Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-25wd4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T16:10:44.350Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Esoteric Reliabilism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 October 2019

Kristoffer Ahlstrom-Vij Open the ORCID record for Kristoffer Ahlstrom-Vij [Opens in a new window]
Kristoffer Ahlstrom-Vij*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Birkbeck, University of London, London, UK
*
*Email: k.ahlstrom-vij@bbk.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

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.

Keywords

Reliabilismtwo-level consequentialismoverconfidenceesoteric morality
Type
Article
Information
Episteme , Volume 18 , Issue 4 , December 2021 , pp. 603 - 623
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ahlstrom-Vij, K. (2013 a) ‘In Defense of Veritistic Value Monism,’ Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 94(1), 19–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ahlstrom-Vij, K. (2013 b) Epistemic Paternalism: A Defence. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ahlstrom-Vij, K. (2013 c) ‘Why We Cannot Rely on Ourselves for Epistemic Improvement.’ Philosophical Issues (a supplement to Noûs) 23, 276–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ahlstrom-Vij, K. (2015) ‘The Social Virtue of Blind Deference.’ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 91(3), 545–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alicke, M.D. (1985) ‘Global Self-Evaluation as Determined by the Desirability and Controllability of Trait Adjectives.’ Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 49(6), 1621–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arkes, H.R., Dawes, R.M. and Christensen, C. (1986) ‘Factors Influencing the Use of a Decision Rule in a Probabilistic Task.’ Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 37, 93–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arkes, H.R., Christensen, C., Lai, C. and Blumer, C. (1987) ‘Two Methods for Reducing Overconfidence.’ Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 39, 133–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Armor, D. (1999) ‘The Illusion of Objectivity: A Bias in the Perception of Freedom from Bias.’ Dissertation Abstracts International: Section B: The Sciences and Engineering 59, 5163.Google Scholar
Bishop, M. (2000) ‘In Praise of Epistemic Irresponsibility: How Lazy and Ignorant Can You Be?’ Synthese 122, 179–208.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bishop, M. and Trout, J.D. (2002) ‘50 Years of Successful Predictive Modeling Should be Enough: Lessons for the Philosophy of Science.’ Philosophy of Science 68 (Proceedings), S197–208.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bishop, M. and Trout, J.D. (2005 a) Epistemology and the Psychology of Human Judgment. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bishop, M. and Trout, J.D. (2005 b) ‘The Pathologies of Standard Analytic Epistemology.’ Noûs 39(4), 696–714.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bishop, M. and Trout, J.D. (2013) ‘Diagnostic Prediction and Prognosis: Getting from Symptom to Treatment.’ In Fulford, W. (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Psychiatry, pp. 1023–46. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bourget, D. and Chalmers, D. (2014) ‘What Do Philosophers Believe?’ Philosophical Studies 170, 465–500.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, J.D. (1986) ‘Evaluations of Self and Others: Self-Enhancement Biases in Social Judgments.’ Social Cognition 4(4), 353–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Camerer, C.F. and Hogarth, R.M. (1999) ‘The Effects of Financial Incentives in Experiments: A Review and Capital-Labor-Production Framework.’ Journal of Risk and Uncertainty 19, 7–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carroll, J.S., Wiener, R.L., Coates, D., Galegher, J. and Alibrio, J.J. (1982) ‘Evaluation, Diagnosis, and Prediction in Parole Decision Making.’ Law & Society Review 17(1), 199–228.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Conee, E. and Feldman, R. (2004) Evidentialism: Essays in Epistemology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dawes, R., Faust, D. and Meehl, P. (2002) ‘Clinical versus Actuarial Judgment.’ In Gilovich, T., Griffin, D. and Kahneman, D. (eds), Heuristics and Biases: The Psychology of Intuitive Judgment, pp. 716–29. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DeVaul, R.A., Jervey, F., Chappell, J.A., Carver, P., Short, B. and O'Keefe, S. (1957) ‘Medical School Performance of Initially Rejected Students.’ Journal of the American Medical Association 257, 47–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Faust, D. and Ziskin, J. (1988) ‘The Expert Witness in Psychology and Psychiatry.’ Science 241, 1143–44.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Goldman, A. (1979) ‘What Is Justified Belief?’ In Pappas, G.S. (ed.), Justification and Knowledge, pp. 1–23. Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Goldman, A. (1986) Epistemology and Cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Goldman, A. (1988) ‘Strong and Weak Justification.’ Philosophical Perspectives 2, 51–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldman, A. (1992) ‘Epistemic Folkways and Scientific Epistemology.’ In Liaisons: Philosophy Meets the Cognitive and Social Sciences, pp. 156–75. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Goldman, A. (1999) Knowledge in a Social World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldman, A. (2001) ‘Experts: Which Ones Should You Trust?’ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 63(1), 85–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hare, R.M. (1981) Moral Thinking: Its Levels, Method and Point. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hooker, B. (2002) Ideal Code, Real World. Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kitcher, P. (1990) ‘The Division of Cognitive Labor.’ Journal of Philosophy 87(1), 5–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kornblith, H. (2012) On Reflection. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kruger, J. and Dunning, D. (1999) ‘Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments.’ Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 77, 1121–1134.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Langenfus, W.L. (1989) ‘Implications of a Self-effacing Consequentialism.’ Southern Journal of Philosophy 27(4), 479–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lazari-Radek, K. and Singer, P. (2014) The Point of View of the Universe: Sidgwick & Contemporary Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lerner, J.S. and Tetlock, P.E. (1999) ‘Accounting for the Effects of Accountability.’ Psychological Bulletin 125(2), 255–75.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lord, C.H., Lepper, M.R. and Preston, E. (1984) ‘Considering the Opposite: A Corrective Strategy for Social Judgment.’ Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 47(6), 1231–43.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Meehl, P. (1954) Clinical versus Statistical Prediction: A Theoretical Analysis and a Review of the Evidence. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mill, J.S. (1987 [1861]) ‘Utilitarianism.’ In Utilitarianism and Other Essays. London: Penguin.Google Scholar
Olsson, E. (2005) Against Coherence: Truth, Probability, and Justification. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parfit, D. (1984) Reasons and Persons. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Pronin, E. (2007) ‘Perception and Misperception of Bias in Human Judgment.’ Trends in Cognitive Science 11(1), 37–43.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pronin, E., Lin, D. and Ross, L. (2002) ‘The Bias Blind Spot: Perceptions of Bias in Self Versus Others.’ Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 28, 369–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Railton, P. (1984) ‘Alienation, Consequentialism, and the Demands of Morality.’ Philosophy and Public Affairs 13(2), 134–71.Google Scholar
Rawls, J. (1999) A Theory of Justice, Revised Edition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Scheffler, S. (1982) The Rejection of Consequentialism. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Sen, A. and Williams, B. (eds) (1982) ‘Introduction.’ In Utilitarianism and Beyond, pp. 1–22. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sidgwick, H. (1981 [1874]) The Methods of Ethics, 7th edn. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Sieck, W. and Arkes, H. (2005) ‘The Recalcitrance of Overconfidence and its Contribution to Decision Aid Neglect.’ Journal of Behavioral Decision Making 18(1), 29–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stillwell, W., Barron, F. and Edwards, W. (1983) ‘Evaluating Credit Applications: A Validation of Multiattribute Utility Weight Elicitation Techniques.’ Organizational Behavior and Human Performance 32, 87–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, S.E. and Brown, J.D. (1988) ‘Illusion and Well-being: A Social Psychological Perspective on Mental Health.’ Psychological Bulletin 103, 193–210.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zagzebski, L. (2012) Epistemic Authority: A Theory of Trust, Authority, and Autonomy in Belief. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar