Epistemic entitlement is a species of internalist warrant that can be had without any evidential support. Unfortunately, for this kind of warrant the so-called problem of demarcation arises, a form ...of epistemic relativism. I first present entitlement theory and examine what the problem of demarcation is exactly, rejecting that it is either based on bizarreness or disagreement in favour of the thesis that the problem of demarcation is based on epistemic arbitrariness. Second, I argue that arbitrariness generates a problem for entitlement because it undermines epistemic warrant. Third, I draw out some of the consequences that arbitrariness has for an entitlement epistemology, notably that it threatens to generalise to all our beliefs. Finally, I examine how different solutions to the problem of demarcation fare with respect to the danger of arbitrariness. I argue that none of the considered options succeeds in dealing with the risks of arbitrariness.
This book offers a defence of Wrightean epistemic entitlement, one of the most prominent approaches to hinge epistemology. It also systematically explores the connections between virtue epistemology ...and hinge epistemology. According to hinge epistemology, any human belief set is built within and upon a framework of pre-evidential propositions – hinges – that cannot be justified. Epistemic entitlement argues that we are entitled to trust our hinges. But there remains a problem. Entitlement is inherently unconstrained and arbitrary: We can be entitled to any hinge proposition under the right circumstances. In this book, the author argues that we need a non-arbitrariness clause that protects entitlement from defeat. This clause, he argues, is to require epistemic virtue. Virtuous cognitive dispositions provide the non-arbitrariness clause that protects entitlement from defeat. The epistemic character of the agent who holds a particular set of hinges tells us something about the hinges’ epistemic status. Conversely, epistemic virtues are cognitive dispositions and capacities that rely on hinge propositions – without trusting in some hinges, we would be unable to exercise our virtues. Trust Responsibly will appeal to scholars and advanced students working on epistemology, Wittgenstein, and virtues.
I argue that virtue reliabilism and virtue responsibilism are complementary. They do not give competing accounts of epistemic virtue. Rather they explain the excellent functioning of different parts ...of our cognitive apparatus. Reliabilist virtue designates the excellent functioning of fast and context-specific Type 1 cognitive processes, while responsibilist virtue means an excellent functioning of effortful and reflective Type 2 cognitive processes. This account unifies reliabilist and responsibilist virtue theory. But the virtues are not unified by designating some epistemic norm that both aim at. Instead, I unify them through their cognitive foundations. Because Type 1 and Type 2 cognition are complementary, reliabilist and responsibilist virtues are complementary. Thereby, this dual-process theory of epistemic virtue gives a naturalised account of virtues as well as an explanation of how reliabilism and responsibilism relate. This approach offers a solution for both the generality problem and the situationist challenge to virtue epistemology; additionally it preserves the epistemological autonomy of each virtue type.
Virtue ethics is traditionally a conservative project. It analyses the virtues that humanity has been relying on since antiquity. This conservatism unduly limits the potential of virtue ethics to ...contribute to moral progress. Instead, we should pay more attention to constructionist virtue ethics with the help of conceptual engineering. I will argue that revising and ameliorating the virtue concepts which a community uses directly and indirectly leads to a change of the virtues that exist in this community. By revising and innovating virtue concepts, we can re-make and improve the virtues that we have.
This paper introduces the concept of tragic self-deception. Taking the basic notion that self-deception is motivated belief against better evidence, I argue that there are extreme cases of ...self-deception even when the contrary evidence is compelling. These I call cases of tragic self-deception. Such strong evidence could be argued to exclude the possibility of self-deception; it would be a delusion instead. To sidestep this conclusion, I introduce the Wittgensteinian concept of certainties or hinges: acceptances that are beyond evidential justification. One particular type of certainties—iHinges, which are adopted for motivational reasons—explain the phenomenon of tragic self-deception: they warrant the subject’s dismissal of the evidence without loss of rationality from the subject’s point of view. Subsequently, I deal with some objections that can be raised against this account of self-deception.
This chapter raises a key problem for hinge epistemology that has received little attention until now - the problem of demarcation. While there are easy ways of making the problem intuitively ...appealing, the epistemological problem at its roots is harder to discern. This chapter examines three possible interpretations of what might be the issue: The possible bizarreness of our entitlements, the relativism that entitlement engenders, or the arbitrariness that may arise from entitlement of cognitive activity. It argues that the two former issues cannot satisfactorily explain what the problem of demarcation is, while arbitrariness can explain how bizarreness and relativism are parts of the problem of demarcation. Finally, one possible solution to the problem due to Jochen Briesen is examined and found lacking.
Entitlement Ohlhorst, Jakob
Trust Responsibly,
2024, 2023
Book Chapter
This chapter introduces the concept of epistemic entitlement. It first argues that trust in hinge certainties cannot be justified in the ordinary ways, that is, either through evidence, a priori, ...through reliability, or dogmatically. Second, the chapter proposes Crispin Wright's alternative account of the epistemic warrant that we can have for our hinges. It reconstructs and critically examines the arguments that Wright uses to establish how we are entitled to trust in our hinge presuppositions. It also compares Wright's account to competing accounts of the epistemic status of our hinges, namely by Annalisa Coliva and Tyler Burge. Finally, the chapter presents a novel account of epistemic entitlement as entitlement of cognitive activity. This account is inspired by Wright's concept of entitlement of cognitive project as well as Coliva's account of extended rationality. Entitlement of cognitive activity is explained in detail and illustrated with the role it plays in philosophy.
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