An expert is commonly considered to be somebody who possesses the right kind of knowledge and skills to find out true answers for questions in a domain. However, this common conception that focuses only on an individual’s knowledge and skills is not very useful to understand the epistemically interdependent nature of contemporary scientific expertise, which becomes increasingly more relevant due to the rise of large interdisciplinary research collaborations. The typical scientific expert today relies substantially on complex scientific instruments and numerous (...) other experts in forming expert judgment. Moreover, we have research collaborations where multiple scientists interact in a way that gives rise to distributed cognitive systems, which can act as a single informant. Accordingly, our concept of scientific expertise should not consist only in individual knowledge and skills, but also accommodate epistemic dependence and collective knowledge production. To this aim, this paper proposes a reconstruction of the concept of scientific expertise as informant reliability by building on the virtue-epistemological account of epistemic competences and theories of extended and distributed cognition. Considered in reference to the social epistemic function of expertise, a scientific expert should be conceived as a reliable informant in a scientific domain, which implies that when consulted on matters in that domain they assert competently, honestly, and completely. Competent expert assertion involves the epistemic responsibility to draw on nothing but the highest degree of epistemic competence relevant to the given context. Thus, being a reliable informant may require one to draw on an extended epistemic competence that goes beyond one’s individual competence, or to form supra-individual or group-informants that manifest collectively the kind of complex epistemic competence required for the investigation of certain research questions. (shrink)

An expert is commonly considered to be somebody who possesses the right kind of knowledge and skills to find out true answers for questions in a domain. However, this common conception that focuses only on an individual’s knowledge and skills is not very useful to understand the epistemically interdependent nature of contemporary scientific expertise, which becomes increasingly more relevant due to the rise of large interdisciplinary research collaborations. The typical scientific expert today relies substantially on complex scientific instruments and numerous (...) other experts in forming expert judgment. Moreover, we have research collaborations where multiple scientists interact in a way that gives rise to distributed cognitive systems, which can act as a single informant. Accordingly, our concept of scientific expertise should not consist only in individual knowledge and skills, but also accommodate epistemic dependence and collective knowledge production. To this aim, this paper proposes a reconstruction of the concept of scientific expertise as informant reliability by building on the virtue-epistemological account of epistemic competences and theories of extended and distributed cognition. Considered in reference to the social epistemic function of expertise, a scientific expert should be conceived as a reliable informant in a scientific domain, which implies that when consulted on matters in that domain they assert competently, honestly, and completely. Competent expert assertion involves the epistemic responsibility to draw on nothing but the highest degree of epistemic competence relevant to the given context. Thus, being a reliable informant may require one to draw on an extended epistemic competence that goes beyond one’s individual competence, or to form supra-individual or group-informants that manifest collectively the kind of complex epistemic competence required for the investigation of certain research questions. (shrink)

The statement that we are currently failing to address some of humanity’s greatest challenges seems uncontroversial—we are not doing enough to limit global warming to a maximum of 2 °C and we are exposing vulnerable people to preventable diseases when failing to produce herd immunity. But what singles out such failings from all the things we did not do when all are unintended? Unlike their individualist counterparts, collective inaction and omission have not yet received much attention in the literature. collective (...) inaction, I argue, can be attributed to a group of agents where a collective action x that the agents did not perform was collectively feasible at time t where each agent in that group had sufficient reason to contribute to performing x or others had a reasonable expectation that they would perform x. I show that, perhaps surprisingly, we can speak of collective inaction even where only one member of the group fails to act. However, where large and dispersed groups of agents are concerned, there is often no meaningful way of attributing collective failings. Still, I contend that the failure to close the global emissions gap and—in some cases—to generate herd immunity are indeed on us. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that certain social-identity groups—ones that involve systematic relations of power and oppression—have distinctive epistemic reasons in virtue of constituting this group. This claim, I argue further, would potentially benefit at least three bodies of scholarship—on the epistemology of groups, on collective moral responsibility, and on epistemic injustice.

Largely thanks to Mill’s influence, the suggestion that the state ought to restrict the distribution of misinformation will strike most philosophers as implausible. Two of Mill’s influential assumptions are particularly relevant here: first, that free speech debates should focus on moral considerations such as the harm that certain forms of expression might cause; second, that false information causes minimal harm due to the fact that human beings are psychologically well equipped to distinguish truth and falsehood. However, in addition to our (...) moral obligations, we also have a distinct set of epistemic obligations—and even when a false belief doesn’t harm anyone, it constitutes an epistemically bad outcome. Moreover, Mill was profoundly mistaken about human psychology: human beings are vulnerable to the influence of a wide variety of false claims via a wide variety of psychological mechanisms. Consequently, there is a purely epistemic justification for restricting the distribution of misinformation: because each of us has an individual epistemic obligation to avoid unnecessary exposure to misinformation, and because avoiding such exposure is simply too difficult when acting alone, we all have a shared epistemic obligation to establish laws or regulations restricting the widespread distribution of misinformation. (shrink)

Discussion of epistemic responsibility typically focuses on belief formation and actions leading to it. Similarly, accounts of collective epistemic responsibility have addressed the issue of collective belief formation and associated actions. However, there has been little discussion of collective responsibility for preventing epistemic harms, particularly those preventable only by the collective action of an unorganized group. We propose an account of collective epistemic responsibility which fills this gap. Building on Hindriks' (2019) account of collective moral responsibility, we introduce the Epistemic (...) Duty to Join Forces. Our theory provides an account of the responsibilities of scientists to prevent epistemic harms during inquiry. (shrink)

Journal of Political Philosophy, EarlyView.

Generalisation, universal knowledge claims, and recommendations within disaster studies are problematic because they lead to miscommunication and the misapplication of actionable knowledge. The consequences and impacts thereof are not often considered by experts; forgone as irrelevant to the academic division of labour. There is a disconnect between expert assertions for disaster risk reduction (DRR) and their practical suitability for laypersons. Experts currently assert independently of the context within which protective action measures (PAMs) are to be used, measures unconnected to the (...) people for whom they are developed. This has knock-on effects for DRR: much expert-generated science and policy remains unused, unimplemented, and sometimes misapplied. I use philosophical accounts of assertion and epistemic blame to highlight the epistemic relationship between experts and laypersons. This relationship includes responsibilities and agreements between epistemic agents. Since multilevel DRR knowledge still transfers top-down from experts to laypersons, if experts impair the epistemic relationship, they can be held epistemically blameworthy. To address the pervasiveness of top-down systems, I analyse the epistemic framings and narratives currently shaping DRR, and more specifically PAMs and campaigns. I deconstruct universal perspectives that dominate the epistemic processes of generating, disseminating, and implementing DRR knowledge and specifically for co-seismic landslide PAMs for Nepal. I argue for more inclusive, contextual, and epistemically responsible DRR. Co-production of knowledge should begin from the standpoints of marginalised persons who may have an epistemic advantage due to their socio-politically marginalised positions. Often these epistemic contributions are left out of DRR efforts because marginalised persons are rarely afforded equal, if any, epistemic agency, which results in epistemic gaps and a large pool of relevant knowledge remaining unincorporated and unused in DRR research and policy. (shrink)

Humans are prone to producing morally suboptimal and even disastrous outcomes out of ignorance. Ignorance is generally thought to excuse agents from wrongdoing, but little attention has been paid to group-based ignorance as the reason for some of our collective failings. I distinguish between different types of first-order and higher order group-based ignorance and examine how these can variously lead to problematic inaction. I will make two suggestions regarding our epistemic obligations vis-a-vis collective (in)action problems: (1) that our epistemic obligations (...) concern not just our own knowledge and beliefs but those of others, too and (2) that our epistemic obligations can be held collectively where the epistemic tasks cannot be performed by individuals acting in isolation, for example, when we are required to produce joint epistemic goods. (shrink)