Andrea Robitzsch

In the previous chapter, I have introduced an E-RULE approach to epistemic responsibility assessment. I have argued that this doxastic responsibility assessment is epistemically significant because it is governed by certain epistemic norms, namely the norms of reliable intellectual conduct. Moreover, I have argued that the performance of belief-influencing actions and omissions which are licensed by the norms of reliable intellectual conduct conduces to produce epistemic value. In this chapter, I want to put to work what has been said about the epistemic significance of the norms of reliable intellectual conduct and epistemic responsibility assessment. In what follows, I want to apply what has been said in the previous chapter to the debate about the epistemic significance of epistemic peer disagreement. In what follows EPD will refer to epistemic peer disagreement.

The aim of this chapter is to argue that doxastic responsibility, i.e., responsibility for holding a certain doxastic attitude, is not based on direct doxastic control. There are two different kinds of direct doxastic control to be found in the literature, intentional doxastic control and evaluative doxastic control. Although many epistemologists agree that we do not have intentional doxastic control over our doxastic attitudes, it has been argued that we have evaluative doxastic control over the majority of our doxastic attitudes. This has led to the assumption that doxastic responsibility is based on evaluative doxastic control. In the first part of this chapter I will introduce the notion of doxastic responsibility and the framework of doxastic guidance control as well as the approaches to direct and indirect doxastic control. I will then argue that doxastic responsibility is not based on direct doxastic control by showing that doxastic responsibility is neither based on intentional nor on evaluative doxastic control.

Intellectual norms are norms which can guide the exercise of indirect doxastic control and govern doxastic responsibility assessments. With the help of intellectual norms we can evaluate whether an agent is blameworthy, praiseworthy or neutrally evaluable for holding a certain doxastic attitude. In the following chapter, I will explain what an intellectual norm is. I am roughly following Peels’ general idea that intellectual obligations regulate belief-influencing actions (2017, p. 100). Moreover, I will investigate the conditions under which an intellectual norm has epistemic significance. I will assume that if a norm has epistemic significance, then an evaluation which is governed by this norm is epistemically significant as well. Moreover, I will introduce an epistemic consequentialist approach to doxastic responsibility assessment and I will argue that the norms which govern these responsibility assessments can be characterized as epistemic norms. This will provide us with reasons to assume that the doxastic responsibility assessment which is modelled in an epistemic consequentialist framework is indeed an epistemically significant evaluation.

This monograph provides a novel reliabilist approach to epistemic responsibility assessment. The author presents unique arguments for the epistemic significance of belief-influencing actions and omissions. She grounds her proposal in indirect doxastic control. The book consists of four chapters. The first two chapters look at the different ways in which an agent might control the revision, retention, or rejection of her beliefs. They provide a systematic overview of the different approaches to doxastic control and contain a thorough study of reasons-responsive approaches to direct and indirect doxastic control. The third chapter provides a reliabilist approach to epistemic responsibility assessment which is based on indirect doxastic control. In the fourth chapter, the author examines epistemic peer disagreement and applies her reliabilist approach to epistemic responsibility assessment to this debate. She argues that the epistemic significance of peer disagreement does not only rely on the way in which an agent should revise her belief in the face of disagreement, it also relies on the way in which an agent should act. This book deals with questions of meliorative epistemology in general and with questions concerning doxastic responsibility and epistemic responsibility assessment in particular. It will appeal to graduate students and researchers with an interest in epistemology.