Why Epistemic Partiality is Overrated
Philosophical Topics 46 (1):37-51 (2018)
Abstract
Epistemic partialism is the view that friends have a doxastic duty to overestimate each other. If one holds that there are no practical reasons for belief, we will argue, one has to deny the existence of any epistemic duties, and thus reject epistemic partialism. But if it is false that one has a doxastic duty to overestimate one’s friends, why does it so often seem true? We argue that there is a robust causal relationship between friendship and overestimation that can be mistaken for a constitutive relationship; we also argue that one can still accept some of the normative intuitions that motivate epistemic partialism even if one rejects epistemic partialism itself. Along the way, we consider and reject a watered-down version of epistemic partialism—call it epistemic partialism-light—according to which one has a duty to take steps to create in oneself a disposition to overestimate one’s friends.Author Profiles
ISBN(s)
0276-2080
DOI
10.5840/philtopics20184613
My notes
Similar books and articles
Against epistemic partiality in friendship: value-reflecting reasons.Sanford Goldberg - 2019 - Philosophical Studies 176 (8):2221-2242.
Egoism, partiality, and impartiality.Brad Hooker - 2013 - In Roger Crisp (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the History of Ethics. Oxford University Press. pp. 710-728.
The justification of national partiality.Thomas Hurka - 1997 - In Jeff McMahan & Robert McKim (eds.), The Morality of Nationalism. New York, USA: Oxford Unversity Press. pp. 139-57.
Reasonable Partiality to Domestic Animals.Robert Heeger - 2005 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 8 (1-2):123-139.
Patriotism, War, and the Limits of Permissible Partiality.Stephen Nathanson - 2009 - The Journal of Ethics 13 (4):401-422.
Reasonable Partiality in Professional Relationships.Brenda Almond - 2005 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 8 (1-2):155-168.
Permissible Partiality, Projects, and Plural Agency.Sarah Stroud - 2010 - In Brian Feltham & John Cottingham (eds.), Partiality and Impartiality: Morality, Special Relationships, and the Wider World. Oxford University Press.
On the partiality of procreative beneficence: a critical note.Thomas Søbirk Petersen - 2015 - Journal of Medical Ethics 41 (9):771-774.
Compatriot partiality and cosmopolitan justice: can we justify compatriot partiality within the cosmopolitan framework?Rachelle Bascara - 2016 - Etikk I Praksis - Nordic Journal of Applied Ethics 10 (2):27-39.
Analytics
Added to PP
2018-08-08
Downloads
226 (#55,884)
6 months
28 (#44,205)
2018-08-08
Downloads
226 (#55,884)
6 months
28 (#44,205)
Historical graph of downloads
Author Profiles
Citations of this work
There is no such thing as doxastic wrongdoing.David Enoch & Levi Spectre - forthcoming - Philosophical Perspectives.
The epistemic demands of friendship: friendship as inherently knowledge-involving.Cathy Mason - 2020 - Synthese 199 (1-2):2439-2455.
Loving truly: An epistemic approach to the doxastic norms of love.Katherine Dormandy - 2022 - Synthese 200 (3):1-23.
On the epistemic significance of practical reasons to inquire.Sanford C. Goldberg - 2020 - Synthese 199 (1-2):1641-1658.