Epistemically Responsible Action
Dissertation, (
2014)
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Abstract
We are often, as agents, responsible for the things we do and say. This responsibility can come in a
number of different forms: here I propose and defend a view of how we are epistemically responsible
for our actions and assertions. In other normative areas, we can be responsible for our actions when
those actions violate a norm (for example, we can be morally responsible when we violate some
moral norm). I argue that we can similarly be epistemically responsible when we violate a norm of
assertion or action, norms that tell us how epistemically well-positioned we need to be towards a
proposition in order to assert it or treat it as a reason for acting. I first defend a structure of epistemic
norms that allows for the possibility of epistemic responsibility, and then propose a notion of
epistemic responsibility itself.
We can, and do, evaluate actions and assertions in a specifically epistemic way: we judge that
someone should not have acted on the basis of unreliable information, that someone should not have
asserted something they knew was false, etc. These kinds of evaluations lead us to believe that
proper action and assertion have some basic epistemic requirements, what are called norms of
assertion and action. In order to defend a notion of epistemic responsibility, I first establish a general
claim about the ways that we make epistemic evaluations in relation to these norms. Many who
argue for a particular epistemic norm of action or assertion endorse what I call epistemic monism, the
view that all epistemic evaluations of actions or assertions must be explained solely in terms of
whether they have adhered to their respective norm. I argue that epistemic monism is false. Instead, I
defend epistemic separability, the view that we make two different kinds of epistemic evaluations:
one that pertains to whether one has adhered to an epistemic norm, and one that pertains to whether
one has reason to think they are adhering to or violating the relevant norm. In my defense of
epistemic separability I appeal to arguments from luminosity failure – the claim that for any given
epistemic relationship we can have with a proposition we can have good reason to believe that we
fail to be in it – and empirical arguments that show that we only have fallible access to our own
mental states. These arguments show that we can violate an epistemic norm while having good
reason to think otherwise and, in turn, shows that we can be evaluated not only in terms of whether
we have adhered to or violated that norm, but also in
terms of whether we are responsible for doing
so.
I argue that whether one’s action is epistemically responsible depends on whether one fulfils
the epistemic commitments one makes in performing that action. These commitments consist in
being able to provide reasons to believe that one has adhered to the norm governing the action one
performs, according to a standard imposed by the situation in which one acts. Thus in more
epistemically demanding situations – those in which there are high expectations that we be able to
show that we have adhered to the relevant epistemic norm – it will be more difficult to act in an
epistemically responsible way. Accepting a notion of epistemic responsibility (and, with it, rejecting
epistemic monism) has significant consequences for a number of current debates in epistemology.
The first pertains to the debate concerning the correct epistemic norm of assertion and practical
reasoning. Many proposed norms are argued to be inadequate on the basis of an inability to explain
intuitive epistemic evaluations solely in terms of the conditions set forth in the norms. Epistemic
separability, however, implies that the structure of this dialectic is misguided, as we can perhaps
accommodate problematic judgments in terms of evaluations of responsibility. The second
consequence pertains to arguments for contemporary theories of knowledge. Again, such theories
are judged by their ability to accommodate intuitive attributions of knowledge. However, I argue that
many of the evaluations that serve as the basis for such theories are better interpreted not as
judgments about whether one has knowledge, but as judgments about whether one is acting in an
epistemically responsible way. Recognizing a notion of epistemically responsible action thus calls
into question both the plausibility of a number of contemporary theories of knowledge, as well as the
way in which we go about doing epistemology in general.