Abstract
The chapter begins by providing an overview of epistemic environmentalism, a meta-theory in applied epistemology. The Greater Value Thesis and the Greater Value Activism Thesis are offered in support of epistemic environmentalism. This leads to a discussion of the significance of epistemic value theory to epistemic environmentalism. Based on this examination, the case is made for the permissibility of state intervention in the epistemic environment. The permissibility of state intervention in the epistemic environment is defended against two liberal challenges.
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Notes
- 1.
For a discussion of a duty to object to something said, as well as a broader discussion of epistemic duties, see Lackey (2020).
- 2.
Of course, a related factor here is the level of trust in those with knowledge or expertise. A community may not enjoy epistemic benefits of trustworthy agents with knowledge or expertise if those agents are not trusted. See Ryan (2018b) for an analysis of trust.
- 3.
A different example of a social fact is that the agents who populate an epistemic environment are subject to a variety of cognitive biases. Agents may be prone to particular biases in certain environments.
- 4.
For another chapter in this volume that considers how a physical environment may bear on knowledge, see Morrow (2022).
- 5.
I take the boundaries of an epistemic environment to be determined by our interests. If we’re interested in school learning, then we might fix the environment at the extent of the classroom. Nevertheless, there may be epistemic grounds for criticising delineations of environments. Fixing an environment at the extent of a pupil’s desk would be overly narrow given an interest in school learning or even an interest in that pupil’s school learning. As well as delineating particular epistemic environments, it is also possible to consider the epistemic environment, which refers to our epistemic environment generally rather than, say, a classroom environment or a cockpit environment.
- 6.
For further background on epistemic environmentalism, particularly the analogy with conventional (geo-)environmentalism, see Ryan (2018a).
- 7.
Note, these formulations stay neutral on which epistemic goods are more valuable than others and whether the value of an epistemic good is relative to a particular environment or not.
- 8.
Another possibility is an environment that, aside from not generating knowledge in a domain of high value to society, actually produces a high number of false beliefs in that domain.
- 9.
Of course, they could also facilitate the distribution of red herring information that is both accurate and sincere, but irrelevant to our epistemic interests. Thanks to Waldemar Brys for the point.
- 10.
I take an epistemic pollutant to be the sort of thing that tends to negatively effect a given environment epistemically. See Ryan (2018a) for further discussion.
- 11.
In fact, as I revise this piece, Facebook is being criticised for not doing a better job policing the content that appears on its site.
- 12.
For an account of wisdom, see Ryan (2016a).
- 13.
By saying that knowledge has prima facie value x, one is saying that on the face of things knowledge has this value, and therefore it is appropriate to treat an individual instance of knowledge as having this value, unless there is reason to think it doesn’t have this value. By saying that knowledge has pro tanto value x, one is saying that knowledge always has this value but that this value may be outweighed by other factors in all things considered accounts of its value. An alternative way to explain the difference is to do so in terms of defeasibility. A good that is prima facie valuable may in a particular instance have that value undercut such that the particular instance has no value; similarly, a good that is prima facie valuable may in a particular instance have that value overridden such that, although the good remains valuable to some extent, it is not all things considered valuable. In contrast, a good that is pro tanto valuable may not have its value undercut. An all things considered account of the value of a good would say what value that good has after external factors that influence overall value are taken into consideration.
- 14.
In order to be economical with space, I just focus on instrumental and final value rather than also discussing extrinsic and intrinsic value.
- 15.
It should be noted that the degree or kind of value may differ from single instance to a collection of instances. For example, an instance of true belief may be instrumentally valuable, while having lots of true beliefs and few false beliefs may be finally valuable.
- 16.
If knowledge is valuable because it has the property of being an achievement, as Greco (2010) argues, then the property that makes it valuable is a property possessed by other goods. If we have reason to promote the attainment of knowledge because of its value, then we’ll have reason to promote the attainment of other goods.
- 17.
There might be some epistemic goods that are exceptions to the former point, such as when possession of an epistemic good depends on relative standing. One might defend an account of expertise, for example, according to which expertise is an epistemic good and whether one possesses this good depends on one’s epistemic position relative to others in one’s community. S might stop being an expert with regard to brain surgery if the general population of his community reaches his level of knowledge and understanding on matters of brain surgery. In a similar vein, Lackey (2018) has proposed credibility as a possible finite epistemic good.
- 18.
If the epistemic good is taken to be some limited collection, then the latter point won’t apply. This would be the case if, for instance, the epistemic good were true beliefs that are of interest to us and such a collection is finite.
- 19.
Aside from further attainment of instances of epistemic goods being possible, it is also the case that for standard epistemic goods the addition of an instance of an epistemic good won’t necessitate the loss of a previously attained instance of an epistemic good. In other words, having a true belief about p and then knowing that p doesn’t entail the loss of the true belief about that p, and coming to understand that p doesn’t entail the loss of knowledge of that p. One might though hold the unorthodox view that when one goes from having a true belief to having knowledge, one loses a true belief. Thanks to Waldemar Brys for this last point.
- 20.
Of course, there are detailed discussions of distributive justice in philosophy.
- 21.
See Pritchard (2013) for an argument that the proper epistemic goal of education is ultimately understanding.
- 22.
Powers that states accrue may be misused. Standing armies, for example, may be misused. I don’t take such a consideration to show, however, that it is impermissible for states to maintain standing armies.
- 23.
A similar approach regarding the compatibility of liberalism and state epistemic environmentalism is to make the case that we have epistemic rights and that state intervention in epistemic environments is prima facie at least permissible in defence of epistemic rights. See Watson (2018) for an account of epistemic rights. A contrasting approach could appeal to paternalism for the promotion of epistemic attainment (Croce 2018; Ryan 2016b).
- 24.
This is in contrast to a view that holds that there is only a pro tanto reason for state neutrality in particular areas.
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Ryan, S. (2022). State Epistemic Environmentalism. In: Lai, K.L. (eds) Knowers and Knowledge in East-West Philosophy. Palgrave Studies in Comparative East-West Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79349-4_12
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