Corey Cusimano

The claim that we have epistemic responsibilities, and that we can be blameworthy for failing to meet those responsibilities, has recently been challenged by a number of theorists on the grounds of non-volunteerism: the claim that we do not have control over our beliefs. I argue that previous responses to this challenge fail to adequately address the problem and, furthermore, provide ancillary reasons to desire a proper defense of epistemic responsibility. I then argue that, despite earlier challenges, we can be responsible and blameworthy for our beliefs, and that this responsibility is properly considered to be epistemic in nature.

When faced with a dilemma between believing what is supported by an impartial assessment of the evidence (e.g., that one's friend is guilty of a crime) and believing what would better fulfill a moral obligation (e.g., that the friend is innocent), people often believe in line with the latter. But is this how people think beliefs ought to be formed? We addressed this question across three studies and found that, across a diverse set of everyday situations, people treat moral considerations as legitimate grounds for believing propositions that are unsupported by objective, evidence-based reasoning. We further document two ways in which moral considerations affect how people evaluate others' beliefs. First, the moral value of a belief affects the evidential threshold required to believe, such that morally beneficial beliefs demand less evidence than morally risky beliefs. Second, people sometimes treat the moral value of a belief as an independent justification for belief, and on that basis, sometimes prescribe evidentially poor beliefs to others. Together these results show that, in the folk ethics of belief, morality can justify and demand motivated reasoning.