69 research outputs found
The Social Virtue Of Blind Deference
Recently, it has become popular to account for knowledge and other epistemic states in terms of epistemic virtues. The present paper focuses on an epistemic virtue relevant when deferring to others in testimonial contexts. It is argued that, while many virtue epistemologists will accept that epistemic virtue can be exhibited in cases involving epistemically motivated hearers, carefully vetting their testimonial sources for signs of untrustworthiness prior to deferring, anyone who accepts that also has to accept that an agent may exhibit epistemic virtue in certain cases of blind deference, involving someone soaking up everything he or she is told without any hesitation. Moreover, in order to account for the kind of virtue involved in the relevant cases of blind deference, virtue epistemologists need to abandon a widespread commitment to personalism, i.e., the idea that virtue is possessed primarily on account of features internal to the psychology of the person, and accept that some virtues are social virtues, possessed in whole or in large part on account of the person being embedded in a reliable social environment
Procedural justice and the problem of intellectual deference
It is a well-established fact that we tend to underestimate our susceptibility to cognitive bias on account of overconfidence, and thereby often fail to listen to intellectual advice aimed at reducing such bias. This is the problem of intellectual deference. The present paper considers this problem in contexts where educators attempt to teach students how to avoid bias for purposes of instilling epistemic virtues. It is argued that recent research in social psychology suggests that we can come to terms with this problem in two steps, the second of which involves educators communicating their intellectual advice in a procedurally just manner. The components of the relevant form of procedural justice are specified and related to Miranda Fricker and David Coady?s notions of epistemic justice. Finally, a series of objections are considered and responded to
The case for modelled democracy
The fact that most of us are ignorant on politically relevant matters presents a problem for democracy. In light of this, some have suggested that we should impose epistemic constraints on democratic participation, and specifically that the franchise be restricted along competency lines—a suggestion that in turn runs the risk of violating a long-standing condition on political legitimacy to the effect that legitimate political arrangements cannot be open to reasonable objections. The present paper therefore outlines a way to solve the problem of public ignorance without restricting the franchise. The proposal involves filtering the electoral input of a universal franchise through a statistical model that simulates what the public’s political preferences would have been, had they been informed on politically relevant matters. The result is modelled democracy. A case is made that such democracy both solves the problem of public ignorance and satisfies the aforementioned condition on legitimacy
As we like it: did the UK's 2016 EU referendum reveal the "will of the people?"
Rhetoric surrounding the United Kingdom’s 2016 referendum on continued European Union (EU) membership frequently has invoked the “will of the people.” Addressing the House of Commons in March 2019, then–Prime Minster Theresa May stated that “my sense of responsibility and duty has meant that I have kept working to ensure that we deliver on the result and the will of the people” (March 27, 2019).1 May’s successor, Boris Johnson, appealed to the same notion when suggesting in the Daily Telegraph (September 15, 2019) that opposition parties were “united in wanting to cancel the referendum result…and overturn the will of the people.” On the other side of the debate, Caroline Lucas (currently the sole Member of Parliament for the UK’s Green Party) stated that “[e]very recent opinion poll shows that the will of the people has changed since [the referendum]” (December 4, 2018)
Do we live in a ‘Post-Truth’ era?
Have we entered a ‘post-truth’ era? This article is an attempt to answer this question by (a) offering an explication of the notion of ‘post-truth’ from recent discussions, (b) deriving a testable implication from that explication, to the effect that we should expect to see decreasing information effects – that is, differences between actual preferences and estimated, fully informed preferences – on central political issues over time and then (c) putting the relevant narrative to the test by way of counterfactual modelling, using election year data for the period of 2004–2016 from the American National Election Studies’ Times Series Study. The implication in question turns out to be consistent with the data: at least in a US context, we do see evidence of a decrease in information effects on key, political issues – immigration, same-sex adoption and gun laws, in particular – in the period 2004–2016. This offers some novel, empirical evidence for the ‘post- truth’ narrative
Why we should stop fetishizing democracy
Democracy is in trouble, and it is democracy’s own fault—that is Robert Talisse’s intriguing contention is his recent book, Overdoing Democracy: Why We Must Put Politics in its Place (2019). What gets democracy into trouble, according to Talisse, is the idea that a democratic form of government is intrinsically valuable, which in turn entails a deliberative conception of democracy that, in combination with the social-psychological fact of social sorting, leads to rampant polarization. According to Talisse, we therefore need to put democracy in its place by resisting the expansive view of the scope of democracy and making room for non-political spaces of interaction, in which we can form civic friendships. However, in what follows, I argue that what Talisse has actually provided is an excellent reason for rejecting rather than merely mitigating the detrimental effects of the idea that democracy is intrinsically valuable. Specifically, we ought to stop fetishizing democracy and instead embrace an instrumentalist view of democracy as a social practice that is instituted and maintained for a purpose external to itself. Once we do this, democracy no longer needs saving from itself
Esoteric Reliabilism
Survey data suggest that many philosophers are reliabilists, in believing that beliefs are justified iff produced by a reliable process. This is bad news if reliabilism is true. Empirical results suggest that a commitment to reliable belief-formation leads to overconfident second-guessing of reliable heuristics. Hence, a widespread belief in reliabilism is likely to be epistemically detrimental by the reliabilist’s own standard. The solution is a form of two-level epistemic consequentialism, where an esoteric commitment to reliabilism will be appropriate for an enlightened few, while a form of epistemic fetishism—on which some heuristics are treated as fundamental epistemic norms—is appropriate for the rest of us
Is there a problem with cognitive outsourcing?
To what extent can we rely on others for information without such reliance becoming epistemically problematic? In this paper, this question is addressed in terms of a specific form of reliance: cognitive outsourcing. Cognitive outsourcing involves handing over (outsourcing) one?s information collection and processing (the cognitive) to others. The specific question that will be asked about such outsourcing is if there is an epistemic problem about cognitive outsourcing as such. To ask if there is an epistemic problem with x for S is to ask if x is a problem for S?s ability to acquire true belief and avoid false belief. To ask if there is a problem for S with x as such is to ask if it is impossible to solve the problem for S while leaving x as is. I argue that, if we consider the five most plausible candidate epistemic problems raised by cognitive outsourcing—i.e., unreliability, gullibility, irrationality, dependency, and lack of epistemic autonomy—we see for each candidate that it is either not an epistemic problem, or not a problem about cognitive outsourcing as such
Communicating economic evidence about immigration changes attitudes and policy preference
Existing studies demonstrate that threat perceptions matter for immigration attitudes. However, while these perceptions are potentially sensitive to information about immigrants’ impacts, questions remain about whether inserting such information into public debates changes attitudes and policy preferences—especially on polarizing issues like immigration. Moreover, few studies have considered messages featuring the type of non-photorealistic visual elements that increasingly appear in media. Using a survey experiment fielded in the United Kingdom, we examined whether evidence about European Union immigrants’ modestly positive economic impacts on the UK—presented either as text, with visualizations, or as an animated film—changed immigration attitudes and policy preferences. While visual elements did not have an effect over and above text, all the informational treatments moved attitudes and preferences in positive directions, even among Leave voters. Our study brings together research on immigration public opinion and visual media, and has implications for policymaking and journalism practice
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