Joshua DiPaolo

Epistemic trespassing, science denial, refusal to guard against bias, mishandling higher-order evidence, and the development of vice are troubling intellectual behaviors. In this paper, I advance work done by psychologists on moral self-licensing to show how all of these behaviors can be explained in terms of a parallel phenomenon of epistemic self-licensing. The paper situates this discussion at the intersection of three major epistemological projects: epistemic explanation and intervention (the project of explaining troubling intellectual phenomena in the hopes of deriving ameliorative strategies), hostile epistemology (the study of how intellectual vulnerabilities might be exploited), and the promise of higher- order evidence (the hope that higher-order evidence leads to epistemic improvement). Analyzing epistemic licensing allows us to explain and offer modest interventions aimed at mitigating these behaviors, while illuminating exploitable vulnerabilities and tempering optimism about the promise of higher-order evidence.

People sometimes try to call others’ beliefs into question by pointing out the contingent causal origins of those beliefs. The significance of such ‘Etiological Challenges’ is a topic that has started attracting attention in epistemology. Current work on this topic aims to show that Etiological Challenges are, at most, only indirectly epistemically significant, insofar as they bring other generic epistemic considerations to the agent’s attention. Against this approach, we argue that Etiological Challenges are epistemically significant in a more direct and more distinctive way. An Etiological Challenge prompts the agent to assess whether her beliefs result from practices of indoctrination, and whether she should reduce confidence in those beliefs, given the anti-reliability of indoctrination as a method of belief-acquisition. Our analysis also draws attention to some of the ways in which epistemic concerns interact with political issues—e.g. relating to epistemic injustice, identity-based discrimination, and segregation—when we’re thinking about the contingent causal origins of our beliefs.

Epistemic trespassers are experts who pass judgment on questions in fields where they lack expertise. What’s wrong with epistemic trespassing? I identify several limitations with a seminal analysis to isolate three desiderata on an answer to this question and motivate my own answer. An answer should explain what’s wrong in the cases that motivate inquiry into epistemic trespassing, should explain what’s wrong with epistemic trespassing even if trespassers do not acknowledge their trespassing, and these explanations should not be independent of the fact that epistemic trespassing involves expertise. I also independently motivate a fourth desideratum: this account should explain the evaluative difference between different kinds of trespassing. To satisfy these desiderata, I develop a social analysis: epistemic trespassing is wrong because it is an abuse of expert authority that neglects novice vulnerabilities.

The Fallibility Norm—the claim that we ought to take our fallibility into account when managing our beliefs—appears to conflict with several other compelling epistemic norms. To shed light on these apparent conflicts, I distinguish two kinds of norms: norms of perfection and norms of compensation. Roughly, norms of perfection tell us how agents ought to behave if they’re to be perfect; norms of compensation tell us how imperfect agents ought to behave in order to compensate for their imperfections. I argue that the Fallibility Norm is a norm of compensation, and that thinking of it like this helps us make progress in debates surrounding disagreement, higher-order evidence, and coherence.

The “Evidentialist Dictum” says we must believe what our evidence supports, and the “Fallibility Norm” says we must take our fallibility into account when managing our beliefs. This paper presents a problem for the Evidentialist Dictum based in the Fallibility Norm and a particular conception of evidential support. It then addresses two novel Evidentialist responses to this problem. The first response solves the problem by claiming that fallibility information causes “evidence-loss.” In addition to solving the problem, this response appears to explain what’s wrong with certain illegitimate dismissals of misleading evidence. However, this explanation opens it up to objections. Next, I consider and pose challenges to an Evidentialist strategy that attempts to solve the problem by converting accounts of fallibility’s epistemic significance for rational belief into principles of evidential support. I conclude by sketching a solution that allows us to capture what’s true in the Evidentialist Dictum and the Fallibility Norm.