the believer’s evidence for the belief. Disbelief
also can be epistemically justified. The doxastic attitude that
a person is justified in having is the one that fits the person’s
evidence (Feldman and Conee, 83).” While I may personally hold
to the doctrine of Evidentialism, I do not think an Evidentialist
foundation is necessary for my thesis, but I want to mention it
to demonstrate the importance of evidence in any belief-forming
system. It seems to me that an epistemic framework which
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completely discounts evidence is at best weak and flawed, and and
worst recklessly irrational. Conversely, a strong epistemic
framework must somehow incorporate evidence. Evidence,
therefore, has an important epistemic role.
So what about potential evidence, which we have not yet
obtained but could if we exerted the effort? Why should we take
steps to make this potential evidence immediately apparent to our
senses? The answer, I think, is fairly straightforward--because
it will improve our epistemic situation. If one endorses a kind
of epistemic consequentialism, then the steps taken to be a
better knower are epistemically proper.
If a duties-based epistemology is considered, the obligation
to seek out good evidence would seem to go hand-in-hand with the
obligation to factor that evidence into our beliefs. The
obligation to align beliefs with the evidence would seem to
entail that the evidence itself lacks fault, implying that we
have an obligation to ensure our evidence is not faulty, but
proper. I do not see the point of an epistemology which insists
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we match our beliefs to evidence without the attached imperative
to ensure the positive epistemic value of the evidence.
From the standpoint of virtue epistemology, the goal of
epistemology is not a criterion-based approach to what
constitutes knowledge, but rather looks for the good making
qualities of epistemic agents. Possible candidates for epistemic
virtues include honesty, humility, and creativity. I think it is
plausible that curiosity is a viable epistemic virtue; that is, an
epistemic agent who possesses the trait of curiosity is a
superior know than the epistemic agent who lacks the trait of
curiosity. Curiosity, as I am using it, can be understood as
pretty similar to its usual, colloquial sense: seeking after new
information. Surely an active seeker of new evidence, propelled
by an internal desire to know more--curiosity, if you will--is
superior to an epistemic agent with no such drive. But I do not
think curiosity colloquially considered is necessarily an
epistemic virtue; it must be carefully controlled and directed to
be considered as such.
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William James, in his lecture “The Will to Believe” claimed
“We must know the truth; and we must avoid error--these are our first and
great commandments as would-be knowers; but they are not two ways
of stating an identical commandment, they are two separable laws
(James, pg. 173).” Similarly, I think our proper evidence-
seeking obligation can be more precisely described in two
principles: obtain good (true, accurate, reliable) evidence;
avoid bad (false, inaccurate, unreliable) evidence. The reasons
for both are simple enough. To positively build justified
beliefs, evidence supporting certain beliefs is necessary. We
want our beliefs to correspond to the truth, so to that end we
should have true and accurate information. We want to avoid
false, unreliable evidence since it will probably have a negative
impact on our epistemic framework, making it less truthful and
reliable than if it did not have the unreliable evidence. To
resume to argument from virtue epistemology, the epistemic agent
who is able to discriminate between good and bad evidence
appropriately and assign them their proper place in an
epistemological framework has superior epistemic virtue than an
agent who does not.
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I believe I have established we have an epistemic obligation
to engage in responsible evidence gathering for purposes of
belief formation and justification. So what? What’s the moral
impetus for caring about this? After all, earlier in the paper I
argued epistemic responsibilities and moral responsibilities are
not necessarily synonymous.
The connection, I believe, is that our moral situation, with
all the attached dilemmas and decisions, is often if not always
shaped by our epistemic situation. At a very basic level, any
individual’s ethical system is formed by their basic conceptions
of right and wrong, or good and bad. Once a moral framework has
been established, actions that properly align with that morality
in regards to a specific situation are often contingent upon
available information. For instance, Alice believes divorce is
immoral unless adultery is involved. If Alice has no epistemic
justification for believing her husband, Bob, has cheated on her,
then by her own ethical code she is unjustified in filing for
divorce. If she does have such evidence, however, then she also
has the requisite moral justification for seeking a divorce.
This is just one scenario in which our epistemic situation
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affects our moral situation; I do not think there is any shortage
of similar examples. The utilitarian, when presented with
multiple options, ought in a normative sense to choose whatever
will produce the greatest net good.
Morally speaking, should we not strive to achieve maximal
morality, regardless of whether we measure morality by
deontological, consequentialist, or virtue ethicist means? If
our moral choices can be affected by responsible epistemic
behavior, don’t we have a moral obligation to maintain as healthy
an epistemic situation as possible? Finally, if obtaining good
evidence and avoiding bad evidence is an epistemic responsibility
conducive to a good and proper epistemic situation, does it not
follow that such evidence-gathering actions are a moral
responsibility in addition to their epistemic status? The answer
to all these questions, I believe, is “yes.” That is, a moral
agent should in a normative strive to be the best moral agent
they can be. A proper epistemic situation can be necessary to
the moral project, and responsible evidence gathering can be
necessary to the endeavor of having a proper epistemic situation.
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Therefore, in relevant scenarios, moral agents have a normative
responsibility to engage in proper evidence gathering.
5. Objections
Objection I: That some evidence may be inaccessible.
In all the examples I have provided so far, I have tried to
argue that the agent involved was capable of accessing a set of
evidence which, nevertheless, was not immediately apparent to the
subject. That is, there is evidence which the agents does not
have at this exact moment, but is capable of obtaining. My
argument has been that when this potential evidence may influence
the agent’s moral decision making, the agent should, in a
moral/normative sense, try and obtain that evidence. It seems to
me that in many cases this evidence is easy enough to gather.
For instance, in the jury case above, the inattentive juror must
simply pay better attention or ask a couple of questions. It
seems me me that there are many other situations in which the
potential evidence can be accessed, even if doing so is not
necessarily easy.
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There may be situations, however, in which relevant
evidence (that is, evidence which can and should have an
influence on our moral calculus) is completely inaccessible; it
is beyond even the realm of potential evidence. To continue the
jury scenario, suppose a set of incriminating documents once
existed that would have firmly established the correct verdict,
but they have been lost, destroyed, or damaged beyond recovery or
reconstruction. The point is, the jury has no way of accessing
this evidence. No amount of responsible information gathering on
their part can recover what was lost. In this situation, and
others like it where the relevant evidence is inaccessible, what
is the epistemic agent’s moral obligation?
It seems to me that this is when the “ought implies can”
clause for normative action comes into effect. As epistemic
agents, we have certain non-normative epistemic duties--the
performative duties discussed above. As performers of the roles
of good knowers, we ought to have access to all evidence,
regardless of whether or not it is actually attainable. That
ought, however, is non-normative, distinct from the normative,
guiding moral ought. But there is a break between the epistemic
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and moral obligations: for the guiding moral ought, “can” is
implied. As epistemic and moral agents, we have an epistemic
obligation to obtain even unobtainable evidence; but there is no
corresponding moral obligation.
Objection II: There is too much available, potentially relevant evidence.
I began this paper by noting how much information modern
audiences have access to today. A concern that might arise is
that in our attempts to be proper evidence gatherers, we are
either unable to properly sift through the available pool of
evidence to find what is relevant, or that doing so takes up a
ridiculous amount of time (this is actually two objections: we
cannot determine what is the “correct” evidence, and that it is
impractical to do so; I group them together, however, since they
both stem from the issue of a seeming overabundance of evidence).
Regarding the first problem, that the ocean of information
makes getting the relevant evidence difficult, it makes a
difference whether the information is actually categorically
impossible to retrieve or if doing so is merely difficult. If it
is impossible to access, then agents do not have a moral
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responsibility to retrieve it; see “Objection II” above. If it
is possible, however, and the potential evidence pertains to the
agent’s moral responsibilities, then I do not see how the
difficulty of the task impacts the moral imperative. “Ought
implies can” is a very different statement from “Ought implies
easy and convenient.”
The second problem, that searching for evidence can consume
so much of our resources that we neglect other aspects of our
lives, seems to me to have greater weight, but can still be
answered fairly easily. I have not argued that we have a moral
responsibility to have all proper evidence about everything at
all times; I have argued that we have a moral responsibility to
ensure we have the proper evidence about our moral beliefs and
responsibilities and if necessary, should obtain new evidence
relevant to those beliefs. It seems plausible to me that each
moral agent has a particular set of moral responsibilities and
that there is a corresponding set of evidence that the agent
should have to support their moral responsibilities. That is,
moral agents don’t have to be omniscient, having access to each
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and every bit of stray information, just those relevant to their
moral responsibilities.
But what if our evidence-seeking, even about relevant moral
responsibilities, causes us to neglect other moral
responsibilities? My response is that not every moral
responsibility pulls upon us equally, and that when these
responsibilities conflict, a moral agent must ascertain which has
a greater priority (perhaps by gathering evidence about their
situation). For example, Sally thinks she has a moral
responsibility to her dependents, but she also has a moral
responsibility to pay taxes to her government (which is a benign
and responsible government in this example). However, the tax
codes happen to be so byzantine about Sally’s particular
situation that she is unable to comprehend what she is supposed
to be paying (either practitioners of tax law do not exist, or
she is unable to obtain one). Sally spends so much time
researching and trying to figure out what she needs to do to pay
her taxes that she neglects her dependents. If Sally goes back
to caring for her dependents, however, then she runs the risk of
improperly filing her taxes. So she is caught between these two
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moral responsibilities. It seems to me the right thing for Sally
to do is determine which moral responsibility has a greater pull
upon her, then prioritize fulfilling that responsibility at the
expense of the other.
Objection III: The Virtue epistemology challenge.
I have tried to avoid endorsing any particular moral or
epistemological system in this paper, for the purpose of making
my particular claim as palatable as possible to a wide audience.
To that end, I have at least implied that different
epistemological systems can function quite similarly. But what
if there are important functional differences between other
epistemological systems and virtue epistemology? Zagzebski’s
formulation of epistemic virtues is based on traits that increase
understanding for society as a whole, not just one individual.
That is, it has a more “social” concept of knowledge and certain
traits like creativity and originality can be considered
epistemic virtues because while they may result in untrue beliefs
for the individual, they advance understanding for the whole.
What if this “social” concept of knowledge results in a set of
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epistemic obligations which are functionally different from an
epistemology understood as pertaining primarily to the
individual? That is, what if the individual’s obligation to
avoid bad evidence for themselves in the interest of proper
belief formation is overridden by the advancement of society’s
understanding, and as a result their epistemic obligations
conflict with their moral obligations?
If that is the case, I will privilege the moral over the
epistemic. Part of that relates to the earlier discussion of
“oughts;” one ought to, in a normative sense be moral, while the
epistemic “ought” is performative and does not have the attached
normative element. I have argued that there are instances in
which being a proper epistemic agent is conducive to being a
proper moral agent and therefore we should (in a normative sense)
be proper epistemic agents in those scenarios. If being a proper
epistemic agent entails either a failure to fulfill moral
obligations or a direct violation of moral obligations, then the
connection between between the epistemic and the moral is
severed.
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Conclusion
I have argued that although epistemic obligations are not
intrinsically moral in nature, they often have a consequence upon
our morality, which includes both our beliefs and our actions
stemming from those beliefs. In order to have truth-conforming
moral beliefs, we should ensure that the evidence upon which our
beliefs are based is proper and relevant. If necessary, we
should take the next step of obtaining evidence which we are
justified in believing is reliable and has moral repercussions.
If a moral agent acts recklessly or irresponsibly in obtaining
evidence for their beliefs, then they have failed not just
epistemically, but morally as well.
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Appendix: The Epistemic Failings of Extremist Groups
Part of my interest in this project stems from the
activities of members of extremist sects, whether Islamists,
white supremacists, or some other highly ideological, violent
subculture. What concerned me was that many of these individuals
are highly indoctrinated, and their violent, radical actions are
accordance with their framework of beliefs. While their actions
may be causing suffering for innocent people, isn’t it proper to
act in accordance with one’s beliefs, particularly if those
beliefs are supported by the evidence?
By applying the argument I made above--that in situations in
which our evidence affects our moral perceptions, we have a moral
responsibility to collect proper and relevant evidence--I think
we can still find moral fault with these individuals. While some
extremists have been brought up since infancy in whatever brand
of extremism they and their family adhere to, there are others
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who “convert” in adulthood, when their epistemic and moral
faculties should be mature. I find it particularly troubling
when young people raised in a relatively liberal, cosmopolitan
society choose to embrace a system of extreme intolerance and
violence, going so far as to murder their neighbors for the sake
of a far off demagogue. Take the Tsarnaev brothers, for
instance; the two young men planted bombs at the 2013 Boston
Marathon. Three spectators were killed, two young women in their
twenties and an eight year old boy. Nearly three hundred people
were injured. Although the bombers had been raised in the United
States and for most of their lives had been perceived as fairly
regular kids, their beliefs had shifted through the teachings of
Anwar al-Awlaki, an Islamist cleric.
Whenever the brothers first exposed themselves to al-
Awlaki’s teachings and whatever other Islamist propaganda, they
were receiving evidence for the rightness of the Islamist cause.
My contention, however, is that they were engaging in evidence-
gathering which they should have known would impact their moral
conduct. Knowing this, they should have been especially
conscientious in ensuring this evidence was sound and reliable.
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It was not; al-Awlaki was well-known for his extremism and his
affiliation with violent methods. To summarize, the Tsarnaev
brothers were irresponsible in their evidence gathering and
formed beliefs upon that evidence; they acted in accordance with
those beliefs, and their actions were immoral (I will go so far
as to make the particular moral claim that leaving bombs in
extremely crowded civilian areas with the explicit intent of
causing as much harm to those civilians and spreading as much
fear as possible is a moral wrong). Excusing an individual from
moral blame because they are acting consistently with their
epistemic framework may be tempting, but if the individual is
able to exercise any control over that framework, such an excuse
would be misguided. Evidence gathering is one way in which
epistemic agents can change or reinforce their beliefs; if an
individual collects problematic evidence which may have an effect
on their moral beliefs and conduct, then they have acted
immorally and should be assigned moral blame.
My example of the Tsarnaevs, of course, is meant to be just
one particular case out of many concerning terrorists and other
violent radicals. I also mentioned people who are brought up in
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epistemic environments which support extremist action. They were
raised in an isolated cult, for instance. I do not think these
people are blameless either, though they are in the epistemic
position of passively receiving inappropriate evidence, rather
than actively seeking it out. Perhaps when they were children
and their epistemic and moral faculties were still developing,
they had less of a moral responsibility to ensure they had proper
evidence. Upon reaching adulthood, however, with the moral
responsibilities that usually entails, they failed to verify
whether the evidence they were being given was reasonable to
accept, or if it was merely the rantings of a charismatic
individual. If they act immorally based upon beliefs which they
had the opportunity to evidentially verify or refute, they should
still be held morally accountable for their actions.
There may be instances in which individuals are
epistemically and morally justified in acting against the norms
of their society, but there are many more situations in which
those individuals are unjustified. If they have willingly
allowed themselves to get into that situation, they are morally
responsible for their actions.
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Bibliography
Feldman, Richard and Earl Conee. “Evidentialism” in Evidentialism:
Essays in Epistemology. Clarendon Press: Oxford, 2004
Filice, Carlo. “On the Obligation to Keep Informed About Distant
Atrocities.” Human Rights Quarterly 12, no. 3 (Aug., 1990.): 397-414.
James, William. The Will to Believe. Philosophical Clubs of Yale and
Brown Universities, 1896.
Zagzebski, Linda. “Virtues of the Mind, Selections” in Epistemology: An
Anthology, edited by Sosa, Kim, Fantl, and McGrath. Blackwell
Publishing, 2008.