Affiliation:
1. Philosophisches Seminar, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
Abstract
In recent years, a number of authors have claimed that we can wrong each other simply by having certain beliefs—in particular sexist, racist, ableist etc. beliefs—about each other. So far, those who argue for the possibility of so-called doxastic wronging have tried to defend this idea by focusing on issues of doxastic control and coordination. In this paper, I raise a distinctly moral challenge against the possibility of doxastic wronging. I show that the idea of doxastic wronging runs afoul of the liberal principle according to which all moral obligations have to be justifiable vis-à-vis those they presume to bind. In addition, I argue that there is a better way to account for the fundamental intuition driving the debate: instead of assuming the possibility of doxastic wronging and the morally grounded epistemic duty it implies, we should conceptualize what is morally problematic about bigoted beliefs in terms of the harm they constitute for their targets.
Publisher
University of Michigan Library
Subject
General Earth and Planetary Sciences,General Environmental Science
Reference28 articles.
1. Can Beliefs Wrong?;Basu, Rima;Philosophical Topics,2018
2. The Wrongs of Racist Beliefs;Basu, Rima;Philosophical Studies,2019a
3. What We Epistemically Owe to Each Other;Basu, Rima;Philosophical Studies,2019b
4. Doxastic Wronging;Basu, RimaMark SchroederBrian KimMatthew McGrath;Pragmatic Encroachment in Epistemology,2019